1st Edition
Women, Work, and Globalization Challenges and Opportunities
Women increasingly make up a significant percentage of the labor force throughout the world. This transformation is impacting everyone's lives. This book examines the resulting gender role, work, and family issues from a comparative worldwide perspective. Working allows women to earn an income, acquire new skills, and forge social connections. It also brings challenges such as simultaneously managing domestic responsibilities and family relationships. The social, political, and economic implications of this global transformation are explored from an interdisciplinary perspective in this book. The commonalities and the differences of women’s experiences depending on their social class, education, and location in industrialized and developing countries are highlighted throughout. Practical implications are examined including the consequences of these changes for men. Engaging vignettes and case studies from around the world bring the topics to life. The book argues that despite policy reforms and a rhetoric of equality, women still have unique experiences from men both at work and at home.
Women, Work, and Globalization explores:
- Key issues surrounding work and families from a global cross-cultural perspective.
- The positive and negative experiences of more women in the global workforce.
- The spread of women’s empowerment on changes in ideologies and behaviors throughout the world.
- Key literature from family studies, IO, sociology, anthropology, and economics.
- The changing role of men in the global work-family arena.
- The impact of sexual trafficking and exploitation, care labor, and transnational migration on women.
- Best practices and policies that have benefited women, men, and their families.
Part 1 reviews the research on gender in the industrialized and developing world, global changes that pertain to women’s gender roles, women’s labor market participation, globalization, and the spread of the women’s movement. Issues that pertain to women in a globalized world including gender socialization, sexual trafficking and exploitation, labor migration and transnational motherhood, and the complexities entailed in care labor are explored in Part 2. Programs and policies that have effectively assisted women are explored in Part 3 including initiatives instituted by NGOs and governments in developing countries and (programs) policies that help women balance work and family in industrialized countries. The book concludes with suggestions for global initiatives that assist women in balancing work and family responsibilities while decreasing their vulnerabilities.
Intended as a supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Women/Gender Issues, Work and Family, Gender and Families, Global/International Families, Family Diversity, Multicultural Families, and Urban Sociology taught in psychology, human development and family studies, gender and/or women’s studies, business, sociology, social work, political science, and anthropology. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in these fields will also appreciate this thought provoking book.
Part 1: An Overview of Gender, Work-Family Issues, and Global Restructuring 1. Perspectives on Women, Work-Family Life, and Global Transformations 2. Globalizing Forces: Neo-liberalism, Economic Restructuring, and the Transformation of the Global Work Force 3. The Global Spread of Feminist Principles: The Expansion of an International Women's Rights Movement and Concepts of Gender Equality Part 2: Women's Unique Experiences in the Global Economy 4. Gender Role Socialization: Setting the Stage 5. Vulnerable Girls and Women: Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking 6. New Directions: Migration, Women, and Transnational Motherhood 7. The Globalization of Caring Labor: The Re-Arrangement of Social Relationships In and Outside of Families Part 3: Policy Responses in Developing and Industrialized Countries 8. Investing in Girls and Women to the Developing World: Ensuring an Equal Start 9. Supporting Working Families and Gender Equality: Policy Responses in the Industrialized World 10. Empowerment through Globalization: Transformed Gender Roles, Work-Family Supports, and Transnational Collaborators
Biography
Bahira Sherif Trask is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Delaware.
"This text provides a thoughtful and compelling analysis of women’s paid and unpaid work in the global economic and social arena by examining the contexts in which women and girls are experiencing new opportunities, expectations, and risks." – Katherine R. Allen, Virginia Tech University, USA
"Women, Work, and Globalization is a powerful, important, and timely account of global social change. Trask succeeds brilliantly in crossing cultural boundaries to uncover the lives of women as they wrestle with paradoxes of globalization." – Antoinette Hetzler, Lund University, Sweden
"Trask’s global, feminist perspective offers keen insight for understanding the lives of women, and shows sobering realities while pointing to the role of women in creating positive change." – Stephen T. Russell, Arizona State University, USA
"This text would be great for classes on work and family, social work, women’s studies, and diversity. ... Including the cross culture analysis and within culture comparisons is unique. ... It is essential for students today to understand work and family from a global perspective in order to be effective in their chosen profession."—Sandra J. Bailey, Montana State University, USA
"I find the cross cultural approach to be especially well done. ... I would adopt this book as a text for my Issues in Work and Family Class. ... This book is … ideal for how I approach the subject matter and hopefully can be used in a variety of fields including human development and family studies, sociology, psychology, women studies, business, and even resource management from a global perspective."—Cynthia Schmiege, Unioversity of Idaho, USA
"An invaluable theoretical and research synthesis of the significant relationship between family, women’s and girl’s employment, and the processes of globalization … The … book would be very useful in undergraduate courses ... focusing on the relationship between gender, employment, and family. ... It … synthesizes much data and many diverse perspectives. It challenges western notions of proper family life with examples from developing countries." —Lynn Walter, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, USA
"The topic is very timely and the content is presented in a clear and interesting manner. .... I see this book as being valuable to both practitioners and students. ... It sounds very interesting and I am already excited to have an opportunity to read it!"—Tara Newman, Stephen F. Austin State University, USA
"The project is unique. ... I would definitely recommend it to my colleagues. ... I am encouraged by the diversity of sources. ... I … look forward to reading it."—Anisa M. Zvonkovic, Texas Tech University, USA
"Women, Work, and Globalization is both provocative and socially activist in promoting a gender-equitable society through policy and social reform." - Jean Lau Chin, Adelphi University, PsycCRITIQUES
"The author provides students in a variety of social science disciplines more than just a book about women, work and globalisation. This book covers a wide range of topics and approaches that are likely to leave a reader wanting to explore some of these topics in greater depth with an appreciation of how globalization leads to a multiplicity of outcomes that can only be understood when individuals’ social location is taken into account and societal forces and individual agency are acknowledged." – Carol J. Auster
