Economics of Gender, Race, and Globalization - Coursework Example

Economics of gender, race, and globalization Introduction Many economists devoted a significant proportion of their career in understanding the difference between man and woman in their ability of contributing to the economy in terms of their earnings, their hours of work, their incomes, the poverty rates, and other economic variables that determine the economic well being of individual and the society. This field of the study of the economists is known as the economics of gender. Individuals of either gender are economic agents as they interact in the economy of household, the economy of firms as well as the economy of market and both contribute to the economic decisions of the society. The contributions and the roles of men and women in a society is the topic of debate that arise frequently in modern life as the role of both sexes evolved itself with the change in the economic characteristics of the global economy. However, gender is not the single factor that determines an individual’s position and their living in the economy. The other important factor that discriminates individuals living in the society is the aspect of race known as the racism. Racism is a form of discrimination that is inter-personal. Racism deals with the feeling that people with different colors of their skin enjoys different scale of freedom and privileges with a particular skin type group deserving economic and human rights more in comparison to others. Generally, in the society racism is synonymous to providing more privileges to the white people that they consider for granted and the other group of individuals are not entitled to do so. The privileges may be social, cultural, economical, political, and even legal. They enjoy the privileges of easy access and mobility in media houses and other institutions that favor racism. A very common example of racism is the black people were being slaved by the white race that is the most obvious outcome of what is called racism. The overall global picture depicts that the white group of people receive certain privileges that the people of different colors are not entitled to. The economics of race and gender is a significant component of globalization and brings forth the integration of culture, society and economy. Gender, race, and globalization The roles of both the genders have changed considerably with the time and that can be explained with the help of the following facts. The working women of the United States of America earned about 29% for every dollar that the men earned during the period of 1815 and increased to 76% per dollar by the year 2004. Besides the change in the economic behavior, the social aspects of the lives of both male and female have changed. According to a study made on the US economy a thirty years old man of the present century is four times more likely to be divorced than an individual of the same age in 1950 and the chance of the individual being not yet married is twice more than that of the earlier period. Discrimination between the two genders occurs because of their difference in their biological existence, difference in their psychology, in their culture and also in their abilities. There are policies that affect the two ends of the gender differently. The ways in which we could discriminate the two genders are uncountable in practical sense. Difference in the gender of individuals and the difference in their sex are different as the cultural influences make the two different from each other. However, majority of the differences between men and women that are not biological are incorporated by the society itself. Since childhood, a girl is presented with baby dolls so as to make them grow up with the feeling that motherhood is one of the ultimate goals they need to achieve in their lives. Thus, the gender issue gained importance from period of indefinite past and the economics of gender mainly deals with the change in the economic behavior of men and women with the changing economic environment and the social nature of living. (Jacobsen, 1-7) The most important and significant change that took place in the economy of the world is the increased integration of the economies of different countries known by the word ‘Globalization’. The complex process affects different regions of the world, different countries, and areas and the population of those geographical areas. The impact of the phenomenon can be considerably noted in the conditions of the women residing in the Asia Pacific regional countries. Globalization have increased the employment opportunities of these women, helped in reduction of the problem of poverty considerably, and fulfilled the demand of labors in many countries of low population through increased migration of the labor force. Globalization has contributed to increasing the associations of women of different regions, and helped in the formation of new. Moreover, the networks of women have strengthened considerably through mutual support and provision of resources from different sectors and regions of the economy. Married women who are mothers are more eager than before to enter the job market. Rise in the wages of women is one of the factors which have led them to enter the job market (Moe, 71). Women can now more easily gather required information with the advancement of communication and technology through globalization. Information regarding new opportunities of employment, availability of micro credit and their access to proper and required health treatments has all been easier because of the integration and modernization of the economy of the world. Despite all benefits that the process of globalization provides to the women class of the society in some way or the other it had contributed in increasing the gender inequality. With the addition of new working locations and innovations of different new forms of works, the division of the labor force on the basis of their sex that came from the traditional society regained its importance. The work done primarily by the women labor force generally possesses low economic value, with more exploitations, lesser job security and increased cases of human rights violation. The worst and the most critical impact of the process of integration of the world economy are the increasing incidents of women violence and the situation is worsening day by day. The cases of women and children trafficking have also increased considerably with the increasing impact of globalization. Different organizations of the Asia Pacific regions are providing support through increasing technical supports, providing assistance in building capacity of managing both the negative and the positive impact of globalization through the promotion of cooperation among different neighboring regions and sub regions. (Gender and Globalization) The next concept that arises with the economics of gender is the inequality and poverty that often differ in terms of the difference in the gender of the individuals. Inequality in gender has proved not to be directly related with the poverty level when household is considered as the economic unit. The economic well being of the women of the household thus cannot be concluded from the poverty level of the household because women of rich families can also be more deprived of the mere necessities than that of a poor household because of the difference in the social behavior of the two economic units. Moreover, greater inequality measured in terms of the well-being of women can have co existence with the increase in the income of the particular economic unit that is the residing household. There exist some essential commodities in life to which both men and women should have the same entitlement and deprivation of any necessity contributed to the state of poverty. (The economics of race; Powell and Udayakumar) The pattern of employment is the public sector economy is influenced by gender differences. The distribution of work is “gendered” (Bettio, and Verashchagina, 84). Basic education, health care facilities along with the required food, cloth, and shelter for minimum subsistence should be entitled to every individuals of the society regardless of the gender. Individuals living in the society have their rights on these minimum endowments. However, in the society many individuals are deprived of these minimum subsistence assets because of belonging to the feminine gender, or belonging to the minority group of the society or socially inferior community. A component of gender inequality coincides with poverty. Thus, poverty mainly occurs because of the failure of proper entitlement of the commodities and not always because of the scarcity. In order to study the economics of gender the difference in the well-beings of individuals belonging to different genders also need to be considered. With the concept of globalization the risk associated with increased poverty level of a country have regained importance. Poverty level of a country gets reflected in the equity of the country. Equity between the rich people of the society and the poor, equity between male, female, between different ethnic groups of the society, and different regions are the true reflector of the poverty level of that particular economy. A termed was introduced by the United States of America in the year 1978 that is called ‘Feminization of poverty’ with the view of the fact that about two thirds of the poor population of the country those are more than 16 years of age are female. 70 % of the 1.3 billion poor population of the world living below the poverty line are women as per the data of the United Nations development program report of 1997. According to the study made by IFAD in the year 1992 the percentage of the rural men living in poverty increased by 30% as compared to 48% increase in the proportion of rural women living below the poverty line. (Women and Globalization; Dijkstra) Globalization resulted in unprecedented growth in the economy of the world but with it, the destructive economic disparity follows. The impressive economy of the northern hemisphere that is better to be called the region of the White depicts the picture of a booming economy with low unemployment rate, with higher standard of living. On the other hand, the lands of the people with color mainly concentrated in the southern hemisphere of the earth have little to eat , trapped with lower wages and poor working conditions hence suffering from malnutrition and more diseases. The people with color living in the northern hemisphere also find themselves deprived and left far behind from the fruits of development. The government of the country seems to be unwilling to provide the poor black working class of the society and the low income groups with color adequate housing facilities, proper medical attentions and other required social services though the countries of the north reports budgetary surplus. The new world trade with the process of globalization encouraged the virtual black slave laborers in the sweet shops of the country mainly in the United States of America. According to Schram, the policies followed by the united states of America increases racial disadvantages. The people of color and the marginal communities of the societies mostly depend on the public sectors of the society namely the public hospitals, schools and other welfare systems of the societies that often run out of capital due to the unwillingness on the part of the government for investing in those areas that brings welfare to these racial victims. There is a common belief that racism originates from US capitalism and is an extension of the attitude of employers towards the subordinates or employees. Racism leads to a divide in the working group. (Conrad, 99) The picture of racism has also changed with the time. In the historical time, the countries with the white population dominated and ruled the countries of the black in the colonial period. The African Negroes were enslaved by the white. Now what has changed is the form of domination of the white population of the world. The political domination has changed its form to economical dominance, as most of the wealth of the world is concentrated in the countries that have the maximum of the white population. The countries with the black population those who were affected by historic colonization in the past now experience the colonization of the modern period being trapped in debt loads. Racism takes different forms like white children making fun of the other children with darker skin and different hair color. While checking the papers of an individual of black race the customs officer took triple more time than checking that of the Whites. Applications from wealthy nations with more white population speeds up the process of immigration than the poor nations populated with darker skin. The picture that remained same from historical period until date is that societies with more racialized people live in poverty twice more than non-racialized ones. (The economics of race; Perlo, 8-10) In this light it may be recommended that a working group with multi-racial origin act as the essential lead to end all kinds of repression (Conrad, 99). The immediate effect of racism is the increase in poverty level of the country. Thus, the world is a place where if individuals are born with the colors of their skin other than white are likely to be grown up to be poor. Economic globalization through increasing and staggering debt of the poor nations has perpetuated the colonization of the racialized world. With globalization as the integrating factor of the markets of different economies increases the exploitation of the labor and other resources of the third world and the developing countries are increasingly being exploited by the developed and the wealthy nations of the world. (Franklin and Resnik, 55) Trillion dollars of valuable resources like oil, diamond, timber etc are continuously being extracted from the resource rich countries of Sub Saharan Africa by the wealthier nations and the drain from the southern countries continue as the residents migrate to the wealthier nations in search of better living and opportunities. Thus, globalization has brought about severe threat for the people of color. The role of the government changed from providing citizens with public facilities and securities to facilitating the flow of capital across markets with the process of globalization. (The economics of race; Powell and Udayakumar) Conclusion The most adverse effect of both gender and race is the increase in the poverty level (rather, crisis due to inequality) of the society. A nation with more gender and racial discrimination experience more of their population living in poverty. The combined discrimination of gender and racism reveals that racialized women bear the incidence of poverty almost double than that of non-racialized women. The rate of white women living in poverty is only 18% as compared to 37% chance of living in poverty of women with color. The public sectors that are mostly ill maintained in the country are the places of dependence and association of the women of the society and the minority classes. Until date, no dominant international organization has come forward to protect the interest of the racial communities and that of the Women of the society. There are some treaties like ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’, ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’, ‘Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic’, ‘Religious or Linguistic Minorities’, that deals with these problems of the society but they are nearly impotent in comparison to the international organizations like the World Bank, the international monetary fund etc that protects the international capital movements (The economics of race: Powell, Udayakumar). Globalization brought the people of the world together as consumers of international market but they are separated as people of different race and gender. References 1. Jacobsen, Joyce, P, The economics of Gender, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000 2. Gender and Globalization, United Nations economic and social commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2011, 30 March 2011 from http://www.unescap.org/esid/gad/issues/globalization/index.asp 3. Dijkstra, A. Geske. Gender and Economics. London: Routledge, 1997. 4. Women and Globalization, n.d., 30 March 2011, from http://www.unescap.org/esid/GAD/Publication/women-globalization.pdf 5. The economics of race, Women, & the economy, 2011, 31 March 2011, from http://www.unpac.ca/economy/ecorace.html 6. Moe, Karine S. Women, Family and Work. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003 7. Powell, John, A & S, P, Udayakumar, Race Poverty and Globalization, Race, Racism and the Law, 2000, 31 March 2011, from http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/economic07.htm 8. Perlo, Victor, Economics of Racism, USA, International Publishers, 1975. 9. Franklin, Reymond S. and Solomon Resnik. The Political Economy of Racism. Holt Rinehart and Wiston, 1973 10. Acker, Joan, Gender, Capitalism, and Globalization, n.d., 31 March 2011, from http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/mdevault/Critical%20Soc.Nov.03.pdf 11. Conrad, Cecilia. African American in the US economy. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005 12. Bettio, Francesca and Alina Verashchagina. Frontiers in the Economics of Gender. London: Routledge, 2008 13. Schram, Sanford, F, Welfare discipline, Journal of Sociology and Social welfare, December 2007, 31 March 2011, from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYZ/is_4_34/ai_n25466125/ Read More