Global Women in the New Economy, Essay Example

Ehrenreich and Hochschild’s “Global Women in the New Economy” and Bourgois’s “Office Employment and the Crack Alternative” examine how changes in the economic sphere affect specific segments of the American population and society at large. The underlying thesis of both texts is that changes in economic production, particularly related to manufacturing jobs, has a systematic effect on the lives of minority groups and women. Accordingly, the two authors emphasize a crucial link between the economic and the social spheres.

Bourgois’ article discusses how the loss of manufacturing jobs has affected the Puerto Rican community in the New York area. According to what Bourgois describes as cultural differences, Puerto Ricans were unable to acquire in significant numbers higher paying jobs within the economy. Nevertheless, a strong Puerto Rican working class did exist according to the presence of manufacturing jobs. With such manufacturing jobs leaving the area because of the demands of a global economy that move such plants to poorer countries where workers are not paid as much, the Puerto Rican working class experienced a substantial loss of its income. This, in turn, eliminated economic opportunity for many Puerto Ricans, who were now forced into criminal activity because of economic reasons. Ehrenreich and Hochschild examine this same effectivity of a global economy and the movement of manufacturing jobs within an economic paradigm dominated by globalization. Such movement, however, does not only result in the movement of specific jobs or occupations, but in the movement of workers. The authors specifically examine the movement of women immigrants from poorer countries to richer countries, with an emphasis on how this migration creates a diminishment of the quality of family life in the country of these women’s origin, as they are now separated from their families. Nonetheless, globalization simultaneously creates a more closely knit world, as the economies of respective countries become continuously more interrelated.

Both texts seek to highlight the profound effect the economic sphere has on the social. The presence of certain working class jobs can lead to a flourishing of individual communities and create job opportunities for immigrants. At the same time, however, the quality of social life is dependent on the workings of the economy, such that the economic sphere achieves a certain hierarchical privilege over the social sphere. In consequence, the economic sphere can negatively impact social possibilities, as for example, the absence of jobs can lead to increased criminality, or families are split because of the need to provide.

In both texts, however, there is not a thorough critique of the relationship between the economic and the social sphere. Because of these negative effects, the logical question would be how to reverse such priorities: to emphasize the well-being of social groups as opposed to making such social groups subject to the movements of the economy. In other words, there is a lack of a radical re-evaluation of the terms of the greater societal and economic mechanisms, as the authors provide a largely empirical description of individuals experiencing this mechanism. While, for example, Bourgois notes the clear negative effects of the economy’s determination of social life, the author does not propose a more sweeping, greater theoretical picture, in which the links between the social and the economic could be re-thought. Whereas the loss of manufacturing jobs for the Puerto Rican community could be read as symptomatic of a greater economic global policy, the extant question remains how a reversal of priorities could be achieved.

Both authors effectively point out how the economic sphere dominates the social sphere. However, these texts do not attempt to offer a way out of this domination on any extensive theoretical level. Nevertheless, their texts can be used as valuable empirical material for an understanding of how the economic affects the social, which in turn could be employed to develop a broader theoretical approach to this relationship.