Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.2.1
Job Losses in Export Manufacturing Industries since 2008
Job Losses
(around 80% female)
Country
Industrial Sector
India
Clothing and Textiles
700,000
Philippines
Export Processing Zones
20,000
Sri Lanka
Garments
30,000
Cambodia
Garments
30,000
Nicaragua
Export Processing Zones
16,000
Source
: Oxfam, 2009: 5
These debates have drawn particular attention to the exploitative
articulation of female labour in the global South (Afshar and Barrientos,
1999), with women more likely to be engaged in low-paid, insecure and
exploitative work in both the formal and informal economies (Carr and
Chen, 2004). In particular, the emergence of a largely female, impover-
ished and unregulated workforce linked to insecure home-based or
home working in global supply chains has prompted organizations like
Oxfam (2009) to identify women workers as the 'development engine'
behind global capital accumulation. Kaplinsky's (2000) argument that
greater economic activity has in reality led only to
'
immizerising
growth' for the majority of workers is particularly salient in the current
economic climate. In a recent report, Oxfam argues that the 2008 global
financial crisis is having a devastating impact on women working in
export manufacturing as they are the first to be laid off by employers,
often with pay outstanding (see Table 3.2.1). As supply chains are
squeezed by falling demand, the World Bank predicts that 22 million
women will lose their jobs in 33 countries in the global South over the
next few years, about half of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
128
Rights, Responsibilities and Social Protection
As argued, the benefits of globalization which were promised to much
of the global South, namely formal job creation through FDI and
export-oriented production, have in reality led only to a rise in insecure
and low-paid contractual work. In response, notions of global civil soci-
ety (see Chapter 5.2) and corporate citizenship have intertwined to
