Review:Women & Trade Liberalization: The Caribbean Experience

Manish Kumar Shrivastava[1]

Introduction:

The core objective of the trade and gender debate is to promote gender equality in society as well as in economic activities. The origins of this debate rest with the objective of achieving an 'inclusive' form of globalization which "respects human dignity and equal worth of every human being".[2] It has been widely acknowledged that trade has positive and negative impacts for any country. Some sections of society benefit while some put up with losses. Most of the time, the impact of trade corresponds to a group's position in the economic sphere. From a gender point of view, it is believed that being a disadvantaged group, women are usually more prone to the negative impacts of trade. In this context, Caribbean offers an interesting case to understand the complex dynamics between trade liberalization and gender dynamics in a society for women have been at the core of economic activities in Caribbean for last few decades.[3] The objective of this paper, however, is not to elaborate upon the complexities of gender-trade relationship in the Caribbean. Instead, it sets out the broad contours of further research on the issues pertaining to gender based analysis of trade liberalization in the context of small countries.

Women in Caribbean Economies

The socio-economic pattern of the industrialization model in Caribbean economies is a continuation from the establishment of the plantation economy and slavery via its transition into the peasant economy. One of the key elements of this pattern is the fundamental dependence of the economy on the labor of women. Since the 1980s, women have played a critical role in helping to finance Caribbean economic development as the regional economy has increasingly and explicitly relied on women's labor to generate foreign exchanges in the manufacturing export processing zones, producing garments and textiles. The current reliance on services as the main engine of growth in the region "foreshadows even greater reliance on women's paid and unpaid labor".[4]

As a result the Caribbean comes across as a region where gender inequality in terms of participation in economic activity is considerably low so much so that in some cases it is ranked higher than the US.[5]  However, these statistics are quite misleading as women still dominate in sales and clerical and are less represented in technical and professional categories other than teaching, nursing and medical and dental assistants. Women despite their higher educational achievement earn about seventy percent of male wages. To give a broad idea, in Jamaica, which is among the most developed countries in the region, "nearly half of households are headed by women and tend to experience more sever poverty than male headed households".[6]

Impact of Trade Liberalization

The economies of Caribbean countries are extremely small with limited population and market size. The regular occurrence of natural disasters such as hurricanes and volcanoes has negatively affected their economic development. These factors, together with a high degree of openness of these economies and limited range of export commodities have made the Caribbean economies vulnerable to the fluctuations in international market.[7] For about three decades now the Caribbean, particularly countries such as Jamaica, are going through the process of globalization and liberalization entailing institutional restructuring of labor, goods and financial markets. The consequent transition of the region from agro to industrial to service profiles has led to considerable changes in the pattern and location of production and employment.[8] The most critical implication of this development is that the countries which had developed a marginal yet an export oriented manufacturing base, today find it difficult to sustain their manufacturing sector both in terms of production and employment.[9]

From a gender point of view the dependence on low cost women labor in the Caribbean has been further deepened by trade liberalization and its transition into the new service economy, particularly in Jamaica and Barbados, via integration into the international production circuits of labor intensive light manufactures electronics, data processing and the subcontracting of textiles and apparel production.[10] This may suggest that after the trade liberalization and structural adjustment in the Caribbean, the region has improved its performance on women's participation in economy. But, on the contrary, the trade liberalization on the whole has caused the region substantial job losses. For instance, after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became operational many multinationals shifted their textile production bases from the Caribbean to Mexico leaving more than 30,000 women jobless.[11]

More striking are the findings of a study by Brenda Wyss and Marceline White (2004) on the Jamaican experience. It observes that in Jamaica, a disaggregate analysis of impact of trade liberalization shows that it has affected men and women differently. For instance, between 1993 and 2001, men gained 45,500 jobs overall while women lost 12,400 jobs. They also estimate that if the FTAA would result in Jamaican men gaining 50,000 jobs while women losing 12,000 jobs between 2005 and 2009. This clearly suggests that at for small economies, at least in Jamaican case, trade liberalization has a tendency to favor men against women. One possible explanation of this could be the fact that in a free trade world competitiveness rests with the technology intensive-high skilled production activities. Women, structurally being unskilled and thus employed in labor intensive production activities, therefore, are likely to lose jobs in agriculture and manufacturing sectors as trade liberalization intensifies.

In the case of service sector the scenario is much positive. The opportunities for women in certain services have increased due to trade liberalization. For instance the opportunities for cross border trading as well as the migration of nurses and health professionals to the North have increased considerably.[12] However, any negative impact on the service sector, particularly in the public sector, will disproportionately affect women as they are over represented there in the Caribbean.[13]

Conclusion

The Caribbean experience highlights that it might be erroneous to make a universal claim promoting trade liberalization for the betterment of the economy as the impacts of trade have been positive as well as negative on different sections in a country or region. What can be inferred from the Caribbean experience, particularly from a gender perspective, is the need to assess and analyze the impact of trade at a disaggregate level. Such a disaggregation should not only distinguish between sectors but also on their skill components along with their labor intensities. It also highlights the dire need to focus on training and education of women if trade has to be aligned with the objective of bringing gender equality in and through the economic activity.

References:

1.       CAFRA (2002), Gender and Trade In the Caribbean, available at http://www.cafra.org/article391.html

2.       Caribbean Gender and Trade Network (2001), Gender, Trade and WTO in the Caribbean: A Preliminary Report, Caribbean Gender and Trade Network. available at http://www.igtn.org/page/139/1

3.       UNCTAD (2004), Trade and Gender: Opportunities and Challenges for Developing Countries

4.       Williams, Mariama (2002), Financing Development in the Context of Globalization and Trade Liberalization: Opportunities and Constraints facing the Caribbean.. http://www.igtn.org/page/171/1/

5.       Wyss, Brenda and White, Marceline (2004), The Effects of Trade Liberalization on Jamaica's Poor: An Analysis of Agriculture and Services, Women's Edge Coalition, available at http://www.igtn.org/pdfs//294_Jamaica%20Case%20Study.pdf