Jean L. Pyle

Globalization, transnational migration, and gendered care work: Introduction

This symposium broadens our understanding of one of the most fundamentally human aspects of the many dimensions of globalization—the provision of care work transnationally. Although much care work is unpaid and underacknowledged, caring labor is increasingly being purchased in the market in higher income areas or countries. There have been increases in the number of women migrating within or between nations for employment in care-giving jobs—as domestic workers (including childcare workers) and health-care workers. This collection concentrates on women who migrate transnationally for caring labor, whether paid or unpaid. Most are engaged in domestic work, the largest employment category for women migrants (ILO, 2003a, p. 4), although, in recent years, there are growing numbers of female health-care workers moving internationally (Buchan and Sochalski, 2004). Flows of caring labor therefore span occupations categorized as skilled as well as unskilled, although they have long been portrayed as largely unskilled. In the past, the analyses have been separate, focusing either on domestic workers or on particular health-care occupations. Although many issues have been raised by examining migration in each occupational area category separately, looking at them together provides new insights and sheds light on the policy implications. Transnational labor migration is distinctly different from the international movement of goods, services, or capital. Flows of transnational domestic or health-care workers bring people from different nations, classes, races, ethnicities, genders, and ages into close proximity, creating new relationships and altering existing ones. Unequal power relations, human rights violations, different value systems, and strong emotions are directly involved. In addition, although there has been a move toward more market and less government determination of economic outcomes in the last three decades, there are more restrictions on flows of people transnationally than on goods, services, or capital. This collection of articles provides new perspectives on the relationship between the processes of globalization and gendered migrations for caring labor. The authors explore, from multiple perspectives, how globalization has spawned flows of caring labor that involve

Globalization and the increase in transnational care work: The flip side

Abstract I argue that to understand the reality of who is (or is not) accessing care globally, we must examine the flip side of the flows of women migrating transnationally to perform caring labor. The flip side includes the levels of care the migrants experience and that attained by their families in their absence. Most migrants endure a care deficit, working in physically and emotionally stressful situations where they encounter many forms of discrimination. Their families may be better off economically, but not emotionally. I examine the role of the state, pointing out that many governments face a double bind—needing women to migrate for economic reasons but not wanting citizens abused abroad or the accompanying adverse publicity. I critique several government responses to this dilemma and conclude by assessing recent international initiatives to address migration problems, suggesting they lack perspective on how globalization influences womens migration.

Women, the Family, and Economic Restructuring: the Singapore Model?

Singapore is promoting itself as a model for Asian development, citing its high growth rates and stable society. It contends that its approach differs dramatically from that of the West because of its solid value system regarding families and community. This paper examines the ways women and changing family policies have been critical components of Singapores growth. It shows, however, that rather than having a long-term consistent view of appropriate family size and roles, the Singaporean government adopted strikingly different policies (particularly toward fertility) over the past three decades, as it attempted to affect the supply of labor in the short-run and over the longer term and thereby maintain growth rates. This sheds a different light on Singapores claims regarding its stable approach to families, particularly since policy changes since the mid-1980s have placed intense demands on womens limited time by encouraging increased female labour force participation and increased fertility.

Approaches to sustainable development : the public university in the regional economy

How can cities and regions foster sustainable development? What role can a university play in this process? These are the central questions addressed in this innovative collection of essays, which brings together scholars in such diverse fields as history, political economy, community studies, industrial theory, economic geography, environmental studies, ergonomics and work design, race and gender studies, manufacturing engineering, and public health. In 1993 a core group of faculty members at the University of Massachusetts Lowell launched an interdisciplinary study to find ways for the university to help stimulate regional development on a sustainable basis. They looked at models of development, new processes, and practical tools for transforming ideas into actions. At the same time, they moved beyond traditional research paradigms that focus on business growth and technology diffusion to the exclusion of social, environmental, and cultural development. Lowell is an ideal place for exploring these issues, given its rich industrial and immigrant history and the Universitys expertise as a science and engineering institution. The product of this research is a set of thoughtful essays that span the physical and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities and engage the debate over how best to achieve sustainable development - a debate in which issues of social justice, popular participation, and economic development are inextricably linked.

Globalization, Universities and Issues of Sustainable Human Development

This volume raises an important question: Given the fast-changing global economy and the challenges it presents, what is the role for the university as an institution promoting sustainable human development? The editors begin by outlining the changes associated with the recent wave of globalization, particularly transformations in the relative power of institutions internationally. They analyze the constraints universities face in industrialized and developing countries in promoting sustainable human development.

Globalization, Universities and Sustainable Human Development: A Framework for Understanding the Issues

This volume raises an important question: Given the fast-changing global economy and the challenges it presents, what is the role for the university as an institution promoting sustainable human development? The editors begin by outlining the changes associated with the recent wave of globalization, particularly transformations in the relative power of institutions internationally. They analyze the constraints universities face in industrialized and developing countries in promoting sustainable human development.

New focus of U.S. industrial firms in the Pacific Basin

Abstract Strategies of industrial firms in Pacific Asia have involved transfers of production technologies, policies toward workers, and marketing tactics. Prevailing strategies to date, largely emphasizing cost minimization, have caused significant alienation of Asians as workers and citizens. The authors argue for a change in management focus in the 1990s, an era in which Pacific Asia is rapidly transforming into a dynamic growth market rather than merely a low-cost production site.

Preface to the symposium: Globalizations, transnational migration, and gendered care work

Care of children and the elderly, health care, domestic labor, and other forms of care work are increasingly being done as paid work involving transnational flows of people. Child care workers leave the Philippines to work in Hong Kong, Europe and the United States. Others leave Mexico to work in the US. Health-care providers from India work in the Middle East and those from southern Africa move to the US and EU. Some of the workers, many of them women, comprise part of a chain of caring labor that frequently requires them to find others to watch their own children or elderly parents at lower wages. The aging of the wealthier countries combined with women’s greater labor force participation and the decline in the welfare state has led to rapid growth in demand for elder care that is often filled by women from developing countries. Japan and the US are developing robotics as an alternative that would be exported as well as used domestically, raising issues of de-humanizing care and greater isolation of the elderly. The same processes that increase cross-border supply through the disembodied export of labor in EPZs (export processing zones) or outsourcing of IT (information technology) service work also promote the embodied supply of care work through transnational migration. According to the World Migration Report 2005, about half of the transnational migrants are women (48.6% in 2000). Millions of these women are relocating for work, sometimes accompanying their spouses/partners, but often separated from their families for years. This trend is exacerbated by government policies that promote emigration in order to increase the likelihood of remittances, which are often a key source of foreign exchange earnings as well as redistribution of income from the wealthier countries. Restrictive policies toward immigration, such as those in the US following 9/11, frequently have the paradoxical effect of increasing migration of families, especially among unauthorized immigrants because it is harder to cross the border