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International Sociology
DOI: 10.1177/02685809030183003 2003; 18; 491 International
Sociology
Ann B. Denis Resistance in Barbados
Globalization, Women and (In)Equity in the South: Constraint
and
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Globalization, Women and (In)equityin the South
Constraint and Resistance in Barbados
Ann B. Denis University of Ottawa
abstract: Contemporary globalization is conceptualized as
agendered phenomenon and its impact on the (in)equitywomen
experience is examined for Barbados, a small islandnation, which
has been experiencing shifts in economic andsocial policies which
are informed by the neoliberal ortho-doxy of globalization. After
considering how recent globaliz-ation has affected the Barbados
political economy, the articleexamines how these changes affect the
productive and repro-ductive activities of women in different
social locations. Theresulting benefits and disadvantages for women
areconsidered, together with the latter’s strategies of
resistance.
keywords: Barbados ◆ economic policies ◆ globalization ◆paid
work ◆ production and reproduction ◆ social policies ◆
unpaid work ◆ women
Introduction
Although globalization is not a new phenomenon, its forms during
thepast quarter-century have taken on distinctive features which
have beenvariously described as ‘opening many opportunities . . .
for economicgrowth and human advance’ (UNDP, 1999: 1), increasing
inequity withinand between societies, and undermining the autonomy
of nationalgovernments (Mishra, 1999), notably their ability to
maintain policiesaimed at promoting social equity. At the same
time, although much of themacroeconomic literature ignores this,
there are complex gender,racial/ethnic and class ramifications to
contemporary globalization, in
International Sociology ✦ September 2003 ✦ Vol 18(3):
491–512SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
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both its practices and outcomes. The focus in this article is on
exploringhow women in Barbados, a society which was in the
forefront of ‘develop-ing’ societies on the Gender-Related
Development Index (GDI) in 1970,(UNDP, 1995: 80), experience,
benefit from, are constrained by and resistaspects of globalization
in the paid, productive and the unpaid, repro-ductive activities of
their everyday lives.
Some Conceptual Considerations
Moghadam has defined globalization as ‘a complex economic,
political,cultural, and geographic process in which the mobility of
capital, organiz-ations, ideas, discourses, and peoples has taken
on an increasingly globalor transnational form’ (Moghadam, 1999:
301). Critics of globalizationpoint to the ‘growing marginalisation
of large numbers of Third Worldeconomies on the world market’
(Watson, 1993: 2). Whether measured inpurely monetary terms or in
social ones, the costs and benefits of globaliz-ation have become
increasingly unevenly distributed within and betweensocieties
(Hoogvelt, 1997; Mishra, 1999; Williams, 2001).
Supranational, intergovernmental organizations make
contradictorycontributions. On the one hand, such organizations as
the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade
Organization (WTO) directlyor indirectly promote commodification,
deregulation, the privatization ofspace and economic activity, and
the downsizing of government, includ-ing the scaling down of social
entitlements (Mishra, 1999: 6–8; Hoogvelt,1997: 148–9). On the
other, the International Labour Organization (ILO)and the United
Nations (UN) organizations have promoted socialmeasures, such as
international labour standards, human rights andliteracy. The
latter organizations seem, however, to exert far less influencethan
the former, which are promoting the neoliberal agenda.
In its examination of globalization and women in Barbados,
thisanalysis uses a broad definition of work that includes
activities whichmaintain the society (‘reproductive work’) as well
as those which arerevenue generating (‘productive work’) whether in
the informal or theformal sector. Although within feminism such a
conception of work iscommonplace, in non-feminist analyses of work,
the inclusion of repro-ductive, and often of informal sector work,
remains exceptional. Insofaras available data allow,1 the analysis
takes account of the ways in whichother categorical groupings,
notably, ethnicity/race and social class, inter-sect with gender as
important dimensions of women’s complex position-ing in
society.
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The Political Economy of Barbados
With an area of 430 km2 and a population of 247,288 (Barbados,
1994b),Barbados is a densely populated small island state in the
southeasternCaribbean. According to the 1990 Census, the most
recent available(Barbados, 1994b: Table 2.04), women make up
slightly over half (52percent) of the population. In terms of
ethnicity/race, 92.5 percent of thepopulation is black, 3.2 percent
is white and 2.4 percent is ‘mixed’, whileEast Indian, Chinese,
Syrian Lebanese, ‘other’ and ‘not stated’ eachaccount for less than
1 percent of the population. Three-and-a-halfcenturies of
uninterrupted British rule ended peacefully when Barbadosbecame an
independent member of the Commonwealth in 1966.
Barbados was a plantation economy, with resident
Britishowners/managers and, until emancipation in the 19th century,
a labourforce composed of African slaves, both men and women. After
emanci-pation many continued working on the plantations, now as
waged labour.The white planter-merchant elite has remained
economically dominant,although a black merchant class developed
after emancipation, andduring the 20th century blacks gradually
entered other occupations. Whilethe economic elite remains
predominantly white, the political elite andunion leaders are
predominantly black (Karch, 1981; Lewis, 2001), but allthree
continue to be very predominantly male. Women’s labour
forceparticipation, particularly that of black women, has been
significantthroughout Barbados’s history. Its low point, attributed
to the idealiza-tion of the ‘housewifization’ (Mies, 1986) of women
(Green, 1994), wasabout 45 percent in 1960 and 1970 (Massiah, 1984:
Table 1.5). This contrastswith rates of about 75 percent between
1881 and 1921 (Green, 1994: 159)and 62 percent during the 1990s
(Barbados, 1994a, 1999).
Barbados has a relatively fragile economy, which, historically,
wasbased on sugar cultivation. Due to competing products and
mechaniza-tion, this sector is now a declining source of
employment. Because of therelatively small size of the population,
internal markets for manufacturedgoods have been limited, which has
restricted the possibility of economiesof scale in the production
of goods for domestic consumption. Protec-tionism has frequently
been an important economic strategy, and muchinvestment has been of
foreign origin. Policies of investment by invita-tion were intended
to develop local manufacturing capacity, including theassociated
human resources. What occurred instead has been consider-able
development of branch plants, especially of American
multinationalfirms, for production without investment in research
and development(Hoogvelt, 1997: 125–8). Moreover, foreign capital
typically relocateswhen a sufficiently qualified, but cheaper
labour force or better fiscalconditions become available elsewhere.
Drawing on a variety of
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expressions used in the literature, I use footloose
multinational capital as away of summarizing these phenomena.
Changes since the 1980s in the philosophy underlying trade
agree-ments are another consequence of globalization. Trade
agreements,2 whichwere explicitly intended – at least in part as
measures of social justice –to give preferential opportunities for
export by Caribbean signatories toEuropean and North American
markets, are now threatened preciselybecause they are considered
inimical with the neoliberal orthodoxy oftrade liberalization
(CAFRA/WIDE, 1998). The advent of the Free TradeAgreement of the
Americas (FTAA) and the need for har-monization ofthe various trade
agreements with the free trade terms of the WTO consti-tute
additional pressures towards trade liberalization (Arthur,
2001;Bryan, 2000; Benn and Hall, 2000). These pressures impact,
often incontradictory ways, on women’s employment and consumption.
Toremain internationally competitive and to respect conditions of
inter-national trade agreements, Barbados has experienced pressure
to deregu-late its economy, which, in fact, has been but one aspect
of reducedgovernment social intervention. So, in its response to
trade agreementsand structural adjustment policies (SAPs),
including pressures for reducedgovernment spending and
intervention, there is an uneasy coexistence of thecapitalist and
social democratic agendas which have informed theBarbados political
economy ever since Barbados negotiated full internalself-government
from Britain in 1961, even before its political indepen-dence in
1966. Such uneasy coexistence is well illustrated in the
country’sNational Development Plans, which are statements by the
governmentof the principles intended to guide its economic and
social policy.Endorsement of capitalism and of a social democratic
philosophy arereflected in all these Plans since independence.
Barriteau (2001: 101–2)points out, however, that from 1983 on, the
Plans have included anincreased role for the private sector and
retrenchment of some socialprogrammes. This shift in emphasis is
reflected in legislation and budgetallocations.
Perhaps because of the absence of a strong indigenous capitalist
classinterested in promoting its own multinational interests, when
the level ofnational debt, combined with the international economic
climate, resultedin strong international pressure on the government
to adopt SAPs, therewas the political will to develop a tripartite
Social Partnership. In 1991 theprime minister invited employers
(representing the private sector) andtrade unions (representing
workers in both the public and private sectors)to join with the
government to establish a package of measures foreconomic recovery
which avoided devaluation, a measure that allopposed, due to its
disastrous effects elsewhere. The resulting SocialPartnership
agreement, signed in 1993, included a wage cut (mandatory
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in the public sector and encouraged in the private sector),
productivityprovisions, adjustment of income tax and voluntary
price controls, but nodevaluation. Subsequent renewals have
included undertakings by theSocial Partners to work cooperatively
to increase productivity, to exerciserestraint in both wage and
price increases, to minimize job cuts and incor-porate union
participation in decision-making about such cuts, and toharmonize
the agreement with multilateral trade agreements. Mechanismsfor
regular consultation and monitoring have been introduced
(Barbados,1993; Barbados, 2001; Dunn and Dunn, 1999). I was told by
one unionofficial, and read in publications of another union, that
this voluntaristicapproach had reduced the negative impact on the
population of theausterity measures which international pressure
had rendered inevitable.The official also detailed to me instances
of each of the Social Partnersretreating, when faced with
opposition from the others, from proposalsthey had wanted to
introduce. Recently, the economic climate has allowedfor the
gradual reinstatement of the earlier wage cuts (BWU, 1998,
2000).
Furthermore Barbados, with its partners in CARICOM,3 has
beenfighting hard for the continuation of clauses in trade
agreements whichinclude some measure of preferential treatment for
trading partners fromthe Caribbean, thus acknowledging existing
inequity in resources andcapacity between them, as small island
nations, on the one hand andEurope, Canada and the US on the other.
In the interests of equity theyare also negotiating for similar
clauses, exemptions and/or longer periodsof tariff protection in
the new trade agreements such as the WTO and theFTAA (Arthur, 2001;
Girvan, 1999; Williams, 2001). These various Bar-badian discourses
and practices suggest that the state continues tosupport social
democratic principles of equity, both nationally and
inter-nationally in conjunction with an overall capitalist economy.
Thus,although there has been little popular discussion of and
protest againstglobalization, the inevitability (and desirability)
of neoliberal economicglobalization is not fully accepted by the
government. Despite analysesby feminist activists and scholars
about the negative effects of thesemeasures on women (Antoine,
1997; Antrobus, 1989; Barriteau, 1996;CAFRA/WIDE, 1998; Massiah,
1990; Reddock, 1998; Stuart, 1998;Williams, 2001), explicitly
gendered analysis is, however, conspicuouslyabsent from the
official discourse.
Women and Production: Footloose Capital, TradeAgreements and
Local Industry
Prior to the 1970s, women’s formal labour force participation
wasprimarily as agricultural workers, domestic servants, informal
sectorvendors and seamstresses (Massiah, 1984). From the 1970s, the
strategy
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of investment by invitation in export-processing zones (EPZs),4
with itsassociated fiscal benefits for overseas investors, opened
new employmentpossibilities for women in Barbados successively in
semi-skilled assemblywork in the manufacture of clothing and
semi-conductors, in service jobsin tourism, and in routine data
entry jobs. Although the wages womenearned in garment manufacturing
were the lowest paid within manu-facturing (Green, 1994), for black
women with limited education, who hadformerly been agricultural
labourers,5 maids in private households orunemployed, these jobs
represented opportunities for improved wagesand working conditions,
and some training. Opportunities for further skilldevelopment,
transferable training and advancement have, however, beenlimited
(Jayasinghe, 2001). As their tax holidays ended in the 1980s,
manyof the offshore companies departed to sources of cheaper labour
andimproved concessions, a trend reinforced by the introduction of
the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which increased the
attrac-tiveness of Mexico for American companies. By the end of the
1980s, EPZcompanies in garment and semi-conductor manufacture were
eitherdownsizing or closing, due to more attractive conditions
elsewhere, aneconomic downturn and, in the case of the latter, a
glut on the market(Green, 1994; Watson, 1994), eliminating women’s
jobs. A pattern ofemployment and layoff by a succession of such
companies emerged frommy interviews with women about their
employment during the 1980s(Denis, 1994).
Data entry is another important source of women’s EPZ jobs, open
tosecondary school leavers with keyboarding skills. It does not pay
betterthan light manufacturing, but is considered more desirable
because of the‘modern’ nature of the work and the working
conditions (Freeman, 2000).Women’s jobs have been concentrated in
routine keyboarding, which isnow being done increasingly by
scanning. In response to this techno-logical change, Barbados has
begun to market itself as being able to meetthe new needs of
foreign capital by offering a labour force capable ofsoftware
design and other technologically sophisticated tasks (BIDC,1998).
It is men, however, who, since they have the requisite
qualifications,are obtaining these new jobs, while the routine jobs
that women havefilled are being moved elsewhere to reduce labour
costs and avoid union-ization (Dunn and Dunn, 1999; Social
Partners, 1998, cited in BWU, 1998:5–6). I found no evidence that
the gendered implications of this change ofpolicy had aroused
official concern.6
Locally owned manufacturing has also been affected by
globalization.The food and beverage sector employs significant
numbers of bothwomen and men, with women constituting the majority
of the workersin poultry and meat processing, and confectionery
(BIDC, 2000). Plantclosures in 2001 in poultry production (and in
male-dominated soft drink
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production) resulted from the competition of cheaper overseas
products,including those from other parts of the Caribbean.
The expansion of supermarkets, and the increasing importance
ofAmerican food products, is undermining the traditional marketing
busi-nesses of black women with limited education (Karch, 1981:
234–5).Rather than being a main source of livelihood, the informal
selling ofproduce and baked goods is increasingly done for
supplementary incomeby women, and men, who have regular jobs, from
data entry clerksthrough teachers, in the formal sector (Freeman,
2000; and informalpersonal communications).
On the other hand, opportunities to work as sales persons in
larger,usually white-owned stores in the modern sector are
increasing, and arenow open to more educated black women.
Previously, such employmentwas only open to white women (Karch,
1981: 218–19; Lewis, 2001; andinformation from local middle-class
informants).
An area of growth for women’s employment, increasingly
supportedby foreign investment since the 1970s, has been in
service, clerical andadministrative jobs in hotels and restaurants.
With technological changereducing the time and cost of
international travel, Barbados has targetedmiddle to high-end
tourism as a sector for economic growth. At the sametime, the
capital required to establish ‘competitive’ facilities has
resultedin the businesses being increasingly foreign owned.
Employment oppor-tunities for women have been concentrated in
low-skilled service jobs,some of which, albeit often low paying and
seasonal, offer an attractivealternative to domestic service (Levy
and Lerch, 1991). It has been esti-mated (Levy and Lerch, 1991: 71)
that in 1975 approximately 10 percentof the total labour force
worked in tourism, with the proportion increas-ing to between 15
percent (Lewis, 1999) and 20 percent (Levy and Lerch,1991) in the
1980s and 1990s.7
The jobs in tourism for women as receptionists and in
‘middle-level’hotel work as accountants, business office staff and
housekeeping super-visors have also increased. These opportunities,
combined with the post-independence expansion of the public service
and the development ofoffshore financial services (another niche
Barbados has been promoting),have contributed to increases in the
proportion of the female labour force,in Barbados as elsewhere, in
professional and technical jobs (from 10percent to 16 percent) and
in clerical jobs (from 14 percent to 22 percentbetween 1970 and
1990) (Denis, 2001).
Existing research does not permit a full assessment of the
gender, class,race and nationality (local or expatriate8) of those
in the clerical, admin-istrative or managerial jobs in the private
sector, nor of their conditionsof employment and ease of finding
re-employment if laid off. While multi-national firms in
manufacturing, data entry, tourism and financial services
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seem to hire a predominantly local, black, female workforce for
lower-level jobs, management and even supervisory positions are
often filledeither by men or by foreigners, whether men or women
(Dunn and Dunn,1999). Dunn and Dunn also report that differential
salaries and benefitsreceived by local and expatriate managers and
professionals have led toa two-tiered system of remuneration, to
the advantage of the expatriates.This has resulted in increased and
increasingly visible economic inequity.
Although globalization during the past quarter-century has
resulted innew employment opportunities – some of the time – for
women, as Table1 shows, their unemployment rates, which have been
systematically andsignificantly higher than men’s, skyrocketed
between the mid-1980s andthe mid-1990s. In summary, new waged jobs
at various skill levels haveopened for women due both to the
post-independence expansion of thepublic service and to new areas
of industrial expansion within the privatesector. The range of
occupations open to black women has also increased.Interpreting
globalization as involving the movement of discourses aswell as
capital and organizations, much of this improvement is the resultof
globalization. Equally, however, there has been considerable loss
of jobsfor women due to relocations, retrenchment and displacement
of the self-employed. This can also be attributed to
globalization.
Women’s Production and Reproduction: LabourStandards and
Flexibilization
Consistent with the ILO Conventions it has ratified, Barbados’s
labourlegislation is quite comprehensive, but there is no overall
minimum wage,only wage standards within particular industrial
sectors. Occupationalhealth and safety regulations are embryonic
and sexual harassment legis-lation is non-existent (Alleyne, 2000;
Robinson, 1999). Unionization is rela-tively widespread, 30 percent
overall, and particularly prevalent in thepublic sector
(communications from officials in the Department of Labourand two
of the national unions). Barbados requires that offshorecompanies
respect its labour legislation. Since enforcement of such
International Sociology Vol. 18 No. 3
498
Table 1 Percentage Unemployed in the Female and in the Male
Labour Force, 1981–98(Selected Years)
1981 (%) 1984 (%) 1987 (%) 1991 (%) 1994 (%) 1998 (%)
Women 15.1 22.1 23.1 21.5 25.5 16.4Men 7.4 12.9 13.3 13.2 18.2
8.4
Sources: for 1981, 1991 – Denis (1994); for 1984 – calculated
from Barbados (1987); for 1987 –calculated from Barbados (1989);
for 1994 – calculated from Barbados (1994a); for 1998 –calculated
from Barbados (1999).
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legislation is easier in organizations than in the case of
employment byindividuals, one might expect that women, formerly in
private domesticservice, should enjoy better working conditions in
EPZs and tourist facil-ities. Certainly their pay is somewhat
higher, although still low both inabsolute terms and relative to
men’s (see Tables 2 and 3). Unionization is,however, exceptional in
EPZs. In the late 1990s there were documentedcases of offshore
companies objecting to legitimate attempts at unioniza-tion. At
least one offshore data entry company chose to relocate insteadof
accepting unionization, alleging that the voluntaristic labour
relationspractised in partnership by the government, unions and the
private sectorin Barbados constituted an unacceptable form of
labour relations (BWU,1998; Dunn and Dunn, 1999). If taken at face
value, rather than simply asa pretext for rejecting unionization,
this reaction is indicative of a lack ofrespect for the local
labour practices.
Research on the informatics sector (Dunn and Dunn, 1999;
Freeman,2000) has identified work-related conditions which
negatively impact onemployees, the majority of whom are women. High
production quotascan cause both physical and mental stress for
women, particularly whencombined with ergonomically inappropriate
work stations, as is the casein some enterprises. The high level of
turnover, particularly in the dataentry work in which women are
concentrated, suggests that problemsexist. I interpret the
juxtaposition of points made in a Barbados IndustrialDevelopment
Corporation’s profile of the sector as implying that it wasthanks
to the high turnover that the health-related problems were
notgreater (BIDC, 1998). An additional problem that Dunn and Dunn
(1999)noted in some companies was that, although overtime or
additional shiftwork are formally optional, they are expected, and,
unless a woman didovertime or informal sector work, it was often
impossible to earn enoughto meet financial responsibilities for her
family.
Women’s Production and Reproduction: TheEffect of Reductions in
Government Expenditures
Like many other societies which became independent during the
secondhalf of the 20th century, the public service has been an
important employerin Barbados, employing about one-fifth of each of
the male and the femalelabour forces in 1990 (Barbados, 1994b:
Table 8.01), and contributing tothe realization of a social
democratic project of economic developmentand increasing equity and
social justice. The public sector has been moreopen than private
sector enterprises to the hiring of blacks, whether menor women,
and to the hiring of women in professional, management andclerical
jobs. It has also been a relatively well-paying source of
employ-ment, especially for women, and the only one where their
salaries are
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Table 2 Percentage Earning Less than $200B Gross per Week and
Median Gross Weekly Earnings by Type of Employer, for Women andMen,
1990
Women Men
Gross weekly earnings Gross weekly earnings
% Earning Median (Total number % Earning Median (Total
number< $200B earnings in category) < $200B earnings in
category)
Employment status (%) ($) (%) ($)
Worked for employer 48.2 100–199 (34,270) 22.8 200–299
(40,153)Government 26.4 200–299 (9,801) 19.4 200–299
(12,143)Private enterprise 46.0 100–199 (21,846) 23.9 200–299
(27,108)Private household 81.2 100–199 (2,594) 35.2 200–299
(877)
Worked for self 30.0 200–299 (2,653) 13.6 400–499 (6,460)
Total employed (36,923) (46,613)
Source: Calculated from Barbados (1994b: Table 8.02).
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Table 3 Percentage of the Labour Force and Median Gross Weekly
Earnings by Occupation, for Women and Men, 1990
Women Men
Gross weekly earnings Gross weekly earnings
% of Female Median % Earning % Earning % of Male Median %
Earning % Earninglabour earnings < $100B
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approximately equal to men’s: as Table 2 shows, in 1990 about 20
percentof either gender earned under $200B a week, in contrast to
the labourforce as a whole where 23 percent of men and 49 percent
of women earnedunder $200B a week (see Table 3).
As already noted, since 1990, salary reductions, layoffs and
reductionsin operating budgets and privatization have been
introduced in the publicsector as part of the tripartite Social
Partnership. The resulting loss of jobs,increasing expectations at
work (having to do more with less) and lowerincomes have had a
particularly deleterious effect on women, due to theconcentration
of the best-paid women within this sector and due to itsimportance
as a means of occupational mobility for black women. Wecould
anticipate, on the basis of past practices within the large-scale
enter-prises of the private sector, that, in the newly privatized
organizations,women’s opportunities for advancement, particularly
those of blackwomen, will decrease. Thus, the fiscal retrenchment
which has been aconsequence of globalization has had a more
negative impact on theproductive activities of women than on men
working in the public service.
Furthermore, by its effects, through reductions in government
expen-ditures, on their reproductive activities, globalization has
touched allwomen negatively.9 The fiscal and monetary measures,
such as the elimi-nation of price controls on basic food stuffs and
the imposition of valueadded tax (VAT) on consumer purchases,
introduced ‘voluntarily’ tocounter the threat of externally imposed
devaluation, have obligedwomen to cope with rising expenses for
their household needs,10 oftenwith less money. Although prices were
controlled, thanks to the SocialPartnership agreement, increases
were certainly not eliminated. Thecutbacks in some services (public
transport, medical care) and theprivatization of others (telephone)
substantially increase the stress womenexperience, resulting in
such problems as deteriorating health. As in othersocieties, women
are more dependent than men on public transport, menbeing more
likely to have cars or bicycles. It is women who typicallyorganize
the logistics to access state-provided health care, social
servicesand child care. Equally, it is women who continue to have
informalresponsibility for the care of elders and the infirm, and
for child care inthe face of insufficient provisions of such care
by the state. Although thedevelopment of home care and the
extension of child care have beenamong the objectives of the
Barbados Development Plans, implementationhas been curtailed by the
external constraints on government spending.In summary, these
‘invisible’ negative effects of globalization and SAPstend to weigh
more heavily on women than on men (Antrobus, 1989;Barriteau,
1996).
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Women’s Reproductive Activities: The Effects ofTrade Agreements
and Footloose Capital
The effects of trade agreements in particular and of
globalization ingeneral have been contradictory. We have already
discussed the mixedeffects on employment – both the opening up of
new employment oppor-tunities, and also rising unemployment, which
have a significant effecton women’s ability to carry out the
reproductive responsibilities expectedof them. Increases in male
unemployment also impact negatively, sincemany women rely to some
extent on financial contributions from residentor non-resident
partners. On the other hand, the increasing availability ofimported
foods and other goods at lower prices than their locallyproduced
equivalents stretches the buying power of what budget is
avail-able. Equally, however, the intensive advertising of imported
products‘creates’ new ‘needs’ for these consumer goods.
The working conditions imposed by some offshore employers can
alsoimpact negatively on women’s reproductive work. Dunn and
Dunn’s(1999) study in informatics suggests that employers’
expectations relatedto such matters as overtime and punctuality
reflect little appreciation ofthe challenges that women, in
particular, experience, often as singleparents and reliant on
sometimes erratic public transport, in coping withthe demands of
their productive and domestic responsibilities. The lackof
organized child care by employers or the state makes shift
workparticularly challenging.
Women and the International Movement ofInformation and Ideas
Improvements in speed and reductions in the costs of
communication(and transportation) during the last quarter-century
have increased possi-bilities of sharing information and building
alliances. We have alreadyconsidered the negative effects on women
of the neoliberal ideas inform-ing the work of the international
financial organizations. It is in the workof the organizations
dealing with human development that elementspromoting greater
sensitivity to gender equity are articulated, supportedby
gender-disaggregated data and tools for gender analysis.
Preparatorywork, participation in and follow-up work related to
internationalwomen’s conferences continue to offer occasions for
stock taking andstrategizing. For example, the Barbados National
Commission on theStatus of Women and the Department of Women’s
Affairs were both estab-lished in 1976, a year after the first UN
conference on women. Further-more, the issuing of the National
Policy Statement on Women in 1992coincided with preparation for the
Beijing Conference in 1995. The
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conventions of such bodies as the ILO, of which Barbados is a
signatory,provide legitimation for maintaining and improving labour
standards,reiterating the principle of freedom of association, and
legislating equalpay. They also legitimate the introduction and
maintenance of socialmeasures, such as old age pensions, maternity
leave and free education.Our examination of Barbados makes it
clear, however, that the inter-national bodies dealing with fiscal
matters are more powerful than thosewith a human development
agenda.
Resistance by Barbadian Women to the NegativeEffects of
Globalization
Women’s resistance to the negative effects of globalization has
taken twoforms: strategies to improve their individual situation11
and strategieswhose objective is the promotion of social change.
Investing in furthertraining in order to be able to obtain jobs
which offer greater autonomyand/or remuneration or becoming trained
for a variety of jobs is one formof individual resistance, as these
examples from interviews I conductedin 1993–4 (Denis, 1994)
attest.
After leaving school with no qualifications, ‘Sandra’ began
studying math andtyping in a private institution and wants to take
computer courses in order toget a better job.
‘Margaret’ successfully completed school leaving exams in
several subjects. Shehas since completed a secretarial diploma and
courses in accounting, DOS[computer operating system prior to the
advent of Windows] and cake andpastry making, the last ‘so at least
I’ve something to fall back on, in case’. Sheworks full-time in
accounts in a supermarket.
After leaving school with no qualifications, ‘Sharon’ took
evening classes insecretarial subjects and later did a basic
typing-receptionist course. She subse-quently improved her craft
training by working for an experienced craftsper-son and also took
business courses to improve her management of hersmall-scale
handicraft business. She has since taken a nursing course and
worksin elder care because craftwork was not financially stable.
She continues to doit on the side and could use her secretarial
skills if necessary.
Another strategy, also illustrated by the last two cases, is for
those withsalaried, typically full-time, employment to take on a
second or third job,often establishing microenterprises in the
informal sector. These couldinvolve selling fruit, eggs or
preserves, for instance, operating a smallconvenience store from
home (as another of the young women whom Iinterviewed, one with a
middle-level job in the public service, did) orproviding tutoring
or day care. This strategy is now used by professionalsas well as
those with clerical, manufacturing or service jobs. Despite
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entailing an additional source of stress, this strategy, as I
was told infor-mally by a number of black middle-class contacts
during my two researchvisits, provides a way for women (and men) to
maintain the standard ofliving they had achieved 10 or 20 years
ago, but which they now seeslipping away as a result of the changes
related to globalization, notablyrising costs, reduced salaries and
increasing expectations with regard toconsumption.
The sharing of housing by three generations, by adult siblings
and theirfamilies, or by unrelated nuclear families reduces the
cost of housing andmay, at the same time, facilitate child care
(Antrobus, 1989; Barriteau, 1996;Denis, 1994; and informal
communications). This is a final example ofindividual strategies
identified by Caribbean feminist scholars andactivists as examples
of resistance.
Barbadian women’s collective resistance, through women’s
organiz-ations, to the negative effects of globalization has
primarily taken one oftwo non-confrontational forms. The first
focuses on research, lobbyingand public education through NGOs at
the local, regional and inter-national levels, often working in
collaboration with sympathetic bureau-crats within the government
and international organizations. Thepreparatory work for the
Beijing Conference and follow-up activities areexamples of this
strategy, as are lectures, public meetings, media inter-views,
letters to the editor and publication of research reports by
repre-sentatives of the Women’s Forum, the National Organization of
Women(NOW), the University of the West Indies’ Centre for Gender
andDevelopment Studies (CGDS) and its Women and Development
Unit(WAND) (all local), the Caribbean Association for Feminist
Research andAction (CAFRA) (regional) and Development Alternatives
for Women fora New Era (DAWN) (international) (Antrobus, 1989;
Barriteau, 1996;CAFRA/WIDE, 1998; Massiah, 1990; Reddock, 1998;
Williams, 2001). Theother type of collective resistance by women’s
organizations is to continueto support social welfare-type work
which helps to fill the gaps in thesocial safety net: on the one
hand, these activities meet a clear communityneed, but on the
other, they facilitate the state’s disengagement, thepreferred
policy of the proponents of the neoliberal globalization.12
TheBusiness and Professional Women’s Club now administers a Shelter
forBattered Women, for instance, while the Barbados Mothers’ Union
of theAnglican Diocese contributes to the funding of its programmes
(Alleyne,2000). In addition, women have become more active in mixed
organiz-ations, including unions (Alleyne, 2000; BWU, 1998, 2000).
The lack ofsuccess in negotiating on issues identified as being of
particular concernto women – such as sexual harassment and
paternity (as well as mater-nity) leave – suggests that these have
not been a priority in union nego-tiations and have received scant
sympathy from employers.
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Concluding Remarks
In conclusion, what is the relation between (in)equity, on the
one hand,and globalization, on the other, for women, and how does
the inter-section of women’s social positions affect the relation
in Barbados?
This, admittedly selective, overview has demonstrated the
effects ofspecific aspects of globalization on women’s productive
and reproductivework in Barbados. Overall, apart from a brief
period of improvementduring the 1970s in Barbados, globalization
has been associated with deteriorating working conditions for most
women and with insecureemployment. Wage gaps between women and men
and among womenremain significant, exacerbated by differential
local/expatriate pay rates.Women remain concentrated in jobs in
which they are offering low-paidservices to others, although
socioeconomic changes since the 1960s haveopened new opportunities
for occupational, and thus social, mobility,largely based on
education, for both women and men. After rising from20 to 11
between 1970 and 1990 (UNDP, 1995), women’s GDI rank hadfallen to
27 in 1997 (UNDP, 1999),13 an indication of the increasing
inequitythat women experience, in a society whose Human Development
Index(HDI) rank has also fallen, from 25 in 1995 to 31 in 2001
(UNDP, 1995,2001). The analysis of the effects of globalization on
reproductive work isless detailed, suggesting the continuing social
invisibility of this work andthe need for research on it.14 So, the
effects of globalization have mainlybeen negative, increasing
women’s unpaid work, often without acknow-ledging that this is
being done.
At the moment, despite daunting odds, it seems as if there is a
politicalwill to oppose, at least to a limited extent, the negative
effects of globaliz-ation on social policy in Barbados. The Social
Partnership, the insistencethat education is an economic not a
social investment, and Barbados’sactive participation in the
CARICOM negotiations related to the FTAA,WTO and other trade
agreements all attest to such political will. Itappears, however,
to remain oblivious to the gendered nature of theinequities it is
tackling, with the result that solutions do not necessarilyreduce
the gender-based inequities that women experience. Their
inequal-ity remains evident, reinforced, often implicitly, by the
neoliberal policiesand pressures in the public and private sectors.
These pressures, in fact,constitute a backlash against gains that
women had gradually, if unevenly,been making.
Women’s strategies of coping and resistance in Barbados have
beenprimarily individual or as part of mixed groups. This
indicates, perhaps,the relative weakness of the women’s movement
there, despite thepresence of dynamic and articulate feminists
within the society.
Finally, our overview also highlights, in a very summary manner,
the
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fact of the diversity of women’s experience, due to differences
in training,in race or ethnicity, or in social class. The ways in
which women there-fore live the effects of globalization vary in
form and severity, but, formost, they share two common threads – of
being difficult and of beingfaced actively, not passively.
NotesI wish first to acknowledge and thank Dr Eudine Barriteau,
head of the Centerfor Gender and Development Studies, University of
the West Indies, Cave Hill,Barbados, for her support, advice and
friendship, particularly during 2000–1 whenshe made me very welcome
as a visiting researcher at CGDS. I also wish toacknowledge with
thanks the helpful comments of José Havet, Esther Chow andthe
anonymous reviewers for International Sociology on earlier drafts
of this manu-script.
1. Most of the research literature and available statistics
related to women donot explicitly discuss ethnicity/race. I have
drawn on extrapolations fromavailable material (scholarly and more
popular), combined with my own(formal and informal) observations
during two research stays of six to tenmonths each, other briefer
visits and information and insights that colleagues,feminist
activists, officials, friends and acquaintances have been
generousenough to share with me. See also Karch (1981) and Lewis
(2001).
2. These include the Lomé Convention (between the European
Community andthe Caribbean), CARIBCAN (between Canada and the
CommonwealthCaribbean) and CBI (between the US and the Caribbean).
‘Lomé’, the nameof a city in Togo, refers to a Convention between
the EU and the ACP (statesin Africa, the Caribbean and the
Pacific). Initially signed in Lomé in 1975 andrenewed several times
since, it is a comprehensive agreement on trade,development and
cooperation. CARIBCAN is an acronym for the tradeagreement between
the Commonwealth Caribbean and Canada. CBI is theacronym for the
Caribbean Basin Initiative, an agreement between the US
andcountries in the basin of the Caribbean Sea.
3. CARICOM refers to the Caribbean Common Market. Originally
composed ofthe independent English-speaking island states of the
Caribbean and theadjacent mainland, it has since expanded to
include the independent Dutch-speaking state of Surinam and, more
recently, Haiti (Girvan, 2000).
4. For fiscal purposes the whole of Barbados is treated as an
EPZ. The govern-ment has also established several industrial parks
which offer serviced facilities to industrial investors.
5. A declining source of employment for both women and men.6.
Nor did I find evidence of systemic attempts to encourage women to
enrol
in relevant programmes in the Community College or the
University of theWest Indies. They are a minority in these
programmes. Rather, the concernhas been with the overall absence of
men in post-secondary education. It willbe interesting to see
whether the current EDUTECH initiatives in the school
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system result in increased female enrolment in IT (as distinct
from keyboard-ing) programmes at the tertiary level.
7. The reported data are not broken down by gender. They are
estimates becausegovernment statistics do not distinguish work in
tourism from work in relatedsectors. The percentage of the female
labour force in all service jobs increasedfrom 32 percent to 36
percent between 1970 and 1990, with a shift during thesame period
from work as domestics in private houses to other types ofservice
occupations (Denis, 2001).
8. ‘Expatriate’ here refers to nationals from the economic
North, primarily thoseemployed by multinationals.
9. Over half the household heads in Barbados are women. In some
cases thosewho are mothers of dependent child(ren) receive
contributions from non-resident father(s). As in many societies,
regardless of living arrangements, itis the women who are expected
to assume most reproductive responsibilities,including managing the
household budget, and material and emotional careof resident and
non-resident family members and, often, of close friends. Theyare
frequently assisted in this by an informal support network – of
otherwomen (Barrow, 1986, 1996)
10. During extended research stays in Barbados first in 1993–4,
when the firstSocial Partnership Protocol was being implemented,
and then in 2000–1, mygrocery shopping at the neighbourhood
supermarket was at least asexpensive as it was at home in Canada,
even though I made a point of usinglocally produced goods. In
2000–1 I noted a decline in the availability oflocally and
regionally manufactured goods and an increase in American ones.The
latter were often less expensive, despite the higher transportation
costswhich presumably were involved. Furthermore, my groceries were
certainlymore expensive in Barbados than in Trinidad and Tobago,
where I also hadresearch visits that entailed self-catering during
the same years.
11. One evaluator questioned whether such strategies constituted
‘resistance’ orwere simply ‘coping’ mechanisms. I argue that they
are resistance becausethey indicate a refusal to accept passively
such conditions as unemployment,declining living standards, poorly
paid jobs. Some of the strategies areproactive, others, reactive.
‘Coping’ implies making do within externallyimposed constraints,
while ‘resistance’ implies challenging, whether collec-tively or
individually, the limits imposed by the constraints.
Thisconceptualization reflects a usage by feminists.
12. At the same time, they also represent resistance to the
dominant ideology.During my first research visit, for instance,
domestic violence against womenwas simply not acknowledged as an
issue of public concern. Since the estab-lishment of the shelter,
it is becoming one, a change which reminds me of theprocess by
which partner abuse of women has gradually become part of thepublic
policy agenda in Canada, since the 1970s.
13. Barbados’s GDI rank has not been given since 2000, due to
unavailability ofsome of the data needed for its calculation. The
GDI uses the same variablesas the HDI, but is calculated to reflect
disparity in achievement betweenwomen and men. The decline in
Barbados’s ranking on the two indices during
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the 1990s is due to greater improvements on the constituent
variables in othersocieties rather than an absolute decline on
these variables in Barbados.
14. The CGDS is conducting a study on ‘Gender and the Economy:
The Impactof a Stablization and Structural Adjustment Program on
Four Communitiesin Barbados’, which should provide valuable
information on this subject.
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Biographical Note: Ann B. Denis is a Professor of Sociology at
the University ofOttawa. Her research and publications focus on
women’s work in Canada andthe Commonwealth Caribbean, the
intersection of gender, class andethnicity/race, and the use of the
Internet by women and minority Franco-phones in Canada.
Address: Department of Sociology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa,
Ontario K1N6N5, Canada. [email: [email protected]]
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