Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
home-based workers
,
often working informally in sweatshop conditions
(see Chapter 3.3). Research also suggests that many of the world's 218
million child labourers and 27 million modern-day slaves are linked to
profitable global supply chains in plantations, textiles and minerals.
Underpinned by neoliberal strategies of free trade, privatization and
deregulation, it has been argued that the success of the NIDL is attrib-
utable to a vast reserve army of cheap, willing and unregulated labour.
A specific requirement by MNCs for a 'cheap, passive and nimble-fingered
workforce' has also led to a feminization of the labour force in EPZs and
global supply chains (Chant and McIlwaine, 1995; Standing, 1999). In
the late 1990s it was estimated that around 80 per cent of global export
workers were female, with employers having a preference for unmar-
ried women under 25 years of age.
The latest phase in what many commentators now call the 'global
division of labour' (Huws, 2007) has been the unprecedented drive
towards outsourcing via global value chains in high technology goods
and services. Labelled as the 'second global shift', the rapid growth of
data-processing firms, information technology and financial services
has characterized the latest phase of offshore development, particularly
in countries with highly skilled workers such as India and South Africa
(see Chapter 3.4). In 2008, the world's hundred largest MNCs together
accounted for around four per cent of global GDP. Despite their impor-
tance, however, there has been a tendency to see corporate capital as
the only significant agent in the global economy. In order to highlight
the importance of local social processes, such as gender and class, many
economic geographers prefer to use the term Global Production
Networks (GPNs). This approach also emphasizes the existence of a
wide range of non-corporate actors, such as NGOs and civil society
organizations, community groups and trade unions that shape the every-
day trajectories of individual workers in the global economy.
126
New Opportunities or 'Immiserizing'
Growth? The Impact of the NIDL on
Workers in the Global South
One of the main arguments in support of the NIDL as a tool for develop-
ment is that it allows a much-needed reallocation of jobs, infrastruc-
tural upgrading, knowledge transfer and foreign currency from North
