Families in a Global Context Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Families in a Global Context - Assignment Example Until the 1990s, the issue of migration of women was discussed largely in the context of sex-trafficking. But globalization has unfolded a new phenomenon of overseas migration of women as job seekers. The book, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russel Hochschild (2003) have revealed there is more to this phenomenon than breaking down of cultural barriers caused by communication revolution and relaxation of patriarchal restraints on the mobility of women. Exploring the avenues that lead to this social behavior, the authors have begun with the socio-economic context in which World Bank and IMF- imposed development models have forced third world governments to tighten their economies thereby leaving their citizens no other option than to leave the country to make a living (Ehrenreich, Hochschild, 2003, p.1-5). And what is peculiar about this migration is that â€Å"today half of all the world’s migrants are wo men.†( Ehrenreich, Hochschild, 1993, p.5) and they migrate mostly to take up low paid jobs as maids and nannies. The picture that emerges is that of a new kind of economic asylum seekers who are the refugees of globalization. These women, according to the book, ease a ‘care deficit’ that has emerged in the first world. This ‘care deficit’ was created in the developed world when the majority of women who used to take care of the young, aged and the sick of the society shifted their energies to paid jobs (Parrenas, 2003, p.35). Growing awareness about women’s rights and the pressure exerted by a competitive economy were the key factors behind this change. The middle class of US was finding it difficult to balance their budget without two paychecks. In the US, 65% of mothers of children aged six, are now doing paid work. (Ely, Scully, Foldy, 2003, p.404). As men were not considered sharing the domestic work even in this changed scenario, it was in evitable that substitutes had to be there to do the family scores.  Ã‚