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An Assessment of the Integration/Exploitation
Framework for Understanding Women in the
International Division of Labor: The Case

of Third World Women Workers in Transnational
Factories presented by

Susan Joel

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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATION/EXPLOITATION
FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN THE
INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR:

THE CASE OF THIRD WORLD WOMEN WORKERS
IN TRANSNATIONAL FACTORIES

BY

Susan Joel

A THESIS

Submitted to
Hichigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology
1989

ABSTRACT
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATION/EXPLOITATION
FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN THE
INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR:
THE CASE OF THIRD WORLD WOMEN WORKERS
IN TRANSNATIONAL FACTORIES
BY

susan Joel

The expansion of factories owned by transnational
corporations into developing countries has had tremendous
impact on the social, economic and cultural institutions of
the countries within which they are located. One result of
this expansion, not generally predicted or desired by host
countries, has been the preference for female employees in
various types of assembly operations.

The main objective of this project was to evaluate the
theoretical framework through which the analysis of the
employment and treatment of Third World women by
transnational corporations has previously been conducted.
The two primary theoretical perspectives of "integration"
and "exploitation" were evaluated through a critical
analysis of 15 case studies conducted between 1976-1989 in
less developed countries with a significant number of

transnational factories between.

The findings suggest that the experiences of female TNC

employees cannot be placed within either the integration or

Susan Joel

exploitation framework and makes suggestions for the
development of an improved conceptual framework for use in

future research.

In memory of D.O.D.
Kenneth W. Joel
(1936-1987)

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor, Melissa Barker, for
her unfailing support, encouragement and guidance. Her
timely and thoughtful reading of this work was greatly
appreciated. I would also like to thank my committee
members, Rita Gallin and Cathy A. Rakowski, for their
helpful ideas and suggestions.

Thanks also to the many friends who have provided
support and encouragement, especially to Rosanne Roraback.
Special thanks to Dan, whose tolerance of my studies and

belief in my abilities have eased my way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II. LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overview of the Theoretical Literature . .
Modernization Theory . . . . . . . . . .
Dependency Theory . . . . . . . . . . . .

World Systems Theory . . . . . . . . .

Page

viii

\OmleU‘ H

Women, Patriarchy and Transnational Factory

Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Definitions of Relevant Terms . . . . . . .
Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Marginalization and Exploitation . . . .

III. FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS AND METHODOLOGY . . .
MethodOIOgy I O O O C O O O O O O O O O O 0
Criteria for Case Selection . . . . . . . .

IV. EMPLOYMENT FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Employment and Economic Indicators Factors
Related to Inegration and Exploitation . .
The Emergence of Women's Industrial
Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Why Women Work . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acceptance of Women's Wage Labor . . . .
Female Labor Force Participation . . . .
Job Opportunities for Women . . . . . . .
Distribution of Women in the Labor Force
LDC Unemployment and TNCs . . . . . . . .
Discrimination Based on Gender, Age and
Marital Status . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wages and Working Conditions in TNC
Factories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TNC Work Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TNC Management and Supervisory Strategies
Opportunities for Promotion . . . . . . .
TNC Worker Satisfaction . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vi

11
19
19
21

26
30
31

37
37

38
43
46
48
51
53
55

61

65
72
73
75
77
79

TABLE OF CONTENTS
(continued)

Chapter
V. INTRA-FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS . .

Characteristics of Female TNC Workers'

Households of Origin . . . . .
Division of Household Labor . .

Economic Contributions of Mothers and

Daughters . . . . . . . . .
The Influences of Ethnicity and
Values and Lifestyle Choices of

Workers . . . . . . . . . . .
Marital Ideals . . . . . .
Female- Headed Households . . .

summa ry O O O O O C O O O O O 0

VI 0 CONCLUSION O O O O O O O O O O 0
Integration or Exploitation? .

APPENDIX: Summary of Case Studies . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

vii

Religion .
Female TNC

82

83
84

85
92

93
96
97
99

190
106

113
119

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure l. Socio-Economic Conditions Supporting the
Integration Perspective . . . . . . . . . 28

Figure 2. Guide to Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . 32

viii

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
The expansion.of factories owned by transnational

1 has had a tremendous

corporations into developing countries
impact on the social, economic and cultural institutions of
the countries within which they are located. Governments of
developing countries, pressured to accumulate foreign
currency for exchange, to meet foreign debt payments, and to
provide jobs for their citizens often offer tax relief, low
minimum wages, and other incentives to encourage these
corporations to locate their assembly operations within
their borders. One result of this phenomenon, not generally
predicted or desired by host countries, has been the

preference for female employees in various types of assembly

operations. For example, the mid-19605 development of the

 

The term "developed nations" is used here to
describe those nations that have achieved what may be
described as the highest level of capitalist development ~-
imperialism. Imperialism occurs when developed-country
capital's acquisition of the means of production in less
developed countries is "accompanied by the utilization of
political and military resources to protect and maintain the
means of production" which it now controls (Evans, 1979:
16). The more commonly used "west" or "western-style
capitalism" is avoided for two reasons. First,
transnational corporations are involved in economies in less
developed areas of the west, specifically Mexico as well as
other regions of Latin America. Second, Asian nations
including Japan and Taiwan have situated assembly operations
in parts of the less economically developed areas of the
world.

2

Border Industrialization Program by the Mexican government
was intended to absorb the young, mostly male Mexican
workers who were unemployed as a result of the United States
government's decision to end the Bracero Program (Van Waas
1982). And yet, women comprise the majority of employees in
the electronics and textile industries -- not only in
Mexico, but all over the world (Ward 1986).

The main objective of this project was to evaluate the
theoretical framework through which the analysis of the
employment and treatment of Third World women by
transnational corporations (TNCs) has previously been
conducted. This analysis has been most often framed around
the following question: Are the women employed by
transnational corporations in factories located in

developing countries being integrated into or exploited by

 

 

the international economic system?

Although the terms "integration" and ”exploitation"
are not necessarily mutually exclusive, the literature on
this subject has tended to frame the debate as if the impact
of the assembly work that women do in transnational
factories must fit into either one or the other of these
categories. For the purposes of this project the concepts
of integration and exploitation were initially treated as if
they were, in fact, at either end of a continuum in order to

reflect the way the primary literature in this area has used

3

these conceptual categories. Later this dichotomy was

critically examined and evaluated.

After the initial review of the literature was
conducted, the following questions emerged as central to
reaching an understanding of the nature of transnational
factory employment for Third World women:

1. Has the introduction of transnational factory employment
improved women's relative status in their respective
soc1et1es?

2. Is the participation of Third World women in the
international economy through their employment in
transnational factories the "solution to women's
oppression" or does it merely subject them to more
"modern" forms of oppression (Tiano 1987)?

In pursuing these questions, the phases of this
project included: an evaluation of the adequacy of the use
of integration vs. exploitation as a strict dichotomy, an
analysis of the limitations of the framework used to
describe the women in transnational employment debate, an
evaluation of Marxist-feminist theory in terms of its
applicability to the position of Third World women, and the
development of recommendations to improve the scholarly
discourse so that it accurately reflects current theoretical
and empirical knowledge of this phenomenon.

The material provided below is organized into five
primary chapters: Literature Review, Framework for Analysis
and Methodology, Employment Findings, Intra-Familial

Relationships, and Conclusion. The Literature Review

summarizes a bibliographic search in three areas. The first

4
section summarizes literature relevant to the underlying
issues and definitions of the women in the international
division of labor debate. The second section provides
definitions of relevant terms and reviews the theoretical
literature. The third section of the literature review
explores the bibliographic search as it relates to case
studies which report on female TNC employment in various
parts of the less developed world.

Chapter Three provides a discussion of the methodolo-
gical approach used to collect and analyze the data used in
this project. The research findings are summarized in
Chapters Five and Six. In the Conclusion, these findings
are extended and assessed in light of the theoretical debate

between integration and exploitation.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

 

Literature on TNCs seems to take several forms. Much
of what is written on these corporations is written by and
for the managerial elite of transnational corporations
themselves. This body of literature centers around the
advantages of off-shore production, the advantages of one
location over another, and how to obtain the lucrative tax

2

and other benefits which LDC governments offer. Another

general category of writings about TNCs is critical of their

philosophy and practices.3

Found mainly in the alternative
press, these articles are indictments of TNC domination of
the international economy, and often make connections
between the conditions and circumstances of developed and
developing country workers.

The third category, and the primary source of

theoretical insights and empirical data for this project, is

 

2 See for example, Clasen, T. F. 1981. "U.S. foreign-
trade zone manufacturing and assembly: Overview and
update." Law and PolicyInternational Business 13(1): 339-
348; Didsburg, H. H. 1985. The global economy: Today,
tomorrow, and the transition. Bathesda, Maryland: World
Future Society; and Dror, D. M. 1984. "Aspects of labor law
and relations on selected export processing zones."
International Labour Review 123: 705—722.

3 See for example, Bekken, J. 1984. "Where labor and
life are cheap." Industrial Worker 81(3): 6; Christian
Conference of Asia-Urban Rural Mission. 1983. Struggling
to survive: Women workers in Asia. Hong Kong: CCA-URM;
and Siegel, L. 1979. ‘fiMicroelectronics does little for
Third World." Pacific Research Review 10(2).

 

 

5

6

the literature found in scholarly journals, books, and
unpublished documents which focus on the relationship
between women and transnational corporations. Employment in
TNCs in general and of women, in particular, is a recent
phenomenon and currently affects only a small percentage of
the world's workers. As a result, a relatively small body
of literature on this subject exists. The emergent nature
of the issue of employment of LDC women in TNCs made it an
ideal subject for exploration. A review of the existing
literature identified supporting and contradictory trends
and conclusions, and pointed the direction for further
research. However, much of the literature on this subject
suffered from either being theoretical without applying the
theories to real-life situations, or consisted of reports of
field experiences which made broad generalizations based on
narrow, time limited interactions with specific TNC
employees and employers. This type of research often seemed
to lack an explicit theoretical framework.

In reviewing this literature, three outcomes were
generated. First, was simply to identify the existing
sources of research on women in transnational corporation
employment.4 The second outcome of the literature review

was an assessment of the theoretical and empirical

 

4 Such an effort has not, to my knowledge, been done
and the resulting bibliography will create a useful research
tool.

7
directions of the research up to this point. This
assessment of both the directions and the strengths and
weaknesses of the various lines of research pointed to the
need for further investigation. The third outcome was the
identification of a specific theoretical framework and a set
of indicators for further analysis of the empirical
evidence.

The following sections of this chapter will summarize
the existing literature on the theoretical frameworks used
to understand women's waged labor, the kind of research on
women's employment in TNC factories undertaken thus far, and
definitions of the terms and concepts relevant to this

project's objectives.

Overview of the Theoretical Literature

Three general perspectives -- Modernization Theory,
Dependency Theory and World Systems Theory -- have been most
commonly used by researchers interested in the process of
development in less developed countries. Each of these

approaches is reviewed and summarized below.

Modernization Theory

 

Modernization theory has until recently been the
principal framework for most development/industrialization
programs initiated by industries (TNCs), countries, and
development agencies. This theory holds that developed

countries should be used as models for the industrialization

8

and development of the Third World. Beginning with Boserup
(1970) this theory came under criticism by many who felt
that efforts designed with modernization in mind had been of
only limited success. The main critique of modernization
theory has been that developed countries industrialized and
modernized under a different set of economic and historical
circumstances. .The very existence of a developed part of
the world would have an impact on the possibilities and
direction for development of the less developed countries
(LDCs). LDCs would not be able to enter previously untapped
markets or develop technologies without an understanding of
the ways that they were already being used by developed
countries. LDCs would be at a competitive disadvantage
compared to the established industrial societies in North

America and Western Europe.

Dependency Theory

 

The dependency school developed out of a critical
analysis of development by Latin America researchers seeking
to provide a more critical framework for assessing the
impact of development efforts in LDCs. Work by Amin (1976)
and Frank (1974) discussed the impact of colonialism and
imperialist exploitation on the prospects for development
for most LDCs. This perspective asserts that imperialism
and colonial exploitation laid the groundwork for the

continuing exploitation of LDCs. As LDCs gained their

9
independence and sought ways to establish a foothold in the
international economy, the ruling elite and national
bourgeoisie offered incentives to various transnational
firms to situate their assembly Operations in their
countries. In this way, LDCs believed they could increase
employment opportunities for an increasing number of
displaced peasants migrating to cities as well as gain
access to the foreign currency essential for participation
in the international economy. Dollars, for example, were
essential to obtain and repay World Bank loans which were
offered as a quick and relatively painless way to speed up
economic development and modernization during a time of
economic expansion. As a result of this type of
development, the bourgeoisie and ruling classes of developed
and developing countries formed alliances which allowed for
the exploitation of the LDCs' poor and powerless and
resulted in capital accumulation for both. The
industrialization and development that occurred as a result
of these interactions was dependent on the developed country
for the technology used to produce products, as well as the

markets in which to sell the manufactured goods.

World Systems Theory
World Systems Theory as developed by Wallerstein
(1974) extends many elements of the dependency perspective.

With developed countries as the "core" of this international

10
economic system, semi-industrialized countries like Brazil
as the "semi-periphery", and LDCs as "periphery", World
Systems Theory provides an analytical framework which sees
the world as a complex interrelated economic system where
groups and individuals compete and cooperate, not on the
basis of national ties but rather in ways that reflect
commonalities based on class attributes such as access to
power and wealth. World Systems Theory views the elites of
the world (often through the actions of states and
transnational corporations) working together to increase
wealth and power, as well as access to and control of
markets. Wallerstein and World Systems Theory, however,
have been criticized for failing "to take account of the
significance of production relations" while redefining
"capitalism in terms of circulation and trade rather than as
a mode of production" (Miles 1984) as well as for
"interpreting social phenomena in underdeveloped countries
as an automatic effect of the requirements of capital
accumulation at a local level," ignoring "local diversity
particularly among working class and class fractions"
(Fernandez-Kelly 1983, 2).

The experience of Third World women workers in TNC
factories is better understood when these theories are
incorporated into an analytical framework that recognizes
that workers' experiences and opportunities are shaped by

the position of their countries in the international

11
economy. Modernization Theory provides a way of
understanding the reasons why development agencies and LDC
government officials have sought out foreign capital and
provided opportunities for foreign manufacturing in the
hopes that the jobs, technology and dollars provided would
lead to a more modernized and wealthier citizenry.
Dependency Theory and World Systems provide an explanation
for why the hopes and expectations of modernization
theorists have not yet, and probably will never, be

realized.

Women, Patriarchy and Transnational Factory Employment

The recognition that national borders and motivations
based on nationalist ideologies hold less weight in a time
when the world has become smaller and the economy is
increasingly internationalized lends support to both the
Dependency and World Systems analytical frameworks.
However, an additional factor of the internationalization of
the economy is overlooked by both. These theories
illuminate the advantages to developed country based
transnational corporations in situating their labor-
intensive assembly operations in developing countries. An
alliance between the management of transnational
corporations and the local bourgeoisie in developing
countries is profitable for both. The local bourgeoisie, as

a result of this alliance, is likely to obtain access to the

12
world market, subcontracting opportunities, profits from the
lease of land and buildings to be used as assembly sites
and/or housing for TNC managers and their families,
development of businesses to provide services and products
to TNC management and local TNC employees with increased
resources and an increased demand for services as a result
of reduced 'leisure' time. In addition, the local
bourgeoisie is often recruited into management positions
within the factories.

Local governments also benefit in the short term from
an increase in the number of jobs which, at least
symbolically, can result in decreased unemployment
statistics. Wage earners are also required to pay taxes and
a working person is less likely to be eligible for social
services which can take the pressure off of financially-
strapped governments. Local governments are also enticed by
the promise of the transfer of technology, although this has
been shown to occur infrequently (Lim 1978). With the
expiration of tax holidays and other incentives offered to
TNC management, governments can also expect to increase
their revenues. However, governments cannot control the
phenomenon of the "runaway shop", whereby factories relocate
to countries which are currently offering incentives and
concessions that TNC management find irresistible (Leung

1985).

13

Transnational corporations are the third group which
benefits from incentives to locate factories in less
developed countries. Such incentives are offered by local
governments, and include: the provision of infrastructure,
laws which restrict the activities of unions, low wages,
limited or non-existent import and export tariffs, and tax
holidays.

Critical, class-based frameworks are able to identify
the potential problems that arise from this state-local-
international capital alliance but they seem to focus, as
suggested by Miles (1984), on the circulation aspects of
capitalism, and overlook the production arena. When one
looks at production in TNC factories what one discovers is
the overwhelming concentration of women in the lowest paid
assembly positions. Class-based analyses of this phenomenon
are unable to explain this almost-universal preference for
women workers in these jobs in transnational corporations.
An understanding of the preference for women employees on
the part of TNC-managers emerges from an integration of
theoretical frameworks which recognize unequal and uneven
development on international and national levels with those
that help to explain the unequal position of women within
families and societies and the division of labor. Feminist
theories which recognize the role played by historical
patterns of the patriarchal subordination of women all over

the world add an essential dimension to the

14

conceptualization of the process of integration of women
into "modern" forms of economic development (Hartmann 1981).

Although TNC employment comprises only a small
percentage of available jobs in developing countries, an
understanding of the implications of such employment is
important. Transnational corporations in emergent
capitalist countries set the tone for employment practices
there. The experiences of women who work in these factories
have important implications for the evolving status and
living conditions for women. The economic and working
conditions of Third World women in TNC factories can provide
insight into the future of other workers as the number of
these types of assembly jobs are created.

LDCs have their own patriarchal ideologies that are
culturally specific and differ from those of developed
nations as a result of different historical and material
experiences. The spread of technology into developing
countries involves the introduction of imperialist
capitalism as well as western patriarchal ideologies which,
on the surface, seem to conflict with the culturally-
specific economic systems and patriarchal traditions of some
less developed countries. One of the most interesting
features of capitalist development is the way in which
capitalism is able to adapt to existing cultural norms while
at the same time providing the motivation for a shift in

these norms, thereby developing the mechanisms for people to

15
adapt to changing material conditions. This phenomenon
explains how capitalism and "old" and "new" forms of
patriarchy work together in the name of development to open
new territory in order to maximize profits.

The spread of technology into less developed countries
involves the introduction of both imperialist capitalism and
patriarchal ideologies through the promise of material
rewards and increased status to those members of society who
are recruited to participate in the technological
development of host countries. The extent to which one is
able to accumulate these rewards is contingent, however, on
class affiliation, gender and access to power in a given
society. By far the greatest beneficiaries of this form of
investment are elites within host countries. Local
industries and the state form an uneasy alliance with
transnational corporations in order to maximize accumulation
for all three. This is generally accomplished through the
exclusion of the majority of citizens from the development
process; reliance on the state to maintain an orderly and
compliant work force; and the concentration of domestic
capital in agriculture and manufacturing for local
consumption which leaves the more capital intensive and
profitable export-oriented production to the TNCs (Evans
1979; and Amin 1976). While TNC employment may be seen by

many workers as secure and comparatively well-paid work, it

16
remains that the majority of these workers are still poor,
even by Third World standards (Lim 1981).

TNC managers bring their own culturally-bound notions
of men as societal and familial leaders into their
interactions with representatives of LDCs. While these
notions may indeed reflect the social organization of LDC
societies, the impact of the usually unconscious and
inadvertent introduction of western patriarchal ideologies
into the development process has been known to have
significant effects on the economic activities of Third
World women. One commonly cited example is women's
diminished access to agricultural land for subsistence
activities as development plans encouraged and directed men
into cash cropping activities (Boserup 1975). A second
example is the TNC management practice in Southeast Asia of
approaching male family heads to make their requests and
strike their bargains for low-cost labor in the form of
young female family members (Heyzer 1982). The process of
negotiation between national and community leaders and TNC
management results in the exposure of citizens of the host
country to a western world view, especially among elites.

The relationship of patriarchy and capitalism contains
points of contradiction and thus may be considered
dialectical in nature. Although the goals of the two
systems are often consistent, there is also conflict.

Capitalism's objective of maximizing profits may be in

17
conflict with the patriarchal objective of maintaining men's
traditional cultural and familial control over women.
Patriarchal authority and traditional social and familial
arrangements may be affected by capitalism's preference for
women employees, which is based on the belief that women
will often work more "cooperatively" than men for lower
wages. Women's wage labor results in more time spent
outside the home and increased economic independence as a
result of their wage earning activities through which they
contribute to their family's economic resources (Tiano
1984). The family is the arena in which the effects of
women's changing role in society is most profoundly felt, as
all family members must adjust to the additional
responsibilities of female household members. The degree to
which a woman will experience increased economic
independence as a result of her wage labor is dependent on
whether or not her position in the family changes and if, as
a result, she is able to make decisions about the disposal
of her earnings (Lim 1981).

Transnational corporations generally situate their off-
shore plants in countries for manifest as well as latent
reasons. The primary manifest reason is economic. TNC
managers and boards choose particular countries because they
have garnered certain economic concessions from host
governments in terms of taxes, minimum wage restrictions,

and generous import and export policies. As a result,

18
operating costs are greatly reduced while the potential for
profits is increased.

The latent reason may be that the chosen countries have
a strong patriarchal tradition and those in control of TNCs
assume that it will be possible to recruit the type of
employees they prefer -- women who are docile, cooperative,
and obedient and will work for low wages. There appears to
be a contradiction here, however. It is difficult to
understand on the face of it why patriarchal societies that
have strict rules about the nature and scope of women's
activities (i.e., primarily focused within the family) would
condone as well as encourage the employment of women in
these factories. An underlying objective of this project
was to examine how capitalism and patriarchy work together
in the name of development, specifically defining the areas
in which they compete and cooperate.

Marxist theories of capitalist development, with their
emphasis on economic relations, have tended to neglect the
question of why women are singled out by TNC management as
preferred employees. This preference may rest on the belief
that women possess desirable traits such as timidity,
docility, and deference. These are not directly economic
characteristics. However, one benefit to TNC management of
these characteristics, that women will work for very low
wages, is the primary reason that they are the preferred

employees.

19
One method of attempting to understand the
incorporation of Third World women into the international
division of labor, specifically through their employment in
TNC factories, has been through a debate which attempts to
discover if this form of employment results in the

exploitation of or integration into the international

 

economy of female employees. What follows is an exploration
of this debate and the definition of the terms which are

most relevant to it.

Definitions of Relevant Terms

 

Outside of the Dependency Theory literature, much of
the scholarly writing on women focuses on Third World women
in agricultural and/or domestic work, or women in the
developed world as wage laborers and/or domestic workers. As
a result, the emergence of the integration vs. exploitation
debate has been highly significant. The discussion that
follows defines the concepts that are frequently used in the
women in development literature. These definitions are
offered to provide a basis for understanding these concepts
as they have been used and defined for the purposes of this
project as well as to demonstrate how they fit with the

theoretical frameworks discussed above.

Integration
"Integration" is used in reference to the attempt by

development projects and others to facilitate the

20
incorporation of people and countries into the modern

sectors of the economy. The concept of integration has
evolved out of the applied-oriented work of social

scientists and development specialists and is closely linked
to Modernization Theory. The degree to which a society is
engaged in productive activities related to, or included in,
the global economy is often used as a measure of a country's
"progress". A recognition that women were not included in
development efforts to the same extent as men was first
documented by Boserup (1970; 1975). Efforts to increase
women's involvement in development programs grew out of a
perceived private/public split between men and women.
Women's responsibility for the home and nurturing of family
members resulted in development efforts which sought to
recognize and preserve this role for women. At the same
time, there was an increasing recognition that women's
subordinate status both in the home and in society in
general was a product of women's lack of wage labor
opportunities. It came to be believed that in order for
women to become full partners both at home and in society
they needed to be integrated fully into both the traditional
and modern sectors of the economy. The introduction of
assembly jobs for women in various regions of the Third
World was seen as a great opportunity to increase women's
access to wage labor and as a result their integration into

the "public" realm as well as the formal economy (Elson and

21
Pearson 1981). Women's employment in transnational
factories was considered one method for more fully utilizing
women's productive potential while increasing their economic
and personal well-being (Tiano 1987). "Access to stable
waged employment presumably enhances a woman's self image
and increases her personal autonomy" (Lim 1981, 187; 1983,

83).

Marginalization and Exploitation

In this context, "marginalization" relates to the
concentration of certain workers on the "edge" or "margins"
of the labor market into positions that are systematically
and structurally denied access to power, prestige and higher
levels of wages. Boserup (1970, 1975) was among the first
to identify this phenomenon among Third World women. She
noticed that the erosion of traditional female roles in the
market, on the farm, in industry, and from other aspects of
the development process had resulted in a decline in women's
presence in the economic sectors of various societies.
Marginalization is, in some instances, used interchangeably
with the concept of exploitation. At other times,
supporters of the exploitation argument assume that
marginalization is at least an indicator of the existence of
exploitation in a given economic system.

Marginalization as a theoretical concept suggests that

this phenomenon is an irreversible, structural condition

22
within dependent capitalist development (Beneria 1982). It
is a product of capitalist organization and the use of labor
involving a separation between production (production of
surplus value) and reproduction (production of use value,
including reproduction of the labor force through
childbearing and rearing as well as the nurturing of present
and future wage laborers); a hierarchal structure of the
labor process; a rise of surplus labor and an industrial
reserve; and a mutual accommodation between capitalism and
patriarchy.

There are several by-products of the marginalization
process. They were first seen in developed capitalist
countries around the turn of the century and include the
following: the withdrawal of women from the labor force,
particularly in the early stages of industrialization as a
result of the efforts of male-dominated trade union
movements to "protect" women and children on the job; the
previously active women's labor force reconstituted as a
secondary labor force and concentrated into inferior
positions in occupational hierarchies and sectors of the
economy at low wages; and women's employment destabilized
and casualized as part of their deployment as a reserve
army.

Marginality is a structural phenomenon which results
from imbalances between the labor requirements of the

capitalist sector and the available labor supply. These

23
imbalances are often an effect of the increased
technological dependence of industry and manufacturing and
continued social inequalities which deny access to
technology-based jobs through, for example, inadequate
education and training opportunities. Women have been
particularly affected by this phenomenon and, as a result,
most women are excluded from manufacturing jobs and are
instead absorbed into the informal sector or subsistence
fringe of the economy (Charlton 1984). A similar transition
took place in the developed world during the Industrial
Revolution. It is a product of rural-urban migration, which
is, in turn, a result of decreasing access to land for women
and others in response to the increased concentration of
agricultural landholdings due to increased cash cropping for
export.

Marginalization theorists point to several indicators
of women's exclusion from the benefits of industrialization
and a modernized economy to support this theory. First,
they cite the general global reduction of women's
participation rates in income producing labor. Second, they
demonstrate that women are now concentrated into the
informal and peripheral sectors of the labor market. They
also point to a decline in women's share of capitalist --
wage labor and manufacturing -- employment. Finally, they
cite the growing economic inequality between female and male

workers (Beneria and Sen 1981).

24

This model of economic transition which involves the
concentration of certain people at the bottom of the
industrial employment hierarchy and the marginalization of
peripheral industries at the fringes of the global
industrial "second sector" is believed inadequate by some.
The primary problem cited with this theory is that many of
the terms are inadequately defined and are difficult to
operationalize. The exploitation position, which emerged
out of the more theoretically-oriented branches of social
science and development, may be viewed, in some ways, as an
attempt to overcome some of the limitations of marginali-
zation theory.

One of the essential questions of this debate is
whether or not transnational factory employment exploits
women. In order to determine if this is the case one must
have a clear understanding of what is meant by exploitation.
For the purposes of this project, exploitation is defined in
the traditional Marxian sense as the expropriation of
surplus labor (Vogel 1983). However, there is much evidence
to support the idea that transnational factory employment
has differential effects on women and men. These
differential effects are a product of imperialist capitalism
as it combines with patriarchy. It is important to look
beyond capitalist relationships between employers and
prospective or current female employees. Looking beyond

these economic relationships means observing how patriarchy

25
is used to explolit women's labor; how the income from their
labor is distributed within their families; and the effects
of wage labor employment on their lifestyles. These factors
are important aspects of the nature of the exploitation of
Third World women (Charlton 1984; Dixon, Martinez, and
McCaughan 1985; Mies 1986; and Pena 1980).

The theoretical and conceptual material summarized in
this chapter provides important background material for
understanding how the integration and exploitation
perspectives have attempted to explain and understand the
employment of Third World women in TNC factories. This task

is undertaken in Chapters Three and Four.

CHAPTER THREE
FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS AND METHODOLOGY

Much attention has been paid to the issues of the
impact of imperialist capitalism, through the introduction
of TNC assembly operations, on the economic and social
systems of LDC societies. However, previous efforts have
not developed an analysis that combines the general societal
costs and benefits with the very direct and specific costs
and benefits to women and their families. In general, there
have been two broad traditions in the literature on this
subject. The first tradition emphasizes applied-oriented
research, while the second takes a more theoretical
approach. Applied-oriented research has tended to focus on
benefits to women which accrue from this form of waged labor
and look for indicators that women are being "integrated"
into the formal economic system. On the other hand,
theoretically-oriented research has tended to focus on its
costs, and the ways in which women are "exploited" as a
result of waged labor. However, a significant contribution
to linking these two literatures is provided by Leung
(1985).

In a study of women workers in the newly industrialized
countries of Asia, Leung (1985) provided a skeletal
framework for analyzing the multiple consequences of

development. The goal of Leung's research was to examine

26

27

5 in terms of the

the issue of integration or exploitation
lives and experiences of female industrial workers in the
newly industrializing countries of Asia (Taiwan, South
Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong). In her study, Leung (1985)
examined various family, economic and political factors
which, when combined together, provided a picture of whether
or not female TNC workers are alienated and/or marginalized
or benefitted from this form of employment.

Leung's study operationalized the integration and
exploitation perspectives in terms of the costs and benefits
of TNC factory employment for women. The analysis conducted
in this project adapted her model, using the specific socio-
economic factors cited in her study, while adding others
considered appropriate, to evaluate the conditions of Third
World transnational factory employment. These indicators
are listed in Figure 1 below and have been formulated to
represent the perspective of the more applied-oriented
integrationist researchers.

The indicators described in Figure 1 provided the basis
for assessing the validity of the exploitation and the
integration perspectives. That is, if the data suggested

positive outcomes for the social/familial and employment

factors of female TNC workers in LDCs, then the integration

 

5 Instead of the terms integration and exploitation,
Leung describes these concepts as either beneficial to women
(integration) or as alienating or marginalizing
(exploitation).

FIGURE 1
SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS SUPPORTING THE INTEGRATION PERSPECTIVE

I. Employment
A. Women work as individuals to gain economic
independence.
B. Equal Opportunity exists or all, regardless of sex,
age, or marital status:
1. no discrimination based on sex, age, or marital

status

2. equal access to all types of jobs for men and
women

3. employers are as likely to hire women as men for
all jobs.

C. Existence of equal promotion opportunities.

D. Existence of equal pay for equal work.

E. Equal hours of work for men and women:
1. overtime is voluntary or, if mandatory, is

required equally of male and female employees.

Eu Existence of opportunities to develop meaningful,
transferable technical skills for use to
facilitate either promotion or transfer.

<3.Existence of training programs equally available to
both male and female workers.

ll.No occupational segregation by gender.

1. Presence of labor-related policies including:
1. right to strike

. right to form and join trade unions

. existence of legislated minimum wage standards

. protection from management retaliation against
workers engaged in trade union activities.

2
3
4

II. Social/Familial

A” Erosion of male-centered Confucian and/or
patriarchal ethics which support notions that:
1. women are inferior
2. women are a source of trouble
3. women should be subordinated to men under natural

law.

B. Redistribution of reproductive labor of society and
the family.

(2.1ncreased social freedom for women in:
1. marriage
2. social activities
3. lifestyle choices.

lD.Development of social norms supporting smaller
family size.

E. Existence of free, equal, and compulsory education.

28

29

perspective would be supported. However, if the evidence
was contradictory to these indicators and, in fact,
presented a picture Of continued inequality for women at
home, at work, at school, and in society, then the
exploitation perspective would be supported.

Yet, a third alternative could also be anticipated.
That is, the results could be mixed and support could be
found for both perspectives. Leung's research concluded
that the experience Of female TNC factory workers in Hong
Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan has been
paradoxical. That is, while these workers have been
primarily responsible for the rapid and successful
industrialization of their countries through their diligent
and low-cost employment, they are still regarded as a
secondary labor force and second class citizens in their
countries. This secondary status results in continued
exploitation, not only by their employers, but by society
and their families as well. She concluded that women
workers must recognize both the class and gender
exploitation that is responsible for their secondary status
and that they must organize to challenge their exploitation
as a class and, at the same time, work to form a feminist
movement that directly reflects their concerns as women
dually exploited as workers and as women (1985, 86-87).

Taking Leung's research as a starting point, this

project analyzed 15 case studies to provide an Opportunity

38
for applying the theoretical constructs and indicators
discussed above to the real-life situations faced by female
TNC employees. The indicators discussed above, when applied
to the data contained in these case studies, provided a
critical assessment of the usefulness of the integration and
exploitation perspectives. In addition, this analysis
pointed the way to a clearer and more accurate framework for
assessing the role Of women under imperialist capitalism, as
well as an attempt to replicate the conclusions found by
Leung. Chapters Four and Five present a summary of the

findings of a critical review of the case studies.

Methodology

 

As the intent of this project was to identify and
explore the theoretical frameworks which seek to explain
and understand the participation Of women in transnational
employment through a sample Of relevant case studies,
documentary methods were used to collect the data. A
comprehensive bibliographic search was undertaken to
identify case studies of women in transnational employment
which specifically addressed the circumstances,
characteristics, and conditions of this employment. The
search was undertaken at four libraries (Michigan State
University, the University of Michigan, the State of
Michigan, and the University of Arizona) and included a

detailed search through the card catalogs, review of various

31
social science indexes (i.e., indexes of sociological and
social science journals, Public Affairs Information Service,

The Alternative Press Index, and the Social Science Citation

 

Index). In addition, works cited in footnotes and
bibliographies Of relevant books and articles were sought

out.6

Criteria for Case Selection

The data set was selected on the basis of several
criteria. The final list included 15 articles and books
(see Figure 2 and Appendix). This list evolved from a
determination of whether the various case studies included
in the bibliography were available in the collections of the
libraries listed above and whether or not they could be
Obtained from alternative sources in a timely manner.

The time period of 1976-1989 was selected in that it
provided for more than a decade of analyses that begin at
the time of the first serious foray into the investigation
of women's employment in transnational factories situated in
LDCs (for example, North American Congress on Latin America
1975; Takeo 1977; and Wheaton and Mays 1976) and ends with

the present. In this way it was possible to determine the

 

6 The search process began under the direction of Dr.
Richard Child Hill while I was a student in his Documentary
and Bibliographic Methods course, Spring 1988.

FIGURE 2

GUIDE TO CASE STUDIES

 

Case
Study 9 Country Author
1 Mauritius Hein
2 Mexico Fernandez-
Kelly
3 Mexico Tiano
4 Mexico Tiano
5 Singapore/ Foo & Lim
Malaysia
6 Malaysia Grossman
7 Malaysia/ Heyzer
Singapore
8 Singapore Lim
9 Singapore/ Lin
Malaysia
10 Malaysia McLellan
11 Taiwan Arrigo
12 Taiwan Arrigo
13 Taiwan Diamond
14 Taiwan Gallin
15 Taiwan Kung

32

Title

 

The feminization of
industrial employment in
Mauritius: A case of sex
segregation.

For we are sold, I and my
peeple: Women and industry
in Mexico's frontier.

Maquiladoras in Mexicali:
Integration or exploita-
tion?

Maquiladoras, women's work
and unemployment in Northern
Mexico.

Poverty, ideology, and
women export factory workers
in Asia.

Women's place in the
integrated circuit.

From rural subsistence to
industrial peripheral work
force: An examination of
female Malaysian migrants
and capital accumulation in
Singapore.

Women in the Singapore
economy.

Health, women's work and
industrialisation in the
semi-conductor industry in
Singapore and Malaysia.

Reciprocity or exploitation?
Mothers and daughters in the
changing economy of rural
Malaysia.

Economic and political
control Of workers in
multinational electronics
factories in Taiwan:
Martial law coercion and
world market uncertainty.

The industrial work force of
young women.in Taiwan.

Women and industry in
Taiwan.

Women and export industry in
Taiwan: The muting of class
consciousness.

Factory work and women in
Taiwan: Changes in self-
image and status.

33
nature and extent of the changes that have occurred over the
past decade.

The cases selected also focussed specifically on the
employment Of women in TNC-assembly operations in developing
countries. Most of the cases chosen examine the
electric/electronics industry and/or the apparel/garment
industry.

It was also important that the cases selected were
representative Of the areas Of the developing world with a
significant transnational presence. Southeast Asia and
Mexico were selected as two areas with a varied history of
relations with TNCs. The countries ultimately selected
reflect the amount of existing material on that country as
well as an assessment that they represent an important
aspect Of the LDC-TNC relationship.

Taiwan was selected as representative of a country with
a long history of TNC involvement (dating from the 1960s),
as well as its status as a newly industrializing country
("semi-peripheral" in Dependency or World Systems analyses).
Although technically two separate countries, the history and
economic relations of Singapore and Malaysia are

interrelated.7 The rich body Of literature on this subject

 

7 In 1965, Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian
Federation, and it has been an independent political entity
ever since (Sundaram 1988). However, Singapore is an urban
state, and its lack of an agricultural hinterland, as well
as its common history and ethnic and social connections,
have required that it maintain close economic ties to
Malaysia (Jey Sundrum, personal communication, 4/6/89). As

34
in regard to Singapore and Malaysia made them ideal cases
for inclusion here.

Literature that examined the transnational presence and
its affects on women in Mexico has been comprehensively
explored by several researchers, particularly Susan Tiano
and Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly. In separate studies,
these researchers have reported somewhat contradictory
findings and the "exploitation" vs. "integration" debate is
fairly clearly illustrated in their research. Mexico has
also had a long history of transnational involvement, dating
back to the middle 1960s. Its proximity to the United
States is an important factor in understanding the nature
and impact of this form of industrialization in Mexico. For
example, the effect of TNC employment on illegal immigration
to the U.S. from Mexico is an area of interest for social
scientists in terms of the relative benefits of the presence
of TNCs. Thus, the final list of countries included in this
study is: Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Singapore, and

Taiwan.

 

a result, the research on these two countries necessarily
overlaps and the case studies selected for this project
often reported on the effects of TNC employment on women in
both countries. Further compounding this phenomenon is the
Singaporean practice of recruiting guestworkers from
Malaysia, as well as other places, to meet their labor force
requirements (Heyzer 1982). Therefore, the economic
conditions of one country may have direct implications for
the citizens and the economy of the other.

35

Finally, for purposes of comparison, two additional
criteria were used. Studies by at least two different
researchers were selected so that comparisons of their
observations and conclusions would result in a more
comprehensive picture of the situation. An attempt was also
made to select researchers who looked at U.S.-owned
enterprises in order that comparisons could be consistent
across factories. TNC management practices, while varying
from country to country, generally operate from similar
management principles if they are based in the same
countries. Managers are generally trained in institutions
within that country and Operate from compatible theoretical
and philosophical perspectives. While not a factor in
selecting the cases, it is important to note that data which
provided evidence reflecting the social/familial and
employment factors identified by Leung were present for all
of the countries represented in this study.

This selection process was limited in four important
ways which are based in the literature itself. First, most
of the writings in this area have been either theoretical or
applied in orientation. The theoretical articles rarely
applied their frameworks to an existing example of the
phenomena being conceptualized, while the case studies
generally placed little importance on a theoretical

orientation.

36

Second, limiting the cases to those which were most
readily available may have introduced a certain degree of
bias into the process. It may be that an important aspect
or perspective on this phenomenon has been inadvertently
overlooked because it may be confined to a particular region
and as a result has not been cited in articles or books or
librarians or faculty members were not aware of its
existence and have not ordered it for their libraries or
personal collections.

Third, researchers in their native areas writing in
their native languages (i.e., Spanish, Chinese, etc.) may be
on the forefront of new ways of examining this issue. By
limiting the search to documents in English, important
research may have been overlooked.

Finally, most of the case studies were conducted during
the late 1970s and early 1980s and as a result the
information contained in the documents may be somewhat
dated. This suggests the need for fieldwork to update the
data as the situation has inevitably changed over the last
decade. However, it is believed that these limitations have

had little impact on the overall findings of this project.

CHAPTER FOUR

EMPLOYMENT FINDINGS

The framework for critically reviewing the fifteen case
studies contained in Figure 2 (also see the Appendix)
focussed on two categories of data. For reasons related to
clarity of the presentation, the indicators have been
organized into two general categories. The first category
includes all of the information specifically related to the
employment and economic practices, conditions, and
experiences of the female TNC employees reported in the case
studies. The second category includes the data which
present information describing social relations contained
within the society, community, family and work site.
Included in this section are indicators which define or
illustrate economic relations within a family unit. This
division is consistent with much of the literature related
to women and employment which defines these categories
variously as "separate spheres", private and public sectors
of the economy, and reproductive and productive realms.

Employment and Economic Factors Related to
Integration and Exploitation

 

As explained in Chapter Two, employment and economic
indicators that aid in the assessment of women's position in

the international division of labor focus on the nature of

37

38
women's work. These include: the range of employment
opportunities available to women compared to men, the
constraints on women's ability to work and/or receive
training in the occupations they desire, and, most
importantly, whether or not they receive equal treatment
compared to men in terms of wages, working conditions, and
promotion and transfer. Some of these factors are
legislated by law (i.e., minimum wage laws, health and
safety regulations); others are created through the ability
to join or form independent trade unions (job security and
protection); and others are products of the patriarchal
values, beliefs and traditions of the host society in an
interaction with the attitudes of TNC managers (e.g., jOb
segregation by gender, restrictions on the type of work
and/or the number of hours women are permitted to work per
day). What follows is a summary of the findings from case
study data that describe how the employment practices of
various countries and TNCs fit into the
integration/exploitation framework in terms of the
indicators laid out above. References cited here are listed
either by the author's name or by the number assigned to

each case study as noted in Figure 2 and the Appendix.

The Emergence of Women's Industrial Employment
Women's lack of commitment to the labor force and

society's perceptions about appropriate employment for women

39

leave them at the least skilled end of the labor hierarchy.
In LDCs, women form a flexible potential source of labor
that is attractive to labor-intensive corporations that need
to keep such costs to a minimum. For the reasons cited
above, women generally work for lower wages than men. At
the same time, it is generally believed by TNC managers that
women are more compliant, reliant, and hence, more
productive employees (Hein 1986).

Women began to enter waged employment during the 1960s
in Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico, and Malaysia for both supply
and demand-related reasons (see cases 4, 5, 13, and 15). In
her discussion of the Singapore economy, Lim (1981) reported
that women's labor force participation rate increased as a
result of a government—directed expansion in industrial
production and the financial and service sectors of the
country's economy. On the supply side, Lim pointed to
structural changes in the economy and technological
development which made cultural and biological beliefs about
the types of work that were appropriate for each gender
difficult to justify. For example, the introduction of
machinery and automation made factory work less dependent on
physical strength and, as a result, the notion that women
were not strong enough to hold these jobs lost its relevance
(1981, 5).

Changes in social policy also affected women's

reproductive responsibilities through a "reduction in family

40
size to a 2-3 child family norm [which] limited the time and
effort required for reproductive tasks such as childbearing,
nursing, rearing, and housework" (Lim 1981, 5). Moreover,
increased access to education as well as rising costs,
standards, and aspirations in a modern urban environment
resulted in favorable social attitudes toward female
employment through the need for greater family income (Lim
1981, 5).

The introduction of TNC factories in Malaysia was
shaped by a more specific goal than to increase general
employment, increase the participation of the country in the
international economy, or develop technological skills and
resources. The Malaysian government's efforts at economic
expansion were primarily concerned with increasing the labor
force participation of Malays.8 The use Of TNC employment
to facilitate this resulted in an inadvertent and
disproportionate increase in employment rates for young
Malay women and an accompanying high unemployment rate for
the young Malay males, which remains a concern for the

Malaysian government (McLellan 1985).

 

8 There are three major ethnic groups in Malaysia:
Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Since approximately 1969,
Malays have held majority power in the government and have
used this position to increase the participation of Malays
in industry (primarily the domain.of the Chinese) and in
government, professional and service sector positions which
have historically been dominated by Indians (Sundaram 1988).

41

In Mexico as well, the selection of young women as the
preferred employees of TNC-managers was not a calculated
objective of the Mexican government's Border
Industrialization Program. The purpose of this program was
to provide employment opportunities to male agricultural
workers who had worked under the U.S. government's migrant
guestworker program (Bracero Program) which was terminated
in 1964 (Fernandez-Kelly 1983; and Tiano 1984).

Governments that host TNC assembly Operations are in a
difficult position. They desire the presence of TNCs for
the jobs and other associated benefits they provide. While
the preference for female workers may be problematic for
these governments, they realize that their ability to retain
and attract these operations is dependent on the presence of
a large pool of low-cost, young, female workers. After
nearly thirty years of experience with TNCs, government
officials realize that the corporations will move their
factories to more cooperative countries if it becomes
difficult to maintain favorable employment and production
policies (see cases 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, l0, and 11). Diamond
(1979) pointed to the availability of a pool of
underemployed female workers in Taiwan who will accept
relatively low wages, desire only short-term employment, and
are unlikely to organize and demand higher wages and
seniority benefits, as a key factor in that country's

industrial growth.

42

The perceived lack of commitment of women to the labor
force as well as society's continued perceptions about
appropriate employment for women continue to restrict
women's options to jobs such as teaching, nursing, and
domestic-related jobs including housecleaning, cooking, and
child care. Nursing and teaching require formal training
and, as a result, are available only to those women from
families of relatively high socio-economic status. Families
must be able to afford to send daughters to school as well
as hire domestic servants to do the household work the
daughters would normally do. Domestic jobs tend to pay
little, require hard work under unpleasant conditions, and
generally require workers to live-in (Lim 1981). The
introduction of TNC factory assembly jobs provides a
cleaner, higher paying, and higher status Option for lower
class women who do not want to work as domestics and cannot
acquire the skills necessary to become nurses or teachers.

Tiano (1987) and other researchers indicated that the
women selected for TNC-assembly work were generally not from
the most vulnerable sector of the labor market. Women who
were hired tended to have relatively high educational
attainments and came from established urban families, as
opposed to migrants recently relocated to the city. These
workers form a flexible potential source of labor that is
attractive to labor intensive corporations that need to keep

costs to a minimum. Tiano asserted that this phenomenon is

43
an indication that TNC employment is not exploitative
because it involves a segment of the labor force that is not
necessarily desperate for income and whose incomes have not
previously been required to meet family subsistence needs
(1987, 17).

In support of the exploitation perspective, Kung (1976)
reported that most women who worked in factories were those
with the lowest educational attainments and from poor
families. While education is compulsory in Taiwan, it is
expensive and parents are least likely to continue funding a
daughter's schooling when she could enter the labor market
and become an economic asset rather than a drain on the

family's resources.

Why Women Work

 

Fernandez-Kelly pointed out that contrary to the
ideological belief that women do not need to work, many
women have always had to work to meet their family's needs.
The notion of women as secondary wage earners is an
erroneous, albeit powerful justification and explanation of
discriminatory employment policies toward women (1983, 88).
When added to commonly-held beliefs about the kinds of work
women are capable of performing, employment options for
women become narrowly constrained. At the same time, women
are deeply committed to their families and, as Fernandez-

Kelly (1983) pointed out, they enter the labor force as

44
members of households, not as individuals. The societal and
individual beliefs that women's primary Obligations are to
their families means that they see themselves and are seen
by Others as lacking commitment to the labor force.

Yet, while most female workers reported that their
incomes were needed by their families, Foo and Lim asserted
that "women don't work out of economic need in terms of
absolute poverty or minimum physical subsistence. They work
to improve consumptive standards and to contribute to their
family's upward mobility" (1988, 4). Grossman (1980)
supported this finding: Malaysian women stated that they
worked because their families needed or wanted money.
Factory work was reported by several researchers as
providing Opportunities for young women to exercise and
express personal autonomy through consumer purchases and to
acquire economic independence (see cases 5, 9, l0, l4, and
15). Some women in Malaysia and Singapore claimed that they
would work even if their income was not needed (Foo and Lim
1987). However, rising standards of living and inflation
have made it difficult for most families to survive without
income from female household members (Lin 1986).

In all of the countries examined, women see their work
as temporary. Tiano reported that women are in a vulnerable

position within the labor force. She reasserted

45

Saffiotti's9 belief that because women are taught to view
themselves as wives and mothers, their ambivalence regarding
their roles as "wage workers" makes them willing to enter
and leave the labor force according to management's
requirements (1987, 4). Gallin (1989), and Foo and Lim
(1988) characterized women's lack of commitment to the labor
force as "rational" because their employment Options are
limited to dead-end, low paying jobs that do not offer
realistic alternatives to marriage. In addition, women
usually are expected to marry and are expected to take
primary responsibility for child care. As a result, women
tend to be primarily identified as wives and mothers, which
leads to an underdeveloped proletarian consciousness that
further limits their identification as workers.

These researchers emphasized the double bind that women
experience as homemakers and wage laborers. Women are
believed to belong at home; the few jobs they are able to
get are monotonous and offer no prospects for promotion
and/or self-fulfillment. Consequently, women look for
fulfillment and satisfaction at home or in social
relationships at work. The realization that their jobs hold
few prospects for advancement and self-fulfillment is turned
around by employers who assert that women are not interested

in advancement or responsibility at their jobs. The

 

9 Quoted in Tiano (1984, 362).

46
justification for why women are not interested in more
challenging jobs is that they obtain increased income and
status from male breadwinners in their households. In
addition, women are believed to be unsuited for responsible
positions because they lack initiative, imagination, and
daring (see cases 4, 8, and 14). The roles of women in the
home reflect and reinforce their limited opportunities for
waged labor. The reverse is also true, available employment
opportunities caused them to seek fulfillment outside of the

work place —— in the home and in social relationships.

Acceptance of Women's Wage Labor

In Mauritius, most TNC workers come from agricultural
families. Forty-three percent of such workers reported that
their families opposed their employment. The reluctance of
family members to permit or support the employment of women
in TNCs is cited by Hein (1986) as one reason for a labor
shortage in that country. Moreover, it appears that parents
are more reluctant for their daughters to work in TNC
factories compared to other types of jobs. Hein's research
found that only 29% of workers in other employment sectors
such as teaching, service and domestic work, reported
parental opposition to their waged labor.

In contrast to the high status afforded this form of
work in other countries, most members of Taiwanese society

believe that "factory work carries no status or prestige

47
whatsoever" (Kung 1976, 46). TNC factory workers are

believed to be poorly educated, young and immature, and

exploited and manipulated by factory owners.

Grossman (1980) and McLellan (1985) revealed that
Malaysian parents welcomed their daughters wages, but not
their increased independence. McLellan's research focused
on the relationships between Malay mothers and daughters and
explained how daughters' TNC work brings increased status to
mothers through the high status consumer goods that
daughters' salaries can buy. However, Lin (1986) reported
that families are increasingly accepting decisions made by
daughters in regard to their choices in jobs, marital
partners, as well as in some family financial matters.

In all five countries, parents worried about damage to
their daughters' reputations arising out of their TNC
employment. McLellan (1985) suggested that factory work
meant lowered status for young Malay women. Female factory
workers were believed to risk their virginity and reduce
their marriage opportunities. Other researchers in
Southeast Asia supported this finding and pointed to the
workers' acceptance of western ideas and practices as a
factor in their diminished status (see cases 9, l0, and 13).
Foo and Lim (1988) acknowledged that TNC employees adopt
western styles of dress, values, and standards of beauty,

but also asserted that this was true for most young

48
Southeast Asians and, as a result, this phenomenon could not
be caused by factory work in and of itself.

The belief that prostitution is associated with TNC
work was commonly held in all five countries and was
mentioned as a factor in parental resistance to daughters'
work in TNC factories. However, none of the researchers
were able to offer any concrete evidence that such a

relationship actually existed (see cases 2, 6, and 9).

Female Labor Force Participation

 

Cultural beliefs about whether or not, and where women
should work are key factors in explaining the distribution
and participation of women in the labor force. The
following discussion explores the labor participation rates
of women and the occupational segregation results from
familial and societal beliefs about appropriate work for
women.

Despite an increase in the industrial labor force
participation of women in all five countries between 1970—
1982, the female labor force participation rate, compared to
men, remains low. Women with at least some secondary
education have been identified as having experienced the
greatest increase in these areas. Hein (1986) reported that
in Mauritius, for example, the labor force participation
rate is highest among unmarried workers, aged 20-34 (65%).

In Singapore it is highest (78.4%) among women aged 20—24

49

(Lim 1981). The median age of female electronics workers in

Mexico is 20, and the labor force participation rate among
female workers aged 15-25 is 50% (Fernandez-Kelly 1983; and
Tiano 1984).

Only in Mexico and Mauritius, where the percentage of
female heads of households is high, did women report that
they worked out of financial necessity as a result of the
lack of male support due to death or desertion (Fernandez-
Kelly 1983; and Hein 1986). One reason for the number of
female-headed households in Mexico is the push and pull
factors that encourage males to migrate illegally to the
U.S. Women seek work across the border less frequently as a
result of their reproductive responsibilities, especially
related to child care (Tiano 1984). In Mauritius, the ease
with which Muslim men Obtain divorce was one explanation
offered for the finding that 47.3% of female workers were
separated or divorced (Hein 1986). The instability of
marriage was also reported for Malay Muslims in Malaysia.
However, divorced or separated women were less likely to
work in factories there. Instead, they tended to rely on
agricultural and domestic work, as well as income provided
by daughters' factory work. This may change as the number
of married women who are literate and have experience
working in factories begins to increase (McLellan 1985).

Women also work for non-economic reasons. In all of

the countries studied, women reported that they desired to

50
work to escape boredom at home, to avoid parental control,
and for the Opportunity for social interaction with peers.
However, Hein (1986) reported that, among the Mauritian
women she surveyed, only 23% said they would work after
marriage. While the research in other countries is unclear
in regard to whether or not currently employed single women
desired to continue to work after marriage, data from
Singapore and Taiwan indicated that this is a currently
evolving trend. What is unclear is whether or not married
women in these countries are returning to work is a result
of their preference to do so or a matter of financial
necessity (Lim 1981; and Arrigo 1980).

Evidence from Southeast Asian countries indicated that
young women also work to secure a dowry in order to marry a
man who would provide social mobility; to "pick up a veneer
of big city sophistication and to meet new male friends;" to
delay marriage and childbearing; to lead more independent
social and economic lives; and to broaden their horizons
through new experiences (see cases 2, 5, 9, 13, 14 and 15).
McLellan (1985) revealed that the young women she studied
reported that these social benefits were more of an
inducement to work than the prospect of a cash income.

At the same time, many of the researchers revealed that
a very large segment of adult women remain economically
inactive. That is, they did not engage in any type of wage-

earning activities. Lim (1981) reported that more than two—

51

thirds of the economically inactive population were female
homemakers. Moreover, several researchers asserted that it
was Often difficult to determine the extent of female
economic activity, as women were often became full-time
workers in their households and/or became unpaid workers in
family businesses during times of unemployment and
disappeared from official unemployment records. As
mentioned earlier, estimates of unemployment rates and rates
of economic inactivity for women may underreport the extent

of this phenomenon (see cases 2 and 4).

Job Opportunities for Women

 

Women worked in factories, despite the tedium and
pressure of this type of work, because their secondary
status in the labor market meant that they had fewer choices
when it came to employment opportunities (Fernandez-Kelly
1983). In addition, Lim asserted that "women's employment
opportunities are shaped by cultural stereotypes which say
that women are patient, well-behaved, pay attention to
detail, meticulous, and tolerant of routine, repetitive and
monotonous tasks" (1981, ll). Factory work was associated
with perceived feminine characteristics including: small
hands, manual dexterity, and patience. Garment work, for
example, was perceived to be an extension of traditional
women's work in sewing, tailoring, spinning, weaving, and

knitting (1981, 8). Women were preferred as electronics

52
workers because TNC managers believed that men disliked this
type of work and would not do it (Hein 1986).

The introduction of electronics and other TNC
industries has dramatically expanded the Opportunities for
young women to play independent economic roles, at times
when brothers and fathers were unable to find work (Grossman
1980; and Kung 1976). The creation of industrial jobs in
Mauritius, for example, is primarily responsible for the
increased labor participation rate of women there. Forty-
two percent of the women surveyed in Hein's study claimed
that they had not been seeking employment before they began
their first factory job, and 95% Of the workers were working
their first job at the time of the study (1986, 290).
However, the presence of this opportunity for young women,
as well as the large number of young women seeking work in
all of these countries means that employers can be selective
as to which women they will hire (see cases 2 and 10).

The desirability of this type of work rested on its
high status and relatively comfortable, clean and safe
working conditions. As a result, female employees may be
willing to tolerate the monotony and repetitive nature of
the jobs (Fernandez-Kelly 1983). Lin (1986) further
speculated that the ability of women to tolerate the
monotony and repetition involved in assembly work derived
from the female srotibtwihtre unroaff astos qeiversally

teaches women to be patient and tolerant. On the other

53
hand, women sought work in Taiwan, not because of its high

status, but rather because it was the only waged labor

available to them (Kung 1976).

Factory work was reported to be more desirable compared
to other forms of wage labor, particularly in the service
and agricultural sectors (see cases 1 and 10). Mauritian
women described domestic work as similar to slavery and
dirtier and less interesting than factory work (Hein 1986).
McLellan (1985) reported that the Malaysian women she
studied preferred factory work over fishing or agriculture
because they felt that their educational levels over-
qualified them for such work. In general, electronics work
in TNC-factories was recognized as stable, high status work

that paid regular wages and benefits (see cases 2 and 14).

Distribution of Women in the Labor Force

 

The percentage of all economically active women who
work in the "formal" sector of the economy is small in
comparison to the number of women who work in the informal
sector, for example, as domestic workers and/or unpaid
workers in family businesses (Fernandez—Kelly 1983). The
focus of this project, however, was female industrial
workers and the following discussion is focused on the
distribution of women in the "formal" sector of the economy,

specifically in manufacturing.

54

Occupational segregation of women into specific sectors
of the labor force was reported in all five countries. The
largest percentage of female workers was found in
manufacturing. In 1978, 76% of single working women were
found in the electronics industry (Fernandez-Kelly 1983).
The largest employer of women in Singapore was also the
electronics industry where, in 1980, 90% of all workers were
women (Lim 1981). In 1977, in Taiwan, 65.9% of
manufacturing workers were women, aged 15-19. Export
Processing Zones employed 67,000 workers in Taiwan of whom
85% were women in 1977 (Arrigo 1980). Only in Mexico, among
garment workers, were workers more likely to be married
and/or have children than single (Fernandez-Kelly 1983).

Lin related that “compared to both women's proportion
in the general population and their employment in the
manufacturing sector, the concentration of women in all
branches of the electronics industry is disproportionately
high" in both Singapore and Malaysia (1986, 4). Hein (1986)
reported that women were concentrated into those segments of
the employment market where wages were low. In particular,
women were concentrated in production jobs within the
manufacturing sector and constituted a majority of
production workers. Women's share of the garment industry

was disproportionately high (85%) in Mauritius in 19771“

 

10 For purposes of comparison, it was 76% in Britain
and only 69% in Hong Kong.

55
This was generally attributed to ideological beliefs that
garment making is women's work. However, tailoring and
garment making in Mauritius has traditionally been

considered men's work.

LDC Unemployment and TNCs

Tiano (1984; 1987) and Fernandez-Kelly (1983) suggested
that it was important to acknowledge that the presence of
TNCs was not responsible for unemployment problems at the
Mexican border. Tiano (1984) stated that:

the border suffered from widespread unemployment
before the maguiladora program started. The
existence of the magfiiladora program hasn't caused
unemployment. Rather, the presence of large
masses of unemployed workers led to the
proliferation of maquiladoras (364).

 

 

 

TNC factories were often cited as the most effective way to
increase unemployment and alleviate unemployment problems in
less developed countries (see cases 2, 7, and 10). These
authors pointed out that, while women may in fact experience
unemployment, the official statistics tended to underreport
female unemployment because women were generally reabsorbed
into the household (see cases 2, 4, and 8).

Despite the official concern with male unemployment and
hsa introduction of TNCs as one method of increasing the
eqjcan rf economically active men, male unemployment remains

high. Rather, TNCs provide jobs for women, and Tiano (1984)

 

11 The term "maquiladora" used in this quotation is
the Mexican word for transnational factory.

 

56
and Fernandez-Kelly (1983) both claimed that TNCs may in
fact exacerbate male unemployment by attracting male
migrants to border areas were they are unable to find jobs.
Fernandez-Kelly (1983) reported that unemployment at the
border had increased by 83% since the Border
Industrialization Program began.

In addition, researchers including Fernandez-Kelly
(1983) have been skeptical about the beliefs of government
and TNC officials that this form of work alleviates
unemployment at all. Since TNCs hire non-traditional
members of the labor force -- daughters and wives who
previously did not work for wages, the factories cannot have
a significant effect on the original jobless rate. While
Tiano (1984) agreed with Fernandez-Kelly (1983) that
maquiladoras cannot resolve male unemployment because they
rarely hire men, she asserted that the belief that women
were non-productive was based

on a stereotypical image of women's ideal roles

that bears little resemblance to the real

circumstances of most working class Mexican women.

The myth that only men work outside the home

obscures the very real suffering that un- and

underemployment can cause women who must work to

support themselves and their families (349).

While this may be true for Mexico, it appeared that TNC
managers in Southeast Asia actively recruited the type of
workers that Fernandez-Kelly (1983) described.

Singapore was the only country in this data set that

had an overall low unemployment rate. Even there, however,

57

the female unemployment rate was higher than the male rate

in all categories except those jobs requiring no
qualifications. Male unemployment was reported to be about

3.3%, while the female jobless rate was a slightly higher
3.8% (Lim 1981). The Singapore unemployment rate only
counts Singapore citizens and does not include guestworkers.
Moreover, during periods of low production demand,
guestworkers are repatriated to their home countries. In
this way, the government can disguise the real number of
jobless workers in the country (Heyzer 1982).

It seems that the level of previous work experience of
female TNC workers is a reflection of each country's
economic development. Countries such as Taiwan, Mexico, and
Singapore that have had women working in TNCs since the
1960s may no longer need to recruit inexperienced young
women because an established pool of ready laborers already
exists. On the other hand, newly industrializing countries
such as Malaysia and Mauritius may not have a ready supply
of experienced female workers.

Unemployment was identified as a very real problem for
women in developing countries due to both the effects of
modernization and the patriarchal traditions of LDCs.
Modernization displaces women from traditional roles in
agriculture, handicrafts production, and trade, yet it
generally offers few options in the modern sector (Boserup

1975; and Tiano 1987). For example, despite the presence of

58
TNCs, unemployment rates for women at the Mexican border
were no lower than the national average and were in fact
higher for women over 35 years of age (Tiano 1987). In
Singapore, single women (the preferred TNC-employees)
comprised about 60% of the female labor force, but were 92%
of unemployed females (Lim 1981). Women constituted 34.5%
of the entire Singaporean work force, but were 38% of all
unemployed persons (Lim 1981). These two examples do not
support the assertion that TNC-employment alleviates
unemployment problems, even for those who meet the
factories' rigid criteria for employment. Rather, they
illustrate that, despite the presence of TNC factory jobs,
women are still disadvantaged in the labor force and have
difficulties finding employment.

Patriarchal traditions which provided for differential
education, training, and socialization for boys and girls
also contributed to the problem Of female unemployment (Hein
1986).12

Conflicting family responsibilities, preferential

hiring of men over women, and legal proscriptions
that exclude women from certain occupations

 

12 Unemployment figures, particularly for women, are
often not the most meaningful and accurate method of
determining the level of participation and/or of lack for
participation in the work force. As discussed by Tiano
(1984), previously employed women who are not working for
wages are left out of official unemployment statistics
because they may not be actively seeking employment and are
working within the household or as unpaid workers in family
enterprises.

59

combine to limit women's employment options (Tiano
1984, 350).

While TNC employment may be the preferred work for women in
these countries, most women continued to work in the
informal sector and.as unpaid workers in family businesses.
These types of jobs tend to be insecure and provide
unreliable incomes (Tiano 1984).

Researchers in all of the countries examined reported
that turnover in TNC factories was quite high and that TNC
employment may not be as secure as it seems. Tiano (1987)
reported that 50% of garment workers had been at the job for
less than six months at the time Of her study. Turnover for
electronics workers was reported at 39%, while it was 27%
for service sector workers. At the same time, only 24% of
service workers had been at their present jobs for four or
more years. For garment and electronics workers, the
percentages were 21% and 17%, respectively. Only 29% of
electronics workers had worked at their jobs for more than
eight years. In addition, Tiano (1987) reported that 80% of

electronics workers reported regular layoffs during the
fall. The data from other manufacturing sectors included a
much lower incidence of plant shut-downs and/or layoffs
(Tiano 1987, 21). However, the researcher acknowledged that

her data were based on self—reports and that she was

uncertain of their reliability.

60

Arrigo (1980) claimed that turnoverl3 at Taiwan-based
TNCs was about 5-10% and was seasonal. Her data indicated
that turnover was rarely less than 5% per month and was
often as high as 15%. Kung indicated that turnover was also
a function of individual workers' experience:

The turnover rate in the first two weeks following

entry into a factory is consistently and

extraordinarily high. ... In contrast, the

adjustment of women who have been working a number

of years is far smoother: the cumulative effect

of experience in other jobs is reflected in

greater self-confidence which enables such women

to assess a factory within a matter of days and to

decide then whether they wish to remain (1976,

40).
Data for Singapore, Malaysia, and Mauritius were not
presented. However, there was an indication that the low
paying, low skill, low mobility nature of these jobs, as
well as the eyestrain and tedium resulting from microscope
and shift work resulted in high turnover at electronics TNCs
in these countries (see cases 1, 7, and 9). Turnover in all
five countries was controlled to some degree through the
awarding of performance "bonuses". "Bonuses" were forfeited
if workers left their jobs before the completion of the

fiscal year, thus tending to limit mid-year resignations by

factory operatives (see cases 8, 9, l0, and 12).

 

13 While the large number of workers reporting short
lengths of employment at their current jobs may in some
cases be a reflection of growth in the number of available
positions, the research reported in this study reflect
actual turnover.

Discrimination Based on Gender; Age and Marital Status
Discrimination against workers on the basis of gender,

age, and/or marital status was characterized as common in
the five countries studied. For example, TNC managers
believed that young, single women, because of their lack of
experience, were more conscientious, productive and
malleable workers and, as a result, were the preferred
employees in assembly operations (see cases 1, 2, 4, 9, and
10). "Women's socialization results in behavior,
expectations and attitudes, relative youth and subordinate
positions in the household mean that women are a highly
vulnerable, docile and manipulatable work force“ (Fernandez-
Kelly 1983, 72). The belief that women are working
temporarily between school and marriage means that they will
be less committed to the labor force and will not demand or
accrue seniority benefits which increase costs to employers
(see cases 1, 8, and 12).

Single women were preferred over married women because
of ideological beliefs about abilities and responsibilities
of women to their families (Lin 1986). TNC—managers
attempted to achieve two potentially conflicting objectives.
First, they desired the least expensive and most cooperative
labor force, and were committed to the belief that the ideal
labor force would be composed of women. Second, they needed
to gain the cooperation of the host country's citizens in

order to create the labor force and have successful and

61

62
profitable factories. In order to do this they needed to
respect the cultural traditions and ideological beliefs of
the host country, including the role of women, especially
within the family. Employers recognized that in most
countries married wOmen were socialized to put their
obligations to their families first. Employing married
women could threaten the traditional family and reSult in
resentment directed against the factories, making their
efforts to create and maintain a female labor force
difficult (see cases 4, 8, and 12). In addition, managers
expressed a belief that mothers would have higher rates of
lateness and absenteeism as a result Of illnesses among
children as well as reduced productivity due to worry and
concern over family matters (see cases 4, 5, 7 and 9).
While this belief has remained consistent over time,

statistics gathered in Mexico and Mauritius where a large

number of single and married mothers work, indicate that
there is no significant difference in absenteeism or
lateness between female parents and non-parents or between
the rates of female parents and single or married men
(Fernandez-Kelly 1983; and Hein 1986). In fact, Hein
reported that in Mauritius some TNC employers expressed a
preference for married women and single mothers as workers
because they believed that these women would be more
conscientious employees since they had a greater

responsibility to provide for their families.

63

The belief that women's familial obligations, whether
married or single, are factors in their employability,
potential productivity, and commitment to the labor force,
meant that women were hired into the most poorly
remunerated, insecure and deskilled jobs in manufacturing.
At the same time, the resultant segregated work force
strengthened stereotypes about what women were capable of,
and in turn these stereotypes become a rationalization for

maintaining sex segregation in the work force (Tiano 1984).
Thus, women were trapped in poorly paid positions and had
little Opportunity to move into supervisory and managerial
positions (see cases 5 and 10).

It was not clear whether employers had a conscious
policy of screening out older, married workers in, for
example, Malaysia and Singapore (Lin 1986). However, in
Taiwan, factory owners refused to hire married women or
permit women to work after marriage (Arrigo 1980; and
Diamond 1979). Managers in all sectors of manufacturing
expressed a preference for young, single women as employees
in Mexico. However, the electronics TNCs which held the
highest status were most able to select these preferred
workers. Garment manufacturers, with greater needs for
experienced workers, high production quotas, and less safe
working conditions tended to employ older, married workers,
even though they also expressed a preference for young,

single women (see cases 2, 3, and 4). However, researchers

64

in Mexico reported that it has become increasingly difficult
to fill even the preferred assembly jobs with young, single
women since the number of factories continues to increase.
In addition, the percentage of young workers in the
available labor poor has been shrinking as the initial
cohort of young workers begins to age and remains in the
labor market, enabling younger siblings to continue in
school or remain at home (see cases 2, 3, and 4).

Similarly, when the expansion of factories in Mauritius
resulted in an acute shortage of prospective female
employees, factory managers did not turn to the large pool
of unemployed men in the country. Instead, they
decentralized production, moving into areas with available
female labor supplies. In an effort to attract previously
non-working young women into available positions, TNC
managers recruited door-to-door as well as used religious
leaders and local dignitaries to make openings known to the
community and to encourage their supporters to permit
daughters to go to work in the factories. Wages also
increased, working conditions were improved, and employees
were given bonuses if they brought in family members and
friends as workers (Hein 1986).

The increased demand for employees as a result of the
rapid expansion of factories has made it possible for women
in Singapore, Mexico and Taiwan to remain in and/or return

to the labor force after marriage and childbirth. As a

65
result, discrimination on the basis of marital status
appears to be diminishing. The experience of wage labor for
women during their single years resulted in feelings of
isolation when they stayed at home during marriage and/or
childbirth. In addition, they believed that their families
benefitted from, or needed the income that their return to

work would provide (see cases 2, 7, 8, 12, and 15).

Wages and Working Conditions in TNC Factories

The existence of legislated minimum wage standards is
one important indicator of a government's commitment to its
country's workers. Where minimum wage standards exist, a
guaranteed minimum standard of living for most workers is
theoretically present. The absence of minimum wage
standards indicates a lack of commitment on the part of the
government to ensure that workers are afforded wages that at
least meet subsistence needs. However, minimum wage
standards in the countries studied, where they existed, were
set at very low levels. In Mauritius, for example, the
legislated minimum wage for women provided that women be
paid about 57% of the median earnings of men over 18 years
of age (Hein 1986). Mexico's minimum wage functions as both

the ceiling and floor for female maquiladora workers with

 

experience, since these workers seldom earned more than the
legislated minimum. A separate wage standard or "training

wage" for newly-hired TNC workers in Mexico permits the

66
companies to pay workers below the minimum wage for up to 90
days, although it was reported that, in Taiwan, most workers
earned more than the minimum (see cases 2, 3, 4, and 14).

Lin (1986) reported that there is no legislated minimum
wage in Malaysia. However, Grossman (1980) stated that TNC-
managers paid trainees less than minimum wage for up to 6
months, while at the same time they acknowledged that it
only took about two weeks to learn any assembly job in their
factories.

Most of the researchers reported that women earned less
than the minimum wage as a result of piece rate and "bonus-
oriented" pay scales in countries where minimum wage
standards existed. For example, Tiano (1987) found that
only 47% of electronics workers employed more than 18 months
received at least the minimum wage. The remaining workers
(53%) earned less than the minimum wage (23%).

The concept of "equal pay for equal work" is legally
recognized in Taiwan only, although women there were found
to earn only about 62% of men's wages14 (Gallin 1939), It
was a common practice in all of these countries for women to
earn lower wages than men in all Occupational categories.

This was justified by the ideological belief that women are

 

14 This is on par with gender-based wage differentials
reported for the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, and Australia
(Ratner, R. S. 1980. "The policy problem: Overview of
seven countries." In R. S. Ratner (ed.), Equal employment
policy for women. Philadelphia: Temple University Press).

67
secondary wage earners who are supported by husbands and
fathers, as well as the belief that women are temporary“
members of the work force. Fernandez-Kelly (1983) asserted

that "maquiladora work is cheap because it is predominantly

 

done by women, not because of some objective attribute that
makes it inherently inferior" (85). The continued presence
of TNC assembly operations is dependent on the legitimacy
afforded to the notion that women can be paid low wages
since labor costs are often the margin between success and
failure in the competitive electronics industry.

It was reported that in all countries represented in
the data set that the wages earned by female TNC workers did
not meet subsistence needs nor provide for independence from
men (see cases 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 12). Hein (1986) pointed
to the fact that many TNC workers in Mauritius suffered from
anemia and malnutrition as evidence to support this finding.
Female workers in Malaysia were shown to be subsidized by
their families during their first one to two years of
assembly work (Grossman 1980). McLellan (1985) indicated
that some TNC managers in Malaysia encouraged their workers
to continue living in villages with their families and
commute to work because the managers understood that the
women's wages were inadequate to support them independently.
"Free" bus transportation between villages and factories
were provided to facilitate this possibility and resulted in

lower real wages for workers. Workers were paid less per

68
hour in order for the factory to meet transportation
expenses.

The majority of women in all five countries were found
at the bottom of the wage scale. Lim (1981) reported that
in Singapore 67.8% of female workers earned less than $400
per month, while this was true for only 40.6% of male
workers. In addition, Heyzer (1982) found that in 1974, 81%
of female manufacturing workers in Singapore earned less
than $200 per monthcls Lin (1986) reported that female
operatives' pay was lower than the average manufacturing
pay. She found that women in Singapore and Malaysia
manufacturing jobs earned an average of U.S.$90 per month.
Kung (1976) indicated that in 1971 a female factory worker
with ten years experience earned the equivalent of U.S.$57
per month.

Management's practice of providing performance
"bonuses" so that TNC employees could increase their wages

was found by most researchers (see cases 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, l0,

 

15 The difference in these figures can be attributed
to the specific women studied by each researcher. In her
studies, Lim primarily examined the lives of native
Singaporean women, whereas Heyzer studied female migrant
workers from Malaysia. While most women work at less
desirable jobs and earn lower wages than men, this can be
exacerbated by ethnic differences, as well as citizenship
status (John D'Cruz, personal communication, 3/12/89).
Fifteen percent Of the total work force in Singapore is
comprised of young Malaysian Chinese women recruited to
perform menial electronics and garment work. During the
1970s recruitment efforts were extended to include young
women from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Thailand
(Lin 1986).

69

12, and 13). Bonuses were paid to women for working at

microscopes, working shifts, working mandatory overtime
during periods of high demand, meeting quality and quantity
targets, and for perfect attendance and punctuality.
Bonuses, however, could be forfeited by being late, absent,
not meeting production quotas, and leaving the job before
the end of the fiscal year (Lin 1986). Bonuses can comprise
a large portion of total wages. For example, in Taiwan,
bonuses were reported to equal up to 20% of total wages
(Arrigo 1980). The relative strictness with which bonuses
were treated was depicted as being dependent on the level of
production and the demand for increased productivity
(McLellan 1985). For example, if a given factory had a
large number of orders to fill and needed all of the
experienced workers they had to meet this demand,
supervisors were more likely to overlook employees' lateness
and/or absenteeism (Grossman 1980).

Historically, unions have been the most effective way
of improving the wages and working conditions of factory
workers. However, few workers in the selected countries
were organized. The largest percentage (24%) of organized
female TNC workers was found in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
(Fernandez-Kelly 1983). Legal prohibitions, the lack of
autonomy of existent unions, as well as traditional patterns
of female socialization were all recognized as obstacles to

the organization of these workers. In addition, Leung

70
(1985) reported that union leaders retained male
chauvinistic attitudes and were reluctant to share
leadership with women. Moreover, Arrigo (1985)
characterized unions as being controlled by the Taiwan
state. Unions must be registered with the government and
incorporated under national central party-organized
organizations of the same topic. If a union does not
register with the government, it will be deemed illegal and
potentially seditious. In Mexico, unions were described as
an effective tool in labor-management interactions because
unions generally cooperated with and understood management's
positions (Fernandez-Kelly 1983).

Researchers have found that governments have adopted a
paternalistic attitude whereby they assert that workers are
too unsophisticated to participate in unions. The
governments believe that they are best suited to negotiate
for workers with factory management. For example, in
Malaysia the government argues that at the present state of
industrial development workers would only be manipulated by
trade union leaders, which would be contrary to workers' and
the state's interests (McLellan 1985, 8). Governments,
however, cannot objectively represent the interests of
workers as they must also represent the interests of local
capital and facilitate the country's incorporation into the
international economy. Recognition of the actual economic

role that women play in this process would expose the

71
injustice of their low wages, low job status, unequal
promotion opportunities, lack of skills training and job
security and underrepresentation in unions, thus putting
other objectives at.risk (Leung 1985, 86).

In Malaysia, the existence of trade unions in
"essential" industries (including TNCs) is prohibited by law
(Grossman 1980). In Taiwan and Singapore, all unions are
under the control of the government and there is little rank
and file participation. In fact, elected union officials
usually hold management positions within the factories and,
as a result, unions support management policies (see cases
7, 8, 11, and 14).

In Mexico, where unions have the most autonomy,

maquiladora workers reported being frustrated by the

 

organizations' unwillingness to place women's issues on
their agendas, the unions' consistent support of pro-
management, pro-government policies and TNC-management
objectives, and a history of union corruption (Fernandez-
Kelly 1983).

In Taiwan, the ability of corporations to have workers
work overtime, for women to work past 10 PM, and to override
required paid sick and vacation leaves are dependent on
Obtaining union permission. As a result, the Taiwanese
government encourages TNC-managers to establish unions at
their plants. The union then becomes a tool for both

management and the government to extract concessions from

72
workers (management) and from corporations (government)
(Arrigo 1985).

Strikes in essential industries are illegal in Taiwan
and Malaysia, so unions have few tools to bargain with (see
cases 6 and 11). Moreover, attempts to organize TNC workers
in all five countries generally resulted in the firing

and/or arrest of union organizers (see cases 2, 9, and 11).

TNC Work Hours

 

The legislated length of the work week in Taiwan is 48
hours. However, the government reported that 43% of female
industrial workers work between 49-56 hours per week, and
15% work more than 57 hours per week (Diamond 1979).16
Workers in most TNC factories were assigned a specific
shift. They were not required to rotate shifts as were
factory workers in the other countries. Compulsory overtime
was a requirement for workers in many factories, and some
countries that previously restricted women's night work have
amended such legislation to permit night work for women who
work TNC factories (see cases 1, 5, 7, and 15).

In Singapore and Malaysia, the work week varied by
location and business demand. Assembly workers in most

factories were required to work rotating shifts. Workers

suggested to researchers that rotating shifts have negative

 

16 Comparable data for hours worked by men were
unfortunately not presented in the case studies.

73
effects on their health. Physical complaints related to
shift work reported by study respondents included:
disruptions in sleeping and eating habits, family
responsibilities and social activities. Rotating shifts
were also reported to be the job requirement most likely to
result in worker dissatisfaction (Lin 1986). Data for
Mexico and Mauritius were not reported in the case studies
used in this analysis.

The lack of control over and dissatisfaction with
factors such as overtime, shift work, and the length of the
work week present a picture that supports the exploitation
perspective. While many factory workers, male or female,
have little control over the aspects Of the terms and
requirements of their employment, the socialization of men
which encourages and rewards assertiveness and taking
control of their lives, as well as union representation
tends to mediate undesirable working conditions. Thus,
because women do not have the skills and support to protest
undesirable labor practices, they are more likely to be

exploited by them.

TNC Management and Supervisory Strategies

Management techniques used to supervise female
employees were reported to differ from those used to
supervise male employees (see cases 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, l0, and

12). Patriarchal ideology, including paternalism, was

74
described as influencing relationships between workers and
supervisors, since most supervisors were men (see cases 2
and 10). In Southeast Asia, village heads, fathers and
husbands were used to recruit female workers. Factory
managers promoted the idea that male managers had the best
interests of the young women at heart and promised ,
responsible village and family males that the women would be
closely supervised and protected from experiences which
might threaten their attachment to traditional values (see
cases 7, 9, l0, and 12).

Techniques for controlling female workers often
exploited female vulnerability, inexperience, and
traditional patterns of female-male interactions, including
romance and sexual activity. Fernandez-Kelly (1983)
reported that sexual harassment was common in TNC factories
and that sexual favors were sometimes provided, as required,
in exchange for job security. In addition, the "casting
couch", or the trading of sex for work, was one method used
byTNC managers to provide access to factory jobs.

Young women's inexperience in female-male
relationships, especially in Southeast Asia, made them
vulnerable to exploitative entanglements with supervisors.
In Malaysia, supervisors acted like "elder brothers", thus
reproducing the patriarchal features of Southeast Asian
societies which demand that sisters Obey their brothers

(McLellan 1985).

75

Grossman (1980) described management practices in
Malaysia that combined authoritarian and paternalistic
discipline with sophisticated human relations techniques in
order to encourage the continued passivity, submissivity,
sentimentality and sexual desirability of female workers.
The "emphasis on passive and ornamental femininity
forestall[ed] the rise in a sense of independence and united
strength among women workers" (30). The result was
identification with the factory, low turnover, and
competition between female workers which prevented organized
and unified protests against inadequate wages and working
conditions. These techniques all functioned to ensure the
docility and efficiency of female workers on the job (see

cases 2, 6, 8, 9, and 10).

Opportunities for Promotion

Even where women were interested in advancement and
promotion, the sex segregation of occupations usually
restricted them to jobs where such opportunities did not
exist (Hein 1986). That is, women in all of the countries
examined were disproportionately represented in
manufacturing jobs, particularly in the least skilled
assembly jobs in transnational electronics and garment
factories. Lim (1981) reported that occupational
segregation is lower in Singapore than in the U.S. Less

than one-third of all factory operatives in the U.S. are

76

women, while the proportion for Singapore is one-half.
However, she did not provide data which would enable a
comparison between promotion rates for the percentage of
female supervisors in either country. There may be more
women who work in factories in Singapore compared to the
U.S., but there is no way of knowing whether or not women in
Singapore have better or worse chances for promotion.
Heyzer (1982) sheds some light on this issue by reporting
that female operatives, especially guestworkers, were
disproportionately represented in the least desirable
positions within these industries in Singapore. Tiano
(1987) found that female electronics workers in Mexico
believed that their assembly jobs were unlikely routes to
upward mobility or to better paying industrial occupations.
The women interviewed claimed that the kinds of jobs they
held in the factories did not produce useful skills for
other types of work due to their repetitive and deskilled
nature. These women also recognized that skilled and semi—
skilled jobs were reserved for men (24). However, unlike
electronics workers, more than 59.6% of garment workers
believed that they had acquired skills that would advance
their careers (25).

In Singapore and Malaysia, promotions were reportedly
difficult to obtain because operators in these countries, as
in Mexico, did not acquire new skills. In addition,

supervisory jobs were generally filled from outside the

77
factory by men with more education than the women employed
as operatives had (see cases 6 and 9). Moreover, promotion
opportunities in Singapore were greater for Singaporean
citizens than for foreign guestworkers (Heyzer 1982). In
contrast to Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico, 32% of Taiwanese
workers in export processing zones reported attending school
in order to develop career advancing skills including
sewing, accounting, and foreign languages. This unique
possibility was considered to be a product of factory
organization which operated on set shifts. The opportunity
to attend school to develop marketable skills was
additionally characterized as one method of recruiting and
retaining workers in Taiwanese factories (Arrigo 1980; and
Diamond 1979). However, Kung (1976) reported that
Opportunities for promotion into preferred office jobs in
factories in Taiwan had diminished, leaving few
opportunities for women to utilize the skills they had

acquired through school.

TNC Worker Satisfaction

 

Except in Mauritius where 56% of the workers claimed
they were very satisfied with their jobs, female electronics
workers generally found their work unrewarding (1, 4, and
9). The most frequent complaints about their jobs focused
on physical ailments, including fatigue and health problems,

rotating shifts and unrealistic production targets set by

78

management. In addition, workers were generally
dissatisfied with their wages, but felt powerless to
complain because they knew they had little job security and
there was much competition for their jobs (Hein 1986; and
Tiano 1984). For example, only 15% of female workers in
Taiwan indicated that they would continue at the same job if
they had other choices (Diamond 1979). Kung reported that
there "is little job satisfaction to be derived from factory
work" (1976, 46). In Malaysia, young female factory workers
would prefer to work in supermarkets, Offices, for the
police, army, or government than at their present jobs
(McLellan 1985). Job dissatisfaction in Taiwan was
expressed in terms of interpersonal relationships, not class
or political issues. That is, when Taiwanese factOry
workers became frustrated or dissatisfied with the
conditions of their employment they did not place the blame
on inadequate wages or unfair working conditions. Instead,
they complained of difficulty in getting along with
supervisors, co-workers, or family members (Arrigo 1985).

The Singaporean government has begun to address some of
the TNC workers' complaints, especially in the area of
health and safety. Factories have introduced biological and
environmental monitors in order to assess workers' exposure
to hazards (Lin 1986). However, existing regulations in
Singapore, as well as other countries, tend to be structural

and/or process oriented. They do not set standards, rather

79

they establish the composition and frequency of company
safety meetings (see cases 3 and 9). For example, Heyzer
(1982) summarized the results of a survey of factory workers
set up with financial and technical assistance from the
government of Singapore. Eighty-five percent of the
surveyed factories were found to be 'unsafe and unhealthy'
to workers (185). In Malaysia, the government has been
reluctant to intervene in factory management as they do not
want to risk alienating foreign investment (Grossman 1980).

Dissatisfied workers were reported to "vote with their
feet" (Arrigo 1985). McLellan (1985) stated that "factory
hopping is common, as is withdrawal to the kampong [village]
to 'rest' during feast preparations, padi [rice] harvests or
work problems" (5). In addition, cases of mass hysteria in
TNC factories which halt production have been identified as
one method through which workers have expressed
dissatisfaction and exercised control over the production

process (see cases 7, 9, and 10).

Summary

Thus far, female factory workers attitudes toward their
employment and economic circumstances have been explored to
determine whether the integration or exploitation
perspectives could be supported. Factory jobs have, to some
degree, increased women's independence from their families

and led to control over some of their earnings, make

80
consumer decisions and, in some cases, further their
education. It was also seen that women's employment has led
to a decrease in arranged marriage, later age at marriage,
and smaller family size. The presence of these factors
lends support to the integration perspective.

However, significant evidence to support the
exploitation perspective was also found. Women's continued
secondary status in the labor force, occupational
segregation, low wages, lack of union representation, unsafe
and unhealthy working conditions, limited Opportunities for
jobs other than in assembly operations, and limited chances
for promotion all point to exploitation of female workers.
In addition, the maintenance of traditional values has led
to a "double burden" of household and waged labor for women
so that women were expected to meet their obligations to
their family at the same time that they work long hours for
low pay in factories.

At the same time, the evidence did not always clearly
supprnh athsan hsa integration or exploitation perspectives,
and a mixed picture emerged. In somecountries, waged labor
has brought working women more authority in the family,
while in others women remain excluded from family decision
making. The reprnhal increase in female-headed households
in several countries implied that women's waged labor may be
leading tr increased independence or it may instead be a

sign that waged labor is placing stress on households.

81
While some women have control of their income, most women
indicated that their wages were turned over to fathers or
mothers and their control was limited to the small amount a
parent returned to the worker to meet weekly expenses.
Moreover, while it has become relatively easy for single
women to find waged work, the same is not true for married
women who are constrained by society's perception that they
are inefficient workers due to their familial obligations.
The following chapter summarizes support for the integration
and exploitation perspectives specifically related to the

social and familial experiences of female TNC workers.

CHAPTER FIVE

INTRA-FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS

 

The nearly universal belief that men are the primary
breadwinners of families and that women, if they work, do so
only to supplement the incomes of their male family members
has important repercussions for the involvement of women in
waged labor, as well as its study. Norms and values of the
family and the roles family members play are based in
patriarchal ideologies. A key element of these ideologies
is the biological fact that women bear children and lactate.
From this biological fact, women are believed to be innately
suited to the home and to the labor and skills necessary for
its maintenance (Boserup 1975; and Hartmann 1981). While
TNC workers may idealize a life that varies little'from that
of their parents, in that they desired to marry and have
children, the increasing phenomenon of daughters employed by
TNCs may be particularly problematic within the context of
the family.

Modernization theorists have asserted that women's
integration into wage labor would have a dramatic effect on
the patriarchal control exercised over women within their
families. One concrete example, predicted by these
theorists, is the emergence of a more equitable division of
household labor. That is, women's cash incomes would

increase their status in the family and enable them to

82

83
become more assertive within the household. The research
examined in this project, however, does not in general

support this assertion.

Characteristics of Female TNC Workers' Households of Origin

 

The families and households of origin of female TNC
workers in all of the countries in the data set shared some
important characteristics. In Mauritius, Mexico, Taiwan,
and Singapore, for example, TNC employees tended to come
from families where the male members of the household were
unskilled laborers (see cases 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8). In

Mexico, male members of maquiladora households held jobs

 

such as: unskilled construction and general laborers, petty
clerks and street vendors (Fernandez-Kelly 1983). “In
Mauritius, male household members worked as skilled and
unskilled manual laborers and as agricultural workers. None
of the TNC workers in Hein's study indicated that their
fathers were white collar workers.

In Taiwan, two-thirds of TNC workers were from
agricultural and fishing families (Diamond 1979). However,
while their fathers continued in these lines of work, over
45% of female Taiwanese factory workers had brothers who
were in senior high school, attending college or university,
or technical school. Twenty-two percent of the sample had
brothers who were white collar workers or highly skilled

factory workers. Only 10% of the brothers took over their

84
father's work. At the same time, 55% of these young women
had sisters who worked as they did, in factories, or at home
or in farm work. The fact that their brothers were able to
pursue educational and vocational training, and ultimately
obtain skilled or white collar jobs was attributed to the
economic contributions made by working sisters (see cases 12
and 13).

In all five countries, fathers generally held authority
and made decisions regarding family life. They also imposed
discipline on wives and children. Mothers, as part of their
duties as managers of households, received daughters'
earnings and decided, within the limits of the authority
vested in them by husbands, where and how these funds would

d

be used (see cases 1, 2, 6, 9, l0, and 12).

Division of Household Labor

The household division of labor is strongly entrenched
in traditional values and is slow to change (Lin 1986).
Fernandez-Kelly (1983) observed that, while the material
realities in women's and men's lives have been modified by
the Border Industrialization Program, expectations and norms
related to gender roles remain untouched (137). For all
countries in the data set, researchers reported that women
wanted to meet and marry men who would support them and
believed that marriage would bring security and upward

mobility (see cases 2 and 14). A woman's status, especially

85
in the Southeast Asian countries, was found to be enhanced,
not by having a job, but by marrying and having children
(see cases 8, 9, 12, and 15).

In Mexico and Singapore, researchers reported that as
women work more hours for wages there was no accompanying
decrease in responsibility for domestic duties (Fernandez-
Kelly 1983; and Lim 1981). Fernandez-Kelly (1983)
established that married women with young children worked an
average of 15 hours per day. While single women worked
significantly less (about 11 hours per day), domestic tasks
continued to be exclusively performed by the household's
female members. Fathers, brothers and sons in Malaysia and
Mexico, even if unemployed, did not engage in household
labor traditionally performed by women (Fernandez-Kelly
1983; and McLellan 1985). Women continued to be responsible
for the lion's share of household labor, without assistance
from men or machines. For example, less than one-half of
TNC workers in Mexico and Malaysia owned washing machines or
other labor-saving devices. Except for about 16% Of TNC-
workers who had hired help, Mexican women continued to do
the household's laundry on washboards (Fernandez-Kelly

1983).

Economic Contributions of Mothers and Daughters

 

Fernandez-Kelly (1983), Diamond (1979) and McLellan

(1985) reported that women's waged work was an extension of

86
their family duties. Women worked, not as individuals, but
as members of households. McLellan (1985) reported that
periods of unemployment, daughters laid off from the factory
would return home. 'It was asserted that peasant households
"can sometimes support workers who are laid off for short
periods because life . . . in the village is cheap, whereas
everything in town must be paid for in cash" (9). However,
Tiano (1984) and others believed that ultimately the
instability of TNC work may strain families' economic
resources. Moreover, the resultant increased economic
independence of female workers may make the goal Of stable
families unrealistic if daughters either refuse to return
home during lay-offs and/or slow down or stop their
remittances home (McLellan 1985).

Foo and Lim (1988) disagreed with the idea that young
women work as household members. They alone believed that
it was the women, not their families, who decided to work in
TNCs and that this decision was made even when families did

not need their prospective incomes. However, Heyzer (1982)

87
reported that guestworkers in Singapore from the Chinese

17

“New Villages" of Malaysia came from families

governed by the three rules of Confucianism: an

unmarried girl should obey her father and elder

brother; a married woman her husband; a widow her

son. Obedience, timidity and adaptability are the

main virtues for women (191).
The threat of land seizure (because New Village settlers are
leaseholders and do not own their land), the continued
reduction in landholding size, and increased rural poverty
resulted in the migration of young able-bodied men to tin
mines and urban areas. The New Villages were primarily
inhabited by elders, young women and children. In the Malay
kampongs (rural villages), heads of households were least
likely to migrate in search of employment because of their
responsibility for farming the land. In both the New
Villages and kampongs, young women were the least likely to
be missed in terms of their productive labor. As a result,
they were most likely to be sent to work at TNC factories in

both Singapore and Malaysia. The result was both an

additional wage laborer (and the associated income) for the

 

17 The "New Villages" were created by the British
Military Administration in the early 1950s to deny the
Communist guerrillas an important base and source of
supplies and intelligence. About 65,000 people, mainly of
Chinese ethnic origin, were rounded up and settled into
about 600 "New villages" situated on part of Malay
reservation land. Malay sultans made the resettlement of
the rural Chinese conditional on the offer of temporary
occupation licenses which meant that when the guerilla
problem was solved, the resettled Chinese had to move out of
these areas. However, the New Village remain to this day
(Heyzer 1982, 180—181).

88
family and one less mouth to feed at home (see cases 7 and
10).

Daughters in all of the Southeast Asian countries
believed that they were obligated to repay their families
for the costs of rearing them. The availability of TNC
employment has, in fact, served to increase the economic
value of daughters in these areas. Diamond (1979) reported
that "young girls [in Taiwan] have more visible value to
families. Daughters are no longer useless, they can earn
wages while brothers are students, soldiers, and unpaid
craft apprentices" (318). Kung (1976) supported this
finding and added that a daughter's obligation to contribute
to family income was considered to be natural and d
legitimate. This feeling, however, seemed to be more
strongly supported in women who were unable to complete
school due to inadequate family support. McLellan (1985)
suggested that employment in free trade zones in Malaysia
was directed toward "socially useless and invisible virgin
girls" who were now able to help support households with
cash contributions. In poor families, remittances from
daughters were essential to the families maintenance, and in
wealthy families they were expected as a token of respect
and honor. Girls who did not support their mothers ran the
risk of shaming them, because it was believed that only
daughters who were improperly raised would behave so

irresponsibly (10—11).

89

FOO and Lim (1988) characterized the tradition of
daughters sending remittances as a "rational" way of
guaranteeing financial and emotional security in places such
as Malaysia, Mauritius, and Mexico, where marriage bonds are
weak. While they also suggested that the status of
daughters has increased as a result of their entry into
waged labor, they asserted that it was in fact the cash
contribution, not the labor, that was responsible because
women had always participated in family production. In
keeping with their position that it was the women themselves
who decided to go to work, they asserted that it was also
the women who decided to give parents money. Parents did
not necessarily expect these financial gifts; daughters were
motivated to work in order to repay parents for the costs of
their upbringing. While the other researchers recognized
the strongly held belief that women needed to repay their
parents for their upbringing, they also asserted that, at
least in rural areas, most women went to work at their
parents' request or at least with their permission (see
cases 1, 6, 7, 9, and 10).

The economic contributions of daughters working in TNC
factories were used to meet work-related expenses such as
food, clothing, transportation, to improve the parental
house, provide for family household needs, buy bicycles for
carrying crops to market, provide cash for gifts and food

during religious festivals, and to pay tuition for siblings

90
(especially brothers) and, in Taiwan, for the workers'
tuition (see cases 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14 and 15). At the
least, the employment of daughters was reported to decrease
the economic burden on families, and, at the most,
functioned to help families move out of the peasantry (Lin
1986).

The percentage of household income that was contributed
by working daughters was reported to depend on the number of
providers within each household. TNC workers were seldom
reported to be the sole support of families. However, in
Mexico, 20% of apparel workers and 15% of electronics
workers claimed to be their families' single income earner
(Fernandez-Kelly 1983). Although exact figures were
unavailable, the contribution of TNC workers averaged
approximately one-third of total family income (see cases 1,
2, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14). In many TNC worker households,
their incomes were reported to be the most reliable (Hein
1986).

Several researchers reported that the amount that was
saved and/or sent to families was more than they should have
been able to send, given their incomes (see, for example,
Hein 1986). The women "Often did not have adequate diet in
order to be able to save and to return to their village
during the annual leave with gifts and money as

demonstration of their success (Heyzer 1982, 194).

91

The assertion of modernization theorists that women's
integration into waged labor would lead to increased
independence was refuted by the data contained in the
selected case studies. Female TNC workers did not, in
general, retain control of their incomes. Only 5% of
Diamond's (1979) Taiwanese sample indicated that they had
control over their wages. Those workers who lived at home
reported handing 70-80% of their income over to their
mothers, while those who lived in dorms sent an average 46%
of their gross earnings home. Arrigo (1980) and Kung
(1976), while not providing actual percentages, reported
that many workers gave their entire checks to their mothers.
The amount of money that they had actual control over
amounted to that which was allocated by their mothers for
meeting their personal expenses. Twenty percent of Mexican
TNC workers gave all of their wages to their mothers as
well. Other workers claimed that 55% of their weekly wages
went to meet household needs (Fernandez-Kelly 1981). Tiano
(1984) indicated that 17% of her sample were exclusively
responsible for their family's financial support. Malaysian
factory workers who lived alone returned home on pay-days to
distribute their wages. They gave goods and/or money to
their households in return for rice, coffee and fruit
(McLellan 1985). Grossman (1980) reported that at least 50%
of wages were sent home by Filipina workers and between 25-

50% of wages were sent home by Malaysian TNC workers. Given

92
the high percentages of remittances as well as the high
costs of work-related expenses, it was clear that female
TNC-workers were left with only a small sum of money that

was under their exclusive control. This phenomenon, along

with the low wages of maquiladora workers in general, means

 

that the amount of money that can be injected into the local
economy as a result of these jobs is quite limited (Tiano

1984, 1987).

The Influences of Ethniciry and Religion

 

Foo and Lim (1988) pointed out that ideologies about
gender roles were influenced by ethnicity. They found that
Chinese women tended to disagree with the belief that
husbands should be heads of households, while Malay and
Indian women agreed with it. Heyzer (1982), in her study of
migrant Malaysian workers in Singapore, did not report any
differences between Malaysian Chinese and Malay women's
identification of fathers and husbands as household heads.
She reported that most women identified men as the
authorities in their families, while mothers controlled the
distribution of resources through household management.
These somewhat contradictory findings may be attributed to
the urban/rural differences between the two samples.

Religion was also a factor in women's identification of
men as legitimate heads of households. Families which

subscribed to Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism as well as some

93
branches of Christianity were more likely to be concerned
about the effects of TNC-employment on their daughters'
marriageability and continued attachment to traditional
beliefs about the role of women in society and the family
(Hein 1986).

There are three major religious groups in Mauritius:
Hindu, Islam, and Christianity. In all of these groups,
"the father is considered the main authority within the
family and women are accordingly accustomed to being in a
subordinate position" (Hein 1986, 306). This researcher
also indicated that the only difference in female employment
among these religious groups was that Hindu girls began
working at 17-18 years of age, while Christian girls started

at age 15-16 (Hein 1986, 289).

Values and Lifestyle Choices of Female TNC Workers

 

Modernization theorists also believed that the
experience of waged labor would result in significant
changes in the values, social activities, and lifestyle
choices of young female workers. The research examined in
this study indicated that, while some changes have occurred,
women in general continued to hold traditional values (Tiano
1984). In addition, where workers may hold changing values
they are not usually matched by changes in the social order
(Lin 1986). The perception that female TNC workers are

promiscuous, that work in the factories will affect a

94
woman's opportunities for marriage, and that women are still
expected to marry and take primary responsibility for
management of the household are all indications that
societies have been.slow to change (see cases 2, 6, 8, and
10).

Migrating workers were observed to be more likely to
experience changes in their lifestyles and values. One
change noted by Heyzer (1982) was that daughters who
migrated for factory work experienced weakened direct
control by elders, which resulted in the growth of personal
choice and romance as the foundation of courtship and
marriage. Lin supported this finding by pointing out that
migrating workers must deal with men. The tradition in
Malay society is "for family and village life to control
male/female interactions" (1986, 7). Away from the village
and absent from the family, young women were forced to
manage their own interactions with men.

In Mauritius, as well as in rural areas of Malaysia
where TNC factories have been established, social contacts
outside of the family continued to be limited to family
events such as weddings, religious ceremonies, and visits
with relatives (see cases 1 and 10). Hein reported that 87%
of her study's respondents indicated that they never or
rarely went to movies, while only 10% met socially with

friends from work (1986, 293).

95
Fernandez-Kelly Observed that women tended to joke more
about men and interactions with them, but their actual
behavior was less likely to stray from traditional limits.
She reported, for example, that her respondents believed
that to accept a ride from a man, especially at night was
"to look for trouble" (1983, 131). Moreover, the sexual

mores of female maquiladora workers continued to follow

 

conventional notions of "decent" and "indecent" behavior.

Tiano (1984) also indicated that maquiladora workers

 

continued to subscribe to traditional values. Similarly,
Diamond indicated that most female Taiwanese workers
continued to take pride in being obedient and loving
daughters who followed their parents' advice and plans for
them. However, she also related that daughters hid the "use
of cosmetics, new fashions in dress, recreational
activities, and choice of friends from parents to avoid
confrontations" (1979, 331). Kung also reported similar
patterns in the Taiwanese women in her sample. She
indicated that

women now have a greater say about whom they will

marry; they are able to buy more clothes; they

have more opportunities to "play"; and they have

greater freedom of movement in the "outside world"

(1976, 54).
However, she attributed these changes not to the women's

factory work, but rather to general improvements in the

country's standard of living over recent years.

96

Yet Foo and Lim reported that

young Asian women's concerns with beauty, sexual

attractiveness and relationships with men don't

necessarily originate with the emphasis in some

factory social activities on fashion, beauty,

romance and intermingling between the sexes.

Beauty and social attractiveness are important in

traditional Asian cultures (except those which

practice female seclusion) (1988, 17).
They went on to assert that women's subscription to
traditional and modern ideologies was "rational" given the
socio-economic context in which men were able to earn larger
incomes and were granted more political and social power
than women. In general, women's employment in TNCs has not
been very successful in dramatically changing the values and

beliefs of either the workers or the societies examined as a

whole. -

Marital Ideals

One major change in marital ideals observed by these
researchers is that women desired to choose their marital
partners (see cases 5, 10, 14 and 15). Arranged marriages,
except in some areas of Malaysia and Taiwan, have become
less frequent. However, the preference for arranged
marriages, where they still existed, was less a preference
than a reflection of the women's lack of opportunities to

meet eligible men (see cases 5, 8, 9, l0, and 13).

Female-Headed Households

 

Some researchers, including Baerrensen,18 believe that

the presence of TNC factories has led to an increased number
of female-headed households. He asserted that factory work
increases tensions in terms of the distribution of power and
resource allocation between husbands and wives.
Additionally, he suggested that women with independent
incomes demand greater participation in family matters and
that this threatens the authority of fathers and husbands.
Women have also been criticized for neglecting their proper
role as nurturers and caretakers of families (see cases 2,
3, 5, and 10). Tiano's (1984) research shed some light on
this subject. Her findings indicated that over 90% of
female-headed households existed before the women went to
work in factories. Thus, at least for Mexico, it can be
concluded that marital discord and other forms of conflict
in the family cannot be directly attributed to the presence
of TNC employment for women.

While the majority of female TNC workers were single,
there was evidence that the number of workers who are
married and/or had children was increasing, especially among
Mexican apparel workers. Women who experienced the loss of

a male breadwinner due to death, desertion, and the illegal

 

18 Baerrensen, D. W. "Unemployment and Mexico's
Border Industrialization Program." Inter-American Economic
Affairs 29(Autumn): 75-90.

97

98
migration of men to the U.S., have begun to turn to garment
factories for needed wages. Seventy-three percent of
married workers in Mexico reported that all of their income
was used to meet family and work expenses (Fernandez-Kelly
1981). Married workers, as well as single parents, find it
difficult to work in factories due to the somewhat
inflexible schedules and rotating shifts. Child care
services were reported to be limited and expensive. The
Singapore government has made some effort to provide these
services in order to make it easier for married women and
mothers to work (Foo and Lim 1988).

Female-headed households are rare in Southeast Asia.
Although Muslim countries, such as Malaysia and Mauritius,
where divorce is relatively easy for men, may experience a
higher rate of these household arrangements. For example,
in Mauritius, 47.3% of female workers claimed to be
separated or divorced, and 25% were single heads of
households (Hein 1986). At the same time, 70% of the women
working at the Mexican border were reported to be single
(Tiano 1987). In 1974, in Taiwan, 61% of workers were
unmarried, while 34% were married (Diamond 1979). McLellan
(1985) reported that 17% of factory workers in Malaysia were

from female-headed households.

Summary

The examination of the data for factors related to the
social and familial experiences of female TNC workers has
resulted in a fairly clear picture. That is, the income
that women are able-to contribute to household resources has
resulted in only marginal increases in their status in the
family. While women are more likely, as a result of their
waged labor, to choose their marital partners, engage in a
small amount consumer spending, and participate in social
activities outside the family, the patriarchal authority of
most families remains unchanged. At the same time, young
women, particularly in Southeast Asia, are trapped in
factory work in order to meet their family's rising
expectations for increased goods and status which oome from

the income contributions of daughters.

99

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

 

All of the research cited in this study found evidence
that supported the potential for expanded wage opportunities
extended to women as a result of the introduction of TNC
factories in LDCs. This suggested "new economic roles for
women, potentially increased status, and an undermining Of
the patriarchal structure which makes families oppressive
for women" (Grossman 1980, 46). At the same time,
researchers also recognized that these changes have been
slow in developing and have produced contradictory results.

The underlying assumption of women's TNC employment
held by modernization theorists is that once women were
integrated into modern waged labor a dual process for their
emancipation would be generated. First, women would be
removed from traditional patterns of patriarchal
exploitation and, second, access to technology would create
opportunities for gaining experiences that would qualify
them for skilled jobs (Heyzer 1982). However, the research
examined in this study clearly indicated that this has not
been the case. Women, in all five countries, continued to
be excluded from both the training necessary to qualify them
as skilled workers and access to the skilled jobs

themselves.

100

101

The modernization view also asserted that as women
joined the international division of labor they would have a
basis for organizing collectively for their rights as
workers (Heyzer 1982). However, the data indicated that
both TNC management and government policies operated in such
a way that organizing as workers was either prohibited by
law and/or placed workers' jobs at risk. Where unions
existed, they were eager to facilitate the objectives of
both management and government (see cases 2, 7, 10, 11, and
14). For example in Mexico, TNC-employees who struck were
faced with the relocation of their factory and the loss of
their jobs (Fernandez-Kelly 1981). In addition, factory
management practices encouraged competition between workers
and fostered paternalistic attitudes which tended to diffuse
any self-empowerment that might result from earning a wage.
Moreover, the complaints of female TNC workers toward
unsatisfactory wages and working conditions tended to be
expressed in terms of personality conflicts and not
discussed openly with co-workers. Asia result, dissatisfied
workers did not think of their problems in terms of
worker/management conflicts that could be resolved through
collective bargaining and/or joining or organizing trade
unions.

Workers reported that they had little power with which

to collectively bargain with management. The unstable

nature of TNC-employment due to the factories reliance on

102
production contracts that reflected the economies and
consumption patterns in developed countries made high
turnover common. In addition, workers (and management)
believed that there was an overabundant supply of potential
workers in the community. As a result, strikes or slow
downs were considered ineffective; management could always
replace striking workers with those from the surplus pool of
unemployed (Fernandez-Kelly 1983).

Lin (1986), however, believed that some positive
developments would arise out of the development of TNC-
factories in Malaysia. She asserted that the development of
multi-ethnic assembly lines in Malaysia would lead to a
breakdown of the colonial legacy of ethnic segregation and
to a new multi—cultural working class. In her view, this
multi-cultural working class would lead to a coherent and
successful labor movement in Malaysia. Similarly, Tiano
(1987) indicated that the ability of assembly work to
eventually lead to the development of a feminist working
class consciousness was clearly superior to chances of it
occurring in isolating informal sector employment such as of
domestic service, petty trade or prostitution.

On an individual level, TNC employment was reported to
result in increased self-confidence, greater personal and
economic independence and greater self-fulfillment outside
of the home (see cases 8 and 9). Women in Singapore and

Malaysia reported that they believed they were better off

103
than non-TNC workers such as domestic servants, agricultural
workers, helpers in small shops, and unpaid family labor
(Foo and Lim 1988). In Malaysia, female TNC employees saw
their labor as a means of being valued as productive beings.
In addition, TNC workers were more likely to see work as a
permanent fixture in their lives and planned to continue
working after marriage; marriages that were more likely to
occur at a later age as a result of women entering the work
force as TNC operatives (see cases 2, 8, 9, and 12).

However, Diamond (1979) and Fernandez-Kelly (1983)
concluded that other researchers may be reading too much
into the benefits of increased economic usefulness to women.
They suggested that earning an income did not necessarily
lead to autonomous decision making and/or independence for
young women, and much of the data reported here lends
credence to this position. While Diamond and Fernandez-
Kelly's critiques are important, the benefits that were
reported by the women who worked these jobs must be awarded
some value and must be included in any evaluation of the
relative costs and benefits of this phenomenon.

In some cases, the social costs of increased economic
independence were very high. TNC factories that encouraged
their employees to adopt western habits in clothing, make-
up, and norms for female/male relationships resulted in some

women being castigated and outcast from their communities

and families of origin (Grossman 1980, 246). This was

104
characterized by the widely-held belief that female TNC-
workers were immoral and would be unworthy as wives and/or
mothers (see cases 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, and 13).

On the household level, women's employment was reported
as having led to increased family incomes and improved
living standards in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan (see
cases 5 and 13). At the same time, it was clear that these
improvements often came at the expense of the health,
education, and leisure time of the women. Women did not, in
general, control their incomes and left school early in
order that their wages could be added to the family resource
pool as well as fund the educations Of younger, especially
male, siblings. Although the TNC factories were valued for
their relatively clean work environments, the health effects
of straining to work through microscopes as well as exposure
to toxic chemicals used in the factories were serious for
most working women and led to rapid and irreversible
deterioration of their eyesight, disabling them from further
employment (Grossman 1980; and Lin 1986). Factory workers
who did not live at home were reported to live in crowded
dormitories, guest houses, or squatter settlements with
inadequate sanitary and cooking facilities. Living
conditions, along with the pressure to save money, was
reported to result in an inadequate diet for many factory
workers, for example, resulting in malnutrition for workers

in Mauritius (Hein 1986). Female TNC workers who did live

105
at home were reported to suffer seriously from the "double
duty“ of women's waged and household labor. These women, in
general, did not get any help from male household members in
managing and accomplishing meal preparation, childcare,
housecleaning, laundering, or any other task involved in
maintaining a household.

One major problem with TNC employment that can be
observed from the data was that the companies have not lived
up to their promises to host governments. For example, the
preference for women employees has not led to a decrease in
unemployment (see cases 2, 3, 4, 6, and 10). In fact, some
researchers argued that TNC employment has led to an
introduction of a new category of workers -- young, high
school educated women (Fernandez-Kelly 1983; and GfOssman
1980). Nor has TNC employment led to the benefits promised
to women if they became factory employees. In general, the
researchers suggested that "TNC employment doesn't create or
worsen gender inequality" (FOO and Lim 1988, 22). However,
it also does nothing to alleviate it. FOO and Lim suggested
that TNC employment temporarily alleviated the
"subordination women suffer as a result of gender
inequality," not through TNC jobs specifically, but rather
through benefits obtained through increased educational
opportunities, migration and wage employment (1988, 22).

At the same time, Lim (1981) recognized that women's

involvement in wage labor has not led to an end to the sex-

106
based division of labor, women's continued inequality in the
labor force in terms of access to education and attainment,
labor force participation, occupational choice, lifetime
career paths, and income. Women are still restricted in
terms of where they will work and their opportunities to
become sole supporters or primary breadwinners of their
families remain severely constrained. Training
opportunities that could lead to promotions into responsible
positions of creativity and authority remain out of reach
for most women in the countries examined. At the same time
that women experience these constraints in the productive
sectors of society, changes in who is responsible for
reproductive tasks have been slow or have yet to occur. The
societal assumption that women's reproductive role takes
primacy over their productive roles remain strong in all
five countries. Lim suggested that women will remain
secondary citizens and secondary workers as long as these

ideologies continue to dominate cultural beliefs.

Integration or Exploitation?

 

The findings of this study indicated that the
experiences of female TNC employees, at least in the
countries contained in this data set, cannot be placed
completely within either the integration or exploitation
framework. For each example illustrating TNC work liberated

women from oppressive family structures and provided

107
opportunities for independent wage labor, there was counter
evidence describing how TNC factory work substituted one
form of oppression for another equally confining one. Since
a theoretical framework should serve to help interpret the
phenomenon under investigation, it would appear that the
integration/exploitation dichotomy is an inadequate
framework for understanding female TNC employment.

Most of the researchers agreed that their argument was
not against women's participation in paid work as such, but
rather against the perpetuation of sex segregation in the
labor market which continued to restrict women's employment
opportunities and keep them at the lowest end of the wage
scale (all cases, excluding 12). Researchers believed that
a sex segregated labor market was responsible for the
continued underdevelopment and economic atrophy in LDCs
because it limited the flexibility and availability for
workers for certain jobs and restricted certain groups into
the least desired and lowest paid positions. Rigid rules
about which groups were eligible for promotions and training
as well as the job opportunities available to groups had the
effect of demoralizing workers and decreasing productivity.

While Fernandez-Kelly recognized that maquiladora work

 

(and TNC employment in other LDCs) assured survival, it was
an inadequate "vehicle for expanding the choices of working
people on whose shoulders rest the advancement of a nation"

(1983, 192). Her assertion that the internationalization of

108
production did not necessarily result in improved working
environments, conditions, and/or opportunities for citizens
of LDCs was supported by data supplied by other researchers
in this data set (see cases 2, 3, 6, 9, and 10). The fact
that TNC factories in LDCs tended to do the labor intensive
work, while the factories in the home countries retained
control over technology had not resulted in the increased
ability of local capital to develop industries and products
that are competitive with those of TNCs.

The evidence presented suggested that, despite the
advances female TNC workers have made in the areas of
personal choice and economic independence, women continue to
be "losers" in their countries' economic development (Lin
1986). The position of LDC women is not unlike that of
early factory workers in the U.S., Britain and Australia
(Lim 1981). This evidence suggested that the
internationalization of production, despite its promises,
does not create good paying jobs under safe working
conditions available to citizens of LDCs. Rather, what has
been seen so far is worsening working conditions, less
stringent health and safety regulations, the exacerbation of
urban problems and, in the long run, as factories become
automated and/or relocate to countries offering lower wages
and other operating costs, increased unemployment

(Fernandez-Kelly 1981, 194).

109

What remains unclear, however, is the relative value of
the experiences and opportunities offered to women who work
in TNC factories, and the net benefits of this form of
employment continue to be debated. Some researchers
believed that, at the least, wage work resulted in freedom
from women's traditional confinement to the home and the
monotony of household labor (F00 and Lim 1988). Hein
asserted that

The concentration of women in [TNC] industry does

involve the exploitation of a weaker socio-economic

group, yet it has provided women an Opportunity to
increase their participation in the modern formal

sector of the economy (1986, 309).

Yet Fernandez-Kelly (1983) reported that expanded economic
opportunities for women have generated social tensions and
painful dilemmas as women are forced to make choices between
responsibilities arising out of their productive and
reproductive labor, respectively.

It seems that the time has come to re-examine how the
position of women in transnational employment has been
investigated. The research completed under the integration/
exploitation frameworks has resulted in a debate that has
extensively explored the relative costs and benefits of
female TNC employment. What is clear is that this dichotomy
does not fully capture the experiences of female factory
employment nor provide a framework for proposing solutions

to the continued disadvantaged position of women in the work

world and their families.

110

Transnational factories are not going to go away,
change their preference for female employees, or modify
either their occupational hierarchies or wage structures.
Moreover, the women who work in these factories, while
generally dissatisfied with their wages and working
conditions, do not want to stop working for wages. A
framework should be developed that is able to explore the
dialectical characteristics of wage labor for women without
either legitimizing the management practices of TNCs or
calling for an end to offshore production facilities. This
framework can only evolve from a theoretical perspective
that recognizes that women are a unique subset of workers,
with a specific relationship to production that isdan
outgrowth of their secondary status as citizens. Future
research should attempt to understand both the costs and
benefits of this form of employment. In that way, a clear
understanding of how scholars and others concerned about
female TNC factory workers can lobby and organize for
recognition of the unique experiences of female TNC workers
and set an agenda for change, at the same time that a way
for TNC workers to organize can be developed that recognizes
their fragile position in the international labor hierarchy
and ensures the continued presence of their factory
employers.

An improved conceptual framework should be able to

bridge the gap between conclusions drawn by the applied-

111
oriented (integrationist) researchers who focuses on readily
observable, measurable and concrete changes found in
individuals or groups of women as a result of their waged
labor and the theoretically-oriented (exploitationist)
researchers who are-concerned with building theories which
can explain a phenomenon for a broad range of workers and
countries. Both approaches have much to contribute to this
endeavor and much to learn from each other.

What seems clear is that women's waged labor in and of
itself is not enough to change the household division of
labor. It is also true that if the status of women and an
expansion of their opportunities and rights (so that they
become equal to men) were to improve, changes must occur
within the household, where women and men play out their
gendered, and societally-sanctioned roles and where children
are socialized into the roles, values and beliefs they will
take with them into adulthood. As a result, factors which
can facilitate and measure changes in household relations
are most important to the development of an improved
framework. Education, as the second most important
socializing agent for children, would also be important to
examine and exert pressure for reform in the direction of
more egalitarian opportunities and treatment of girls and
boys.

It appears that the work place tends to respond to

existing social norms, rather than lead the way toward

112
change and as such it is less important in terms of changing
patterns of socialization. However, factors which influence
workers' rights, wages, and working conditions are important
in terms of describing and directing activists and
researchers to areas that are responsible for the continued
exploitation of women workers. Employment-related factors
are important for the resolution of short-term issues, while
family and education-related factors are critical to the
facilitation of long-term changes in women's position in the

family, in the work place and in society.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Summary of Case Studies

 

Contained in this Appendix are summaries of the case
studies which comprise the data set for this project. The
summaries are offered as a way of understanding the nature
of the research undertaken in each case study.

The Appendix was organized in the following manner.
The case studies were first divided by region and country.
Within each country, they were alphabetized by author. In
addition, each case study was given a number which was used

as a reference in the body of this text (also see Figure 2).

AFRICA

Mauritius

 

(1) -

Hein, Catherine. 1986. "The Feminization of Industrial
Employment in Mauritius: A Case of Sex Segregation." In
C. Hein, Sex Inequalities in Urban Employment in the Third
World, Chapter 72

This chapter examined census and survey data from the 1970s
on the nature of industrial employment policies and
practices in Mauritius. The author's objective was to
identify the factors which explain the high participation
rates of women in labor intensive export-oriented industries
given the traditional Muslim culture Of the country.

113

NORTH AMERICA

 

Mexico

(2)

Fernandez-Kelly, Maria Patricia. 1983. For We Are Sold, I
and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico's Frontier.
Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.

 

 

Placing her experiences as a participant Observer among
maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico within the
context of political economy, Fernandez-Kelly provided an
analysis of the phenomenon of women's employment in
transnational corporations that focused on the social
relations of production.

 

(3)

Tiano, Susan. 1987. "Maquiladoras in Mexicali:
Integration or Exploitation?“ In Vicki Ruiz and Susan
Tiano (eds.), Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Responses
to Change. Boston: Allen & Unwin.

 

 

Using data from a 1982 study of female electronics, apparel
and service sector workers, Tiano assessed the validity of
the exploitation and integration explanations of the effects
of industrial employment on women workers and their
families. Her findings suggested that there is evidence to
support both interpretations of women's TNC employment and
additional work needs to be undertaken in this area.

(4)
Tiano, Susan. 1984. "Maquiladoras,, Women's Work and
Unemployment in Northern Mexico." Aztlan 15(2): 341-378.

Tiano used a Marxist-feminist theoretical framework to
interpret data on women's labor force participation in
Northern Mexico. She is particularly interested in the
commonly-held belief that maquiladoras are unable to solve
the problem of unemployment in the area because unemployment
is perceived as a male problem and maquiladoras mostly hire
females.

 

114

115

SOUTHEAST ASIA
Singapore and Maloysia

(5)

Foo, Gillian H.C. and Linda Y.C. Lim. 1988. "Poverty,
Ideology and Women Export Factory Workers in Asia." In H.
Afshar and B. Agarwal (eds.), Women and Poverty. London:
McMillan.

This essay examined the role of poverty and ideology in the
participation of Malaysian women in factory work. While
dismissing the commonly-held position that women are forced
to work as a result of decreased family resources, Foo and
Lim acknowledged the role of family, gender, individual and
class ideologies in this phenomenon.

(6)
Grossman, Rachel. 1980. "Women's Place in the Integrated
Circuit." In Radical America 14(1): 29-49.

 

This research project examined the relationship between
Third World women and transnational factories using the case
study of transnational electronics assembly operations in
Penang, Malaysia. 7

(7)

Heyzer, Noeleen. 1982. "From Rural Subsistence to an
Industrial Peripheral Work Force: An Examination of
Female Malaysian Migrants and Capital Accumulation in
Singapore." In L. Beneria (ed.), Women and Development.
New York: Praeger Press.

Using a framework of uneven development, Heyzer analyzed the
results of a participant observation study conducted between
1974-75 at a transnational textile factory in Singapore. In
an attempt to ascertain whether the 'modernization' theory
that women's wage labor will lead to women's emancipation,
Heyzer reported that, at least in this case, it does not.
While recognizing that wage labor may increase women's
relative status, at the same time their conception of
themselves as temporary workers strongly identified with the
ideologies and practices of their rural villages precludes
the development of identities as workers.

116

(8)

Lim, Linda Y.C. 1981. Women in the Singapore Economy.
Singapore: Singapore National University Research Center,
ERC Occasional Paper Series #4.

Lim ascribes to the "separate spheres" or private-public
dichotomy and used this framework for her discussion of the
role of women in the Singapore economy. She asserted that
while there have been improvements and changes in the
position of women workers recently, women's responsibility
for reproductive work in the family and society, as well as
the cultural stereotypes attached to this role, continues to
support the perception of women as secondary wage earners
who are less productive than men. Although she was
optimistic that women's position in the economy will
continue to improve, Lim recognized that real change in
women's economic position can only occur as a result of a
reorganization of the household division of labor -- whereby
men and women share equally in the reproduction-related
labor of society and family.

(9)

Lin, Vivian. 1986. "Health, Women's Work and
Industrialization: Women Workers in the Semi-Conductor
Industry in Singapore and Malaysia." East Lansing:
Michigan State University, Women in International
Development Working Paper #130.

Lin used a political economy of health perspective to
analyze the health impacts on women working in the semi-
conductor industry. The author recognized the preferred
status of young, single Operators in the electronics
industry in Singapore and Malaysia and used this example to
explore how world capitalism affects people's health.

(10)

McLellan, Susan. 1985. "Reciprocity or Exploitation?
Mothers and Daughters in the Changing Economy of Rural
Malaysia." East Lansing: Michigan State University,
erae in International Development Working Paper #93.

McLellan examined the strong traditional bond between Malay
mothers and daughters. She asserted that the exploitation
of kin is the only way to ensure survival in a rapidly
changing economic environment whose goal is the decline of
the peasant and the rise of the wage laborer. Since
marriagae ties are weak and males are expected to conduct
their lives outside the home, the strongest bonds are
between mothers and daughters. Daughters are expected to
generously contribute to their mothers who use the money to

117

purchase material goods which increase their status in the
village. Daughters are also encouraged to live at home to
assure their virginity and marriageability. The need for
cash has convinced mothers that daughters can and should
work in factories, despite Malay-Muslim traditions which
assert the opposite.

Taiwan

(11)

Arrigo, Linda Gail. 1985. "Economic and Political Control
of Women Workers in Multinational Electronics Factories in
Taiwan: Martial Law Coercion and World Market
Uncertainty." Contemporarngarxism 11: 77-95.

In her discussion of multinational factories in Taiwan,
Arrigo explored the ways that the Taiwanese government and
multinational management use martial law to control and
maintain a low paid, predominantly female multinational
factory labor force.

(12)
Arrigo, Linda Gail. 1980. "The Industrial Work Force of
Young Women in Taiwan." Bulletin of Concerned Asian

 

Scholars 12: 25-38.

Unmarried female factory workers in Taiwan have helped to
raise the standard of living for many families in the lower
socioeconomic strata by sending home remittances. Arrigo
reported that the preference for young, single female
workers has resulted in the increased value of educating
daughters -more education brings better, higher paying jobs
-- as well as a trend toward later marriage. Young women
who live independently feel pressure to contribute to their
families of origin at the same time that they enjoy
increased independence to control the money that is leftover
after meeting family obligations. Arrigo also explored the
effects of a shortage of young, single women as a result of
rapid industrialization on Taiwanese society. She reports
that more young married women who are entering the labor
force.

118

(13)
Diamond, Norma. 1979. "Women and Industry in Taiwan."
Modern China 5(3): 317-340.

 

Using data from interviews conducted at a Taiwan textile
mill in 1970, Diamond examined the commonly-held belief that
the increased participation of women in the labor force will
lead to increased power and status within the household.

(14) '

Gallin, Rita. 1989. "Women and Export Industry in Taiwan:
The Muting of Class Consciousness." Forthcoming in
Kathryn B. Ward (ed.), Women workers and global
restructuring. Ithaca, New York: ILR Press.

 

 

Gallin provided a three-part explanation for the absence of
class conscious labor activism among women factory workers
in Taiwan. She identified the primary factors responsible
for women's lack of organization and collective action as
government policies, managerial practices, and family
processes which reproduce a patriarchal ideology that
fosters women's lack of organization and collective action.

(15) -
Kung, Lydia. 1976. "Factory work and women in Taiwan:
Changes in self—image and status." Signs: Journal of

 

Women in Culture and Society 2(1): 35-58.

In this article, Kung focuses on the perceptions of female
Taiwanese factory workers in regard to the effects of their
employment on their status and independence. The author's
objective was to demonstrate that understanding social
change requires not only examining objective indicators but
also to ascertain "how the events of change are interpreted
by the individuals who confront them."

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