Feminization of Labor

Feminization of Labor is a term used to describe emerging gendered labor relations born out of the rise of global capitalism. For instance, manufacturing jobs are now considered women’s work.

Globalization and Female Labor

The expansion of trade, capital flows, and technological advances have resulted in dire consequences for women; feminization of labor.Fact|date=July 2008 More and more women are leaving their traditional roles as mothers and homemakers to fill the new job openings which globalization is bringing to them. Gender discrimination, violence, sweatshop, sexual harassment are some of the adverse results of the global effects of feminization of labor.

As the global economy expands multinational companies are looking everywhere to recruit women both in the developing and the developed world because men would not take the jobs unless they are desperate.Fact|date=July 2008 From the multi national perspective women are a more desirable labor force as women have historically work for lower wages and have been less likely to organize.Fact|date=July 2008 Therefore, women are expected to work for low wages, no job security and no autonomy.Fact|date=April 2008

Examples of Feminization of Labor

*Wal-Mart, a multi-billion dollar company has wiped out many mom and pop stores in towns and cities across the country by lowering prices and driving down wages for employees in the retail industry. [ [http://www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_1982_200_sum07/lectures/Lecture_12.ppt The Feminization of Labor, South East Asia] . Dept of Geography, University of Colorado. ]

*Multi-national firms utilize low cost labor in China, India and Indonesia.

A Brief History of Feminization of Labor in America

Dramatic political, economic, and social changes led to the feminization of the labor force in the United States. Downsizing American corporations, the globalization of the economy, the decline of manufacturing industries and the rise of the services sector, were the vehicles, through which women gained entry into the labor force. Industrialization created jobs beyond the farm and the home for women and at the same time exerted pressure on United States education, public and private to reconstruct its curricula and to provide the skills needed for the new emerging industries.

World War II: The Era of Lasting Economic Opportunities

World War II created more and lasting job opportunities for women in America. This era made a significant impact on women’s entry into the labor force in United States history. The Second World War called women to new tasks and challenges at home and in the labor force. Women replaced their husbands and brothers in the civilian economy and accepted supportive roles in the armed forces; for many women it proved the most profound experience of their lives .Blackwelder, J. Kirk. 1997. Hiring: The Feminization of Work in the United States , 1900-1995. Publisher: Texas A&M University Press. Place of Publication: College Station , TX . Publication] World War II mobilized more women, especially married women, than had ever previously worked for wages and kept them at defense-related jobs for a longer period of time than had World War I.

hifting Gender Roles in Labor

At the turn of the nineteenth century, industrialization gave rise to the service industry and the multiplication of management functions, which led to an increased number of new job openings. These developments demanded a workforce larger than the male population could furnish and included tasks that few men would do and created white-collar jobs.Fact|date=July 2008 These shortages of human labor provided paid work opportunities for women, but at the same time rarely created a bridge across the traditional gender barriers.Fact|date=July 2008

Within female labor markets, class, race and ethnicity or race intertwined with gender to define women’s job options. These factors, as much as economic considerations determined which jobs women could have and influenced their decisions about whether, when and where to seek jobs. There are an overwhelming number of women in clerical occupations; clerical occupations were once considered to be male dominated. Toward the end of the 19th century clerical occupation became feminized.

Corporations needed to fill expanding skills created by the new technological wave. Typewriting became identified as feminine specialty, and natural for women workers, hence, women were allowed entry to the work force. Women were expected to be nice, neat, attractive, clean and expected to follow order and be loyal to their bosses.Hesse-Biber, N. Sharlene and Carter, L. Gregg. 2005. Working women in America : Split Dreams. Publisher: New York , Oxford University Press]

The shift from manufacturing to the service industry created the next largest percentage of women (after clerical employees) work in service and sale occupations. Service work comprises food preparation and service - waiters and cooks among others. Sales occupations include sales supervisors, sales representatives in retail and personal business among others. The service economy created two kinds of jobs: large number of low skill, low-paying jobs and a small number of high skill, high paying jobs primarily in the protective services occupation. Even though women make up a majority of service workers, and about half of sales workers, they are overrepresented in traditionally feminized jobs.

The 1950s gave way to even greater economic growth that drew growing numbers of women into the labor force. The feminization of work progressed as labor demand mounted and both low-status and high-status service occupations grew. The 1960s and 1970s brought a critical and enduring shift in the lives of women and their families as the wage-earning mother became the rule rather than the exception in the United States. What had begun as a part-time or "empty-nest" commitment to the labor market for a minority of mothers in the 1950s had become a full-time experience for most mothers by the end of the 1970s. Legal tools for achieving desegregation in employment emerged in the 1960s, but the new body of law had little effect on most women's earnings or their jobs until the 1970s. During the sixties the continuing structural transformation of the economy and the demand for female labor had a broader impact than civil rights law on women's everyday lives. In the 1970s the law and public policy opened unprecedented professional opportunities for women, but not all women climbed the income ladder. The gender gap in wages persisted and profound changes in family structure increased the economic responsibilities of most women.

The economic forces driving the feminization of the labor force created ever more job opportunities for women as the end of the century approached. Women reached executive positions, when they reached them it was largely because political forces created affirmative action policies for government and corporations. Affirmative action created opportunities for educated women like Marcelite Harris, the first African American woman to rise to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force. Although women benefited from affirmative action, they also proved their merits on the job, as had the defense workers of World War II. Nevertheless, neither affirmative action nor the overall growth of the service sector protected women against the boom and bust cycle of the eighties.Fact|date=July 2008

The gap between the rich and the poor widened during the last decades of the century, and working women, from food service workers to teachers, saw their real earnings decline while the most fortunate women strode up the income ladder. Although women made great educational strides during the 1980s, not even college training insulated them from the employment crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those women who graduated without a specific, marketable skill found themselves especially vulnerable.

This feminization of the labor force has shown no signs, even in the late twentieth century of abating. In many ways, this greater involvement of women in work stems from the ongoing expansion and transformation of the U.S. economy from its agricultural origins, through industrialization, into its late-twentieth-century service-based, postindustrial configuration.

Is The Entry Of Women Into Labor Force Advantageous?

The expansion of trade, capital flows and technological advances have impacted the lives of women significantly. The benefits of domestic and global expansion are greater than the cost.Fact|date=July 2008 We are frequently bombarded about minor consequences of economic expansion, without being informed about the myriad of benefits which women have achieved.

Women are now more well off than they were five decades ago. Women have jobs, they are earning money - they have more economic power in the 21st century than ever before. Economic globalization has finally provided women with a lifetime of opportunities. In the past thirty years electronic communication and air transport have increasingly made it possible for corporation to operate across national boundaries, and at the same time bring to women a better quality of life, than they could envision for their futures and their families' futures.

The rise of the service industry in the United States has resulted in increasing number of opportunities for women nationally. More and more women entered the labor force occupying jobs that were once not available to them. These new available opportunities worked in a sustainable way; jobs were created for mothers, daughters and future generations. Women were able to enter the labor force and look forward to a bright future. No longer were they saying that they were unable to work, because women in the United States were able to reached executive positions in the newly emerging corporate world. United States women brighten the future for other women around the world.

The outsourcing of manufacturing sector overseas have provided jobs to mostly women.Fact|date=July 2008 Approximately 90 percent of workers in off shore production are women [Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey. 2006. Women’s Lives Multicultural Perspectives Publisher; Mc Graw-Hill Companies, 239.] Not men, but mostly women are employed in large companies.Fact|date=July 2008 It is the women who have the jobs. Women are no longer held in bondage at home serving the men in their families. They can now work. They can now earn their own money for the first time. These women now have a voice. They are no longer passive. As women assumed more prominent economic roles, they began to play a larger role in the public and private spheres. In Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia thousand of women workers are negotiating with multi nationals companies for more wages and governments to implement policies to meet their needs. At a conference in Beijing it was reported that over 70% of the World’s 187 countries have drawn up national action plans or drafts to meet the needs of women [Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, 250.] The process of economic globalization has facilitated the motivation of women in developing world. Multi national corporations have increased women’s autonomy in the developing world.

The effect of benefits on work incentives is particularly important for women. More women than men are employed in the manufacturing sector partly because it is easier for women to combine family responsibilities with employment.Fact|date=July 2008 The informal sector offers more choice in terms of when work can be performed and how long it can last. Imagine Third World countries without multi national companies. What will be the status of these women? No job, no money, no food. Will the women and their families die of starvation? Are they better off working and earning money? Multi national companies appear to be their guardian angels. Without jobs most of these women and their families will live in poverty.

Global capital flow, the expansion of trade and advancement of technology have drastically improved the lives of women worldwide. More and more women are entering the labor force to improve their quality of life and their families and at the same time increase their autonomy.

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