Topic 2: Women and Globalized Labour: Comparing Canada and India or country or countries in Latin America

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bhodyt4fmU 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.

WST & Commodity Chain:

• Neoliberal deregulation policies, Financial Crisis and recession

(Canadian Women)

• Global Commodity chain (GCC) (Third World Women)

http://becauseiamagirl.ca/page.aspx?pid=3865 2.33 min

Canada

• Neoliberal State

• Affluent society• Relative poverty (Adult

women below poverty line (1.22 mil.) 10.2% (2007) http://www.womensdirectorate.gov.yk.ca/pdf/womens_poverty_2009_townson.pdf

• Capital extracts surplus from temp/low wage working women

• Issue: gender equality in hiring, pay & job status

• Feminization of labourPoverty line: spend 55% on basicshttp://www.canadianwomen.org/sites/canadianwomen.org/

files/PDF-FactSheet-EndPoverty-Jan2013.pdf

Periphery: DW• Commodity chain• Majority in DW are poor• Absolute (human) poverty

(% Women: India: > 50% *; Mexico (27 mil.) 28%

• Surplus extraction from most women (low or no wages) unpaid work at home, in agriculture and in unofficial sector

• Issue: chronic poverty – want basic needs

• Feminization of poverty

*http://www.infochangeindia.org/analysis150.jsp

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

Maquiladora women - spots from the film MAQUILAPOLIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2KzIGb44I 4min

Canada What is ‘Feminization of labour’?

• Women’s high labour force participation and employment rates• Women holding greater % of insecure or temp jobs

Periphery: Feminization of Poverty: Compared to men, women in DW experience:

• Higher incidence of poverty • Greater depth/severity of poverty (i.e., extreme)• More persistent/longer-term poverty • Rising burden of poverty •. Face more barriers to lifting themselves out of poverty• Women-headed households are the ‘poorest of the poor’.•. Female household headship transmits poverty to children

Feminization of labour:

Annual growth rate in labour force:• OECD countries (1983 to 1992): 2.1% for econ. active women (men 0.8%). • In the US, Canada and the Scandinavian countries, women now make up nearly half the active population (women’s activity rates > 70% in the core age groups).

Canada: Certain sectors are feminized

• Clothing and textile industries

Women are vulnerable workers:•Hiring: discrimination • Work conditions: poor • Migrant women• Dependent on a male breadwinner• Derived rights of settlement

Concepts & arguments: CanadaCaragata (2003): • Gendered and differential benefits• Labour force changes• Marginalization• Retrenching welfare state• Commodification of social roles

Quintero-Ramirez (2002): • Capital mobility• Flexible work & vulnerable for firing• Feminization of labour.

http://www.cdnwomen.org/eng/pdfs/poverty_facts.pdf. accessed Feb 24, 07

Canadian Women in Poverty (Canadian Women's Foundation, 2004) • Of the world's 29 most developed countries, Canada has the 5th largest wage gap between women and men full-time workers • wage gap is due to the presence of children. Childcare ahead of career advancement diminish a woman’s financial status throughout her entire life.

Women in the ‘Core’:In Low-Paid Employment (% Labour Force) (Caragata: 2003)Country (year) Total Men Women

Australia (1995) 13.8 11.8 17.7Canada (1994) 23.7 16.1 34.3France (1994) 13.3 10.6 17.4Sweden (N/A) 5.2 3.0 8.4UK (1995) 19.6 12.8 31.2US (1994) 25.0 19.6 32.5

Canada: Poor women means poor children: 2007http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/02/ChildPoverty http://www.povnet.org/

• 37% of lone mothers on paid employment raise a family on <$10/hour.• Children make up 33% of people dependent on social assistance for survival.• Low income children are more than twice as likely to have problems with vision, hearing, speech, mobility, dexterity, cognition and emotion.• The infant mortality rate for the lowest income group in Canada is double that of the highest income group.

Statistics Canada's low-income cut-offs i.e, poverty:Poor spend most income on basic needs:

Single mother & one child in Ontario: per month Income assistance before deductions: $957 Expenditure:

Rent $675 Groceries $200

Remainder $82 (to pay for electricity, telephone, heat, laundry, transportation, school needs for her child, emergencies, aspirin, medicine)Statistics Canada, September 14, 2000

Stat Can: Latest release from the Labour Force Survey  Friday, January 6, 2012http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11387-eng.htmWomen are more likely to work part time than men

Canada: 20121. 7 out of 10 part-time workers in 2009 were women, a proportion that has changed little over the past three decades.2.In 2009, 2.2 million women worked part time, that is, fewer than 30 hours a week at their main job. 3.The share of women working part time rose from 23.6% in 1976 to 26.9% in 2009. 4.In comparison, the rate for men in 2009 was 11.9%, less than half that of women, although it more than doubled from 1976.

Canada: 2012 (cont’d)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. In 2009, 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.

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

Household Work: Gender Differences for Home-Based Workers (Caragata: 2003)

Work outside Home-based Canada of home work

Type of Work Men Women Men Women

Child care >15 hrs/wk 16% 25% 14% 40%Housework >15 hrs/wk 5% 16% 9% 41%Elder care 5–9 hrs/wk 3% 5% 13% 16%

Source: Caragata (2003) based on data from Menzies (1998).

Canada: Employment rates (% of working age pop.)women and men, 1976 to 2011

Source: Statistics Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada www.hrsdc.gc.cahttp://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=13 acc jan 2013

Unemployment rate for women and men in Canada, 1976 to 2011

Source: Statistics Canada, http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=16 acc.jan 2013

% persons living in low-income after tax, by sex of major income earner, select years, 1976 to 2010

Note: Based on after-tax LICOs. Source: Statistics Canada. Persons in low income families, annual (CANSIM Table 202-0802). Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2012. [ Show Data Table ]

ITO (2010) Global Unemployment Trends

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

2012: http://www.canada.com/Census+More+single+dads+heading+lone+parent+families/7265375/story.html acc. Jan 2013

•Single parent mothers in poverty: 21% (2011)http://www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-poverty (Jan 2013)

Women in povhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CK4G1WzE0I 2.26min

Ending Poverty Starts With Women 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBZkWCtwZI 10min

Women in pov in Canada 2011http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaYqNOYHmZ4 9.47 min

Periphery: DW

A Report (2005):

Women And The World Economy: Hope For The Future?

• < $2 a day: 50% of World Population.

• < $1 a day: 1.8 bil.of the above population.

• 70% of them are women. (1)

• Women live (age) < 40yrs: 340 mil. in the world (2)

• 35,000 children die/day of preventable causes. (3)http://www.tiaw.org/microenterprise.asp accessed 2006

Notes: 1. Microcredit: A Commercial Model for Poverty Reduction. 2. UNICEF. 3. Ibid 4. The World Bank. 5. IDB and CGAP.

• Poor in DW in the informal sector: 50-60% of the workforce

• Women comprise the majority of this workforce

• 96% of India’s working women are in the informal sector.

• Women’s micro businesses rely on predatory moneylenders because of limited access to formal financial services http://www.tiaw.org/microenterprise.aspNotes: 1. Microcredit: A Commercial Model for Poverty Reduction. 2. UNICEF. 3. Ibid 4. The World Bank. 5. IDB and CGAP.

Global women's unpaid work at home, in agriculture and in unofficial sector:

•unnoticed by statistics,•estimated as a third of global GDP

Empowering the third billion: http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/BoozCo_Empowering-the-Third-Billion_Full-Report.pdf

Global, issue second quarter 2011 Women- Agents of Change http://www.global-briefing.org/archive/

Source: ILO. (2009). Global Employment Trends for Women March 2009http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_103456.pdf

Global: Sectors Where Women Work: Change in 10 years

Periphery (DW):

Women hired & fired - ‘flexible labour’

• temporary and part-time• women more ‘suitable’ • ‘natural’ talent - dexterity and nimble fingers’• cheaper and manipulable• endure monotonous tasks

Women Dominate Employment in Most Export Processing Zones2007

Table 1. Increase of Female Headed households and Single mothers, and Poverty Rate in Mexico City

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 % Total Female-Headed Households 13.96 14.69 16.17 17.54 18.33 20.01 with Children and No Partner 11.34 12.28 14.28 15.06 15.61 17.11 Percent below Poverty Female-Headed Households 13.48 16.34 28.37 26.07 13.24 13.96

Male-Headed Households 17.70 17.29 30.81 27.31 17.59 14.25

Heeju Shin (2006). Working and Living Arrangement of Single Mother Households and Social Support in Mexico. Center for Latin American Social Policy, Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies , University of Texas at Austin City, accessed Mar 1, 2010 http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/claspo/fieldreports/shin06.pdf

% Poor Single Woman-headed households:

Mexico: 20 % (2002)

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/ (UN)http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata161.htm (LAm)http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pkits/women3.htm

Ref: SYLVIA CHANT The ‘Feminisation of Poverty’ and the ‘Feminisation’ of Anti-Poverty Programmes: Room for Revision?Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, 165–197, February 2008

See also: Chant, Sylvia (1997) Women-headed households: poorest of the poor? Perspectives from Mexico, Costa Rica and the Philippines. IDS Bulletin, 28 (3). pp. 26-48. ISSN 0265-5012

Wmn –mexico : http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/17907/shind94494.pdf?sequence=2

Latin American countries: fem-male wage gap: 2008

Overall gender pay gap The average pay gap in a few countriesBrazil 38.5%Mexico 36.1%Argentina 29%Paraguay 11%

http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/GAP-09_EN.pdf

http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/LAC/LACInfoClient.nsf/d29684951174975c85256735007fef12/e4bf3b5369a28e6285256cde0074c903/$FILE/challenges.pdf

2003

Periphery Women: World workforce 49.1% (2007)World's poor 70 %Women’s share of world household income 40-60 %

Work 60 to 90 hr/wk

Provide 75% of healthcare

Produce 75% of food(of the food consumed throughout Africa)(Source: WID, 2000; http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_091102/lang--en/index.htm)

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_103456.pdf

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_103456.pdf

http://kilm.ilo.org/GET2004/DOWNLOAD/trendsw.pdf

South Asia (India), East Asia and Africa: Poor people in millions (living on $1.25/day) ( WB 2009 data)

http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-poverty/statistics-on-poverty-in-india/