GLOBALISATION AND EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIA

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The triumph of democracy and open markets was supposed to usher in a new era of freedom and opportunity. It has, but not for everybody. Economic inequality is on the rise around the world1. As the twentieth century ended, capitalism seemed to have vanquished its rivals: fascism, communism, and socialism. The disappearance of alternative models of development provoked anguished reactions from the old anticapitalists of the postwar era, who ranged from socialists to revolutionaries and remained captive to a nostalgia for their vanished dreams. But globalisation2 has also fallen afoul of a younger group of critics. And the nostalgia of the fading generation cannot compete with the passions of these younger dissidents, who were so evident on the streets at recent world economic gatherings in Seattle, Washington, Prague, Quebec City and Genoa, and who have made themselves heard on college campuses in movements such as the anti-sweatshop coalition. Central to many of the protests against it, is a trilogy of discontents about the idea of capitalism, the process of globalisation, and the behavior of corporations. And all three of these discontents have become interlinked in the minds of many protesters. Far too many of the young view capitalism as a system that cannot meaningfully address questions of social justice. Many of these youthful skeptics seem unaware that socialist planning in countries, such as India, which replaced market system with quantitative allocations, worsened rather than improved unequal access. Such socialism produced queues that the well connected and the well endowed could jump, whereas markets allow a larger number of people to access their targets. Capitalism is a system that, paradoxically, can destroy privilege and open up economic opportunity to many, but this fact is lost on most of the system’s vocal critics3. One of the main claims of antiglobalisation movement is that globalisation is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It benefits the rich and does little for the poor, perhaps even making their lot harder4. The problem with this new conventional wisdom is that the best evidence available shows the exact opposite to be true. The current wave of globalisation, which started around 1980, has so far promoted economic equality and reduced poverty. Global economic integration has complex effects on income, culture, society, and the environment. But in the debate over globalisation’s merits, its impact on poverty is particularly important. If international trade and investment primarily benefit the rich, many people will feel that restricting trade to protect jobs, culture, or the environment is worth the costs. But if restricting trade imposes further hardship on poor people in the developing world, many of the same people will think otherwise. Three facts bear on this question: i) a long-term global trend toward greater inequality prevailed for at least 200 years and it peaked around 1975. But since then, it has stabilised and possibly even reversed. The main reason for the change has been the accelerated growth of two large and initially poor countries, China and India; ii) a strong correlation link has increased participation in international trade and investment, on the one hand, and faster growth, on the other. The developing world can be divided into a “globalising” group of countries that have seen rapid increases in trade and foreign investment over the last two decades, well above the rates for rich countries, and a “non-globalising” group that trades even less of its income today than it did 20 years ago. The aggregate annual per capita growth rate of the globalising group accelerated steadily from one per cent in the 1960’s to five per cent in the 1990’s. During that latter decade, in contrast, rich countries grew at two per cent and non-globalisers at only one per cent. Economists are cautious about drawing conclusions concerning causality, but they largely agree that openness to foreign trade and investment, alongwith complementary reforms, explains faster growth of the globalisers; and iii) contrary to popular perception, globalisation has not resulted in higher inequality within economies. Inequality has indeed gone up in some countries, such as, China and down in others, such as, the Philippines. But those changes are not systematically linked to globalisation measures such as trade and investment flows, tariff rates, and the presence of capital controls. Instead, shifts in inequality stem more from domestic education, taxes and social policies. In general, higher growth rates in globalising developing countries have translated into higher incomes for the poor5. No poor country has ever become rich by isolating itself from global markets, although North Korea and Myanmar have impoverished themselves by doing so. Economic globalisation may be a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for combating poverty. However, its complex nature needs a global institutional response to create inbuilt safeguards. The existing forms of global governance and methods of managing common affairs through hundreds of organisations regulating global dimensions of trade, telecommunications, civil aviation, health, environment, meteorology, etc., need to be expanded and strengthened6