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Global Feminization Through Flexible Labor

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Global Feminization Through Flexible Labor World Development, Vol. 17, No. 7, pp. 1077-1095,1989. 0305-750X/89 $3.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. fQ 1989 Pergamon Press plc Global Feminization through Flexible Labor GUY STANDING* International Labor Organization, Geneva Summary. -The emphasis on structural adjustment and labor flexibility in both developing and industrialized economies is rapidly altering the nature of employment. Women are being substituted for men and many forms of work are being converted into the kinds of jobs traditionally geared to women. International data on recent trends in female economic activity reveal that new types of labor data are needed to highlight the mechanisms of control over workers and the actual economic forms of vulnerability to which women are exposed. The paper concludes by posing questions that challenge the traditional concerns of donors and policy makers in many developing countries. 1. INTRODUCTION 2. LABOR IMPLICATIONS OF SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS: The 1980s might be labeled the decade of labor THE CULT OF INSECURITY deregulation. It has also marked a renewed surge of feminization of labor activity. For reasons to For most of the 20th century, and particularly be considered, the types of work, labor relations, after 1945, the dominant development model income, and insecurity associated with “women’s can be described as “social adjustment,” with work” have been spreading, resulting not only in a redistributive welfare state as the long-term a notable rise in female labor force participation, objective. It was to be achieved through a diverse but in a fall in men’s employment, as well as a array of labor rights, protective legislation, and transformation - or feminization - of many other forms of security, and a larger role for the jobs traditionally held by men. It is no coinci- public sector in economic and social policy. In dence that this shifting pattern has been closely the 1970s that model ran into trouble, first losing related to an erosion of labor regulations. There its legitimacy and then being displaced from has been explicit deregulation, whereby formal intellectual hegemony by the early 1980s.’ regulations have been eroded or abandoned In considering the changing economic situation by legislative means, and implicit deregulation, and its effects on women, six developments whereby remaining regulations have been made have been critical. First, whereas previously less effective through inadequate implementation trade took place between countries or regions or systematic bypassing. with similar costs (or labor rights) and was a fair- To elaborate on this thesis, it is necessary to ly small percentage of most countries’ Gross trace the emergence of the supply-side politico- National Product (GNP), in the 1970s the global economic agenda that has dominated policy economy became far more open to internation- making in most of the world in the 1980s. This ally competitive trade, as various low-income agenda, it will be argued, has led to a series of countries became producers of exports and changes in women’s economic roles, increasing potential exports. A second factor was that their use as workers but weakening their income by the late 1970s sustained Keynesian demand and employment security in both low-income management had become associated with rising industrializing and industrialized countries. By inflation, and internationally had contributed focusing on the global spread of flexible labor to excessively rapid lending. The result was practices and the supply-side “structural adjust- indebtedness, as deflationary policies were ment” development strategy, it will be argued adopted in the industrialized countries in the that existing policies - and the data on which mid- and late-1970s. A third related factor was they are based - are inadequate, and that specific alternatives offer far more hope of *Thanks are due to Loretta de Luca, Jo-Ann UnRuh, benefiting working women and men in the com- Caren Grown, and Frances Williams for assistance and ing decade. comments. 1077 1078 WORLD DEVELOPMENT that the welfare state became perceived by some the leaders have become the led; international as “crowding out” productive investment and by competition from low-income countries where others as ineffectual in redistributing the benefits labor costs and labor rights are least developed of growth. A fourth factor was what some have has been instrumental in weakening the rights called technological stalemate, whereby labor- and benefits of those in the lower end of the labor saving innovations became more predominant market of many industrialized economies.2 In than product innovations, which led to a more effect, within labor markets income security intense search for cheap-labor forms of pro- has been eroded, and economically and socially duction. The subsequent “technological revo- vulnerable groups have been most likely to lution,” associated with microelectronics and suffer. satellites, was a fifth eroding factor, since it gave The supply-side economic model rejects neo- rise to more managerial options and to more corporatist State planning and incomes policy, intensive international competition, partly be- whereas faith in market mechanisms is absolute. cause the new technology was so internationally One consequence is that the strength of “in- mobile. Finally, the growth of open unem- siders” in the labor market has also been eroded, ployment accompanying these developments notably unionized (male) wage workers. That weakened workers’ bargaining power and put in turn has strengthened the pressure for labor welfare states under tremendous pressure. market deregulation, weakening both employ- Although one could quibble with these stylized ment security legislation and customary practices facts, essentially they combined to give intel- preserving job security. In country after country, lectual and political legitimacy to an ideology of including many developing countries, govern- supply-side economics, where market mecha- ments have taken steps to make it easier for nisms and cost competitiveness were given over- employers to dismiss workers or reduce the size whelming emphasis. This crystallized in a global of their labor force, as, for example, in the strategy of “structural adjustment and stabiliza- Philippines, where legislation is planned to re- tion ,” and has been linked to radical changes move most enterprises from coverage by various in labor relations in most parts of the world labor laws. By such means, they have encouraged economy. a more flexible approach to job structures, This argument does some injustice to nuance making it easier to alter job boundaries and the in the interest of brevity. But in essence, the technical division of labor. This has reduced the supply-side model entails a global strategy of job “rights” of existing employees and allowed growth based on open economies, with trade greater resort to so-called external labor mar- liberalization as vital and export-led growth as kets. Because the employment, income, and the only viable development strategy. As such, job security of insiders has weakened, employers cost competitiveness is elevated to utmost signifi- have been able to substitute lower-cost labor. cance, and from that, labor market regulations In many cases, job flexibility also reduces become “rigidities,” which raise costs and thus the premiums that employers usually attach to harm living standards and employment. An irony workers’ employment continuity and on-the-job is that in the 1980s many of the previous experience. objectives of economic growth, notably a whole A further aspect of supply-side economics set of labor and social rights, became perceived concerns income security directly. Governments increasingly as costs and rigidities. have been urged to remove or weaken minimum A few key features of the supply-side agenda wage legislation and institutional safeguards, on are worth noting. The goal of ‘*rolling back the the grounds that such wages reduce employment. State” means focusing on rewarding merit and One might question the logic of that argu- combining fiscal reform with a minimalist rather ment, but among the likely consequences of a than “redistributive” welfare state; poverty alle- weakening of protective machinery is a growth of viation and universal social security are no longer very low-wage employment, consisting of jobs priority issues. A consequence of increasing paying “individual” rather than “family” wages. “selectivity” or “targeting” has been that fewer Research shows that when low-wage jobs spread, people are entitled to state benefits in industrial- it is women whose employment in them in- ized countries. This has given a boost to “addi- creases. Even in many developing countries tional worker” effects (pushing more women where minimum wage legislation was only into the labor market), the informal or “black weakly enforced, it at least set standards and had economy,” and precarious forms of working, demonstration effects. Deregulation sanctions since those without rights to benefits have been and encourages bad practices. obliged to find whatever income-earning work An aspect of the supply-side agenda has been they can. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the stabilization and structural adjustment policy FEMINIZATION THROUGH FLEXIBLE LABOR 1079 packages urged on many developing countries has been a shift in these directions and from by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), direct to indirect forms of employment, includ- the World Bank,
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