T2-lec-women- 2 feb2015 (Please watch all You Tube videos –they are included for the test)

Topic 2: Women and Globalized Labour: Comparing Canada andthe DW (India, Mexico)

Comparative Framework on Women and development :

WST & Commodity Chain:

• Financial Crisis: Neoliberal deregulation policies

(Canadian Women)

• Global Commodity chain (GCC)

(Third World Women)

0.30 min

Thesis:

Globally, most of the poor are in the DW, of which women constitute a considerable majority. In contrast, only a minority of the Canadian women live below the poverty line. While feminization of poverty affects the women in the DW, feminization of labour shapes those in Canada.

A result of NDL, poor women in DW, are tied to the commodity chain that extracts surplus/profit through nominal or no wage work. ( Hidden Face of Globalization 9.49 min

2007)

On the other hand, in Canada, neoliberal policies encourage extraction of profits through feminized job market. Low wage, gender inequity and declining social programmes impoverish the women.

Why & how Canadian women workers are disadvantaged?

Canadian neoliberal policies/practices legitimize the extraction of surplus from temps & low waged women workers

Canada: Feminization of labour

DW: Feminization of Poverty

Concepts & arguments from:

•Caragata (2003) : gendered and differential benefits; labour force changes; marginalization; retrenching welfare state; commodification of social roles.

DW:

•Quintero-Ramirez (2002): capital mobility; flexible work & vulnerable for firing; feminization of poverty

Maquiladora women - spots from the film MAQUILAPOLIS

4min

Canadian Women: Neoliberal policies

•Liberalization: Free trade

•Austerity: Financial cutbacks

•Privatization: For profit services replace public services and dismantling of unions

•Deregulation of: Financial procedures and securities of lending, borrowing and insurance; Flow of foreign investment

•Globalization of production & expansion of market

Canada:

  1. 7out of10part-time workers in2009were women, a proportion that has changed little over the past three decades.
  2. In2009,2.2million women worked part time, that is, fewer than30hours a week at their main job.
  3. The share of women working part time rose from23.6% in1976to26.9% in2009.
  4. In comparison, the rate for men in2009was11.9%, less than half that of women, although it more than doubled from1976.
  5. The majority of employed women continue to work in occupations in which they have been traditionally concentrated, although the proportion has declined slowly over the past two decades.
  6. In2009,67.0% of employed women worked in teaching, nursing and related health occupations, clerical or other administrative positions, or sales and service occupations. In contrast,31.0% of employed men worked in these fields.

(source: Stat Can: Latest release from the Labour Force Survey Friday, January 6, 2012

Women are more likely to work part time than men)

What is Feminization (Canadian Women workers)

• Women’s high labour force participation and employment rates

• Gendered rise of insecure or temp jobs

Capital extracts surplus:

From:

•Canada: lower cost of production

•Mexico: cheap labour - Export Promoting Zones (EPZ) or border industrialization, e.g., maquiladora

gender pay gap

Comparing the average hourly wages of women and men, the ratio was 83.3% in 2008 – up from 75.7% in 1988

Sources: Statistics Canada, Labour Market Activity Survey 1988, Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics 1993 and Labour Force Survey, 2003 and 2008. Date Modified: 2011-07-26

Why we should still mind the wage gap

Leah Eichler

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Aug. 17 2012, 7:00 PM EDT

the average amount for damages issued at the human rights tribunal level range from $25,000 to $75,000 in Canada. In the United States, damages for the same issue might amount to millions of dollars for individuals.

Canada:

women’s problems are not related to basic needs (as in poorer countries)

• 61 percent of single parents cannot

afford a computer (1998) source: Caragata (2003)

•among single parents, % women are

90%(1998) 80% (2011) Stat Can (released 2012 sept.)

2012: acc. Jan 2013

•Single parent mothers in poverty: 21% (2011)

(Jan 2013)

Core countries:

Indigenous women:

•education and life expectancy

world's lowest rates

•illiteracy, infant and maternal mortality and death from preventable disease

world’s highest rates

Framework on Women and development :

WST & Global Commodity Chain:

• Financial Crisis: Neoliberal deregulation policies

(Canadian Women)

• Global Commodity chain

(Third World Women)

Arguments (DW# 50-55)

Peripheral countries:

GCC: Reasons why women are marginalized:

Women are treated as commodities/property by:

  1. Traditions (gendercide)
  2. Religious fundamentalism
  3. Socio-political Status
  4. Wars and conflicts
  5. Inequality and denial of rights
  6. Market (Women in GCC)