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Women as the Worlds Flexible Work Force

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Women as the Worlds Flexible Work Force Women are not only the preferredwork force inwage employment for exports, but also make up the majority of flexible workers in the global production system. The informal economy, which is largely unregulated, with low or absent labor standards, is expanding. This is partly due to the outsourcing of production by multinational companies to local suppliers in global value chains production processes with various layers of heavily competing suppliers for wellknown brand names. Indeed, the global work force has been increasingly informalized, withwomen experiencing lower labor standards than men. Jobs in the global production system are increasingly subcontracted, flexible, and temporary. Women therefore find themselves increasingly working informally at the bottom of global value chains, outside the reach of labor laws, labor inspectors, and company codes of conduct. The explanation for the increase in outsourcing rather than in-company production is, again, the cost pressure experienced by firms that try to survive in highly competitive low-wage sectors of the world economy. Large parts of production in these sectors are subcontracted and end up being done by flexible, irregular female workers in rented factories, smallscale workshops, or at home by individual workers. This process of global cost reduction through hiring cheap female labor is quite different froma process in which companies that are less vulnerable to global competition compete on the basis of productivity increases rather than cost reductions. Such a strategy requires investment in new technology and skills. Even though the educational gap between men and women is narrowing everywhere, and has disappeared in an increasing number of countries, it is men who benefit more often from the on-the-job training and higher pay in such industries. This is exactly what is reflected in the figures referred to above, showing the defeminization of export employment in mature export industries. Employers prefer men for the higher skill jobs, believing that women would be less reliable workers because of maternity leave and possible career breaks when they have children. In addition,male workers bargaining power is higher than that of female workers because of the male breadwinner norm and mens higher participation in trade unions. Women workers, therefore, remain at the lower end of export production. The prospects for a reduction of the gender wage gap and improvement of working conditions are limited, despite womens increased levels of education, as long as labor market discrimination keeps women locked in low-skilled formal and informal employment in highly competitive global industries.

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