Debate on liberalization

Applying Liberalization entails many changes, opening of trade by reduction of import duties and removal of quantitative restrictions, a considerable loosening of the licensing systems, especially on the private sector of firms, as well as lifting of reservations for many products, and integration of production globally . These changes raised a wide debate on the effects of liberalization on the poor and on workers. Those who support liberalization say that there has been a decrease in poverty and an increase in general well-being, and those who oppose it saying that in fact poverty has increased, employment opportunities and access to social services have declined

Liberalization and Employment

Liberalization has caused an increasing inequality in employment opportunities and incomes. Economic opportunities created by the liberalization are highly unequal. Those with more access to skills, to markets, and with more resources or better links internationally have been able to benefit. For women at the upper-income, upper-skill end, the quality as well as opportunities for employment have improved. For most women workers however, the quality of employment is poor, without opportunities for skill development and moving up the ladder, and with very low income returns.
Trade unions, some farmers associations and other activist organizations are very much opposed to liberalization as they themselves are feeling negative effects of liberalization. The main fear of the workers is that they will lose their employment and that is in fact what is happening to many different workers. If we examine the impact of globalization on the employment and income of women workers, four distinct trends are visible. First is loss of existing employment without creation of new employment, secondly, changes due to new technologies and skills, third is the in formalization of work and finally, creation of new employment opportunities.

Liberalization has in some sectors caused loss of employment without creation of new employment. There are also indirect effects of globalization, where global cultural and social norms begin to affect employment. Another indirect effect of liberalization has been the growth of concern about the environment.

Women are the most affected by the changes due to mechanization. The
employment of manual workers is reduced and is displaced by workers who run the machines. In these cases the total number of jobs is reduced drastically

Moreover, women are generally replaced by men. In the agricultural sector men have taken over from women those activities in which technology has substituted machinery for manual labour. All other labour intensive tasks are still left to women.

Various micro studies have shown that technical change has eliminated many
jobs traditionally performed by women and alternative job opportunities have not been created for women at the same rate as for men. In some sub sectors in the textile and garment industry, mechanization has displaced women workers.

In Construction under the prevailing WTO regime, the essential requirement of
global tendering has facilitated the entry of many large companies. The presence of some of these companies is increasingly visible in many infrastructure development projects being undertaken under government funding as well as under bilateral/multilateral assistance arrangements. With increased mechanisation, there would be massive displacement of labour in nearly all construction operations.

In the food-processing sector, as the domestic big companies and multinationals with huge investments and state of the art technology are pushing out small and unorganised units out of the market.In the country's manufacturing sector,(including organised as well as unorganised sectors; food processing is the fourth largest employer of women. As food processing industry is becoming increasingly modernized, women workers who work at the lowest rungs in labour hierarchy are going to be far more.

One of the major debates today is on the casualisation of the work-force. Casualisation is causing increased employment opportunities for some of the
workforce and loss of jobs for others. The numbers of employment opportunities created by casualisation certainly are more, but they are also in worse conditions. On the whole, men lose jobs and women gain them. Many big companies, including multinational corporations have evolved a vendor system of subcontracting for their production. Depending on the nature of work, some of these vendors either employ women workers in large numbers or give out work to home-based workers mostly through contractors

Many times big corporate in heavy industry sector have a very big inventory of plant accessories required in their plants on a regular basis. Some companies
have set up cooperatives of women living in the vicinity of their plants for
production of such items.

Subcontracting of work given out to home-based workers has been found to be
widespread in the unorganized manufacturing sector and seems to have
expanded phenomenally over the past decade.

There are many areas where new employment opportunities for women have
been created without loss for anyone else. Employment opportunities increase
when there is opening of a new market or expansion of an existing market.
These markets may be within the country or for export. In the crafts sector for example, employment has grown at a fast pace, including for women. However the average daily earnings of women crafts workers are low,nearly half of that paid to male workers.

Another area of expanding opportunities is in services of all types. Personal
services such as domestic work,cleaning and cooking services and care of
children and the elderly, is increasing rapidly in the urban areas. Most of these
services are provided by women. These include milking, feeding and bathing of animals, processing of milk and cleaning of cattle shed and most importantly in processing of milk

However even in sectors where liberalization has increased employment women workers are getting paid less than men and, in most cases, much below the minimum wage. Gender based wage disparities exist across all sectors and all occupations. Discrimination exists not only in terms of wages but also in
terms of access to employment. Often women are found concentrated in
occupations where the wage rates, as well as working conditions are poor and
substandard.

With the coming of Globalization and liberalization, new technologies and fast
changing markets tend to make existing skills obsolete and require up gradation, new skills and multi-skilling. On the other hand it opens up new markets which workers can reach by adapting existing or traditional skills.

Women workers are usually at the lowest-paid end of any sector, they are usually termed as unskilled, even though very often their work, though low-paid, requires a certain level of technique. Often a woman’s skills may not be regarded as skills at all, either by the person who is documenting the skills, or even by the women themselves.

Secondly, the potential marketability of a particular skill is never recognized. This refers to a woman’s skills which currently may not being marketed but which may have a good market potential like embroidery or knowledge of herbs. Only then will a measurement of a women’s skill will capture the extent of her “specialization’.

There is the demand side of the skilling needs which captures the skilling needs at a point in time. Identifying the demand and the employment opportunities for skills is not an easy task.

ILO (2004) Global employment trends for women 2004 (Geneva: ILO)

Karshenas, Massoud (1996) "Economic Liberalization, Competitiveness and Women's Employment in the Middle East and North Africa" Economic Research Forum, Kuwait: Conference on "Labor Markets and Human Resource Development", 16-18 September, 1996. incl. biblio. 20pp.

Baden, Sally (1996) "Gender Issues in Financial Liberalization and Financial Sector Reform" Topic paper prepared for Directorate General for Development (DGVIII) of the European Commission (Brighton : Bridge, IDS)

Jhabvala, Renana and Shalini Sinha. Liberalization and the Woman Worker (India: Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

Benería, Lourdes (1999) "Gender and the Construction of Global Markets" Paper presented at the workshop Gender, Macroeconomics and Globalization, hosted by UNDP, 25-26 March 1999, New York. (New York: UNDP)

Abdel-Malek, Talaat (2002) "On Trade Liberalization, Competitiveness and the Need for Sustainable Growth" Newsletter of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran & Turkey, Volume nine -Number two -Summer 2002 (Cairo: Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran & Turkey)

Valentine M., Moghadam (1998) Women, Work, and Economic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers )

The Egyptian Ministry of Public Enterprise Sector (1998) Privatization Programme Performance from the Start to 24-5-1998 (Cairo: MPES).

Mattoo, Aaditya, Randeep Rathindran & Arvind Subramanian (2001) "Measuring Services Trade Liberalization and Its Impact on Economic Growth: An Illustration"

Abou stait, M. Fouad (1999) "Privatization in Developing Countries with Special Reference to Egypt" The Scientific Magazine in Economics and Commerce. (Cairo: Ain Shams University )

Different Sections

Liberalization and the Woman Work

Debate on liberalization

Liberalization and Employment