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 Women in Global Value Chains

Global Value Chains (GVCs) are the networks that link the labour, participation, and distribution processes that result in different commodities or products. They are created through the manufacturing and sale of a commercialized product. It includes the production stages of design, sourcing of raw materials, and prototypes, along with manufacturing, advertisements, and the delivery to the customer. Gender plays a large role in the creation of GVCs as women are one of the largest consumer bases and make up a large percentage of labourers. Within these activities gender dynamics affect the chain at multiple levels, impacting the flexibility in both supply and demand of the global chain. Greater participation of women in the market decreases the amount of them in positions with fewer social benefits relative to their male colleagues. Women are more likely to be victims of discrimination and abuse in the workplace as a result of limited protection and opportunities.

Multinational corporations outsource their products for production in developing countries where costs are minimal and labour is cheap; mostly done by women. When GVCs are instituted in developing countries, pre-existing gender inequalities are made worse. Gender-based strategies within GVCs influences the division of labour as well as the presence of women in certain levels of the chain that enhance the flexibility of the chain and the distribution of various products being made in developing countries. Female workers struggle to empower themselves as they unaware of their full potential and opportunities in their lives. Employment can increase a woman's self-confidence and lower concerns of patriarchal ideas because it women to participate in all arenas in society. Pathways of empowerment generated by GVCs include: improving gender relations, self-confidence, agency within the chain, increased creativity and awareness in overcoming obstacles that limit opportunities, and supportive management. Gender relations within the workforce has resulted in the exploitation of women as the majority population. Consumer trends thrive off the shifts in gender patterns of employment and high female labour force participation.

Effects of Globalization

The increasing competitiveness within the global market, the trend of flexible employment has been adopted in order to diminish labour costs; however, it allows employers to reduce wages as well as employee benefits. Although, flexible work improves multiple levels of the chain, it has displaced formal permanent employment, which was usually predominantly male. Women have become more compliant with flexible employment than men because they traditionally have a lower involvement in the workforce as men. Women move into this type of work because households can no longer run on one income alone, so they have to seek out paid work which increases the amount of women in the workforce.

GVCs are buyer-driven and must balance low prices with high quality output in which multinationals expect from their suppliers. So, value chains function on the demands of the global market that links developing countries to Western markets. Multinational corporations often outsource their products for production in developing countries where costs are minimal and labour is cheap. On one hand, women make up the majority of this workforce who have been exploited as a result of weak gender relations. On the other hand, consumer trends thrive off of the shifts in gender patterns of employment and high female labour force participation. Multinationals that supervise from afar often have high expectations without any real involvement in the production process of GVCs in sectors including agriculture, automobiles, and clothing. Social and environmental dimensions influence how things are distributed within the chain such as workplace safety and worker's benefits. People at the bottom of the chain are women who are exposed to challenges that those at the top of the chain do not experience.

Global trade and investments impact women's earning and progress within their employment in GVCs. There are positive and negative influences that depend on the context, industry or trade, and employment status. The positive impacts include finding new jobs and product markets, while the negatives are lower wages, poor working conditions, and increased workloads.

Employment Relations

In Global Value Chains, the relationship between the employer and the employees can be a very gendered experience. Many companies adopt codes of ethics to reduce worker’s exposure to poor working conditions. Unfortunately, many of these codes do not address the unequal treatment faced by vulnerable workers such as women. Companies perceive the female worker as more productive, having a capacity to perform tedious and delicate work essential for fulfilling tasks which require extreme finger agility. Though their skills are highly valued women tend to be employed in temporary, seasonal, and casual work rather than permanent positions, which are usually filled by men. Female workers end up working longer hours and have fewer opportunities to meet the responsibilities of their domestic lives which can include childcare and maternity leave. Being employed as a temporary worker is usually accompanied with a lack of job security, trade union organizations and bear a high level of risk and vulnerability. Informal employment is becoming more common in export sectors like agriculture. The gendered mistreatment of women is founded on the belief that women are secondary earners to men, relying on their male partners to buffer them against the risk of economic insecurity. For example, women perform the majority of food related work but they control very few of the resources and hold limited decision making power in the food industry and food policy.

Race and Gender

Many social standards fail to acknowledge that having women in causal positions is not beneficial, especially when gender and race intersect. Race is an important part of the experience as race can have a bigger impact on the experience in the labour market than gender. Women of Colour (Black, Asian, and Latinas) fall at the bottom when it comes to holding power in the labour market in terms of wages, job authority, and occupational positions. White women and men tend to hold the top positions, their race placing them in positions above women of colour but their gender putting them below white men. 

Developed Vs Developing Countries

Global Value Chains rely on a complex network which spans across multiple borders, having different impacts within the different economies. GVCs have both negative and positive impacts in developing and developed countries. The presence of a GVC can create increased job mobility and increase the size and complexity of pre-established networks. The outcome in developed and developing countries differentiates as GVCs begin to interact with domestic economies and labour markets. Each economic types plays an important role in GVCs. Developed countries are generally more responsible for the design stages while developing countries take on intermediate stages of assembly and production. 

Developing Countries

Developing countries tend to provide fertile legal ground for international investors to expand global value chains and thus the domestic market. However, any developing countries lack the legislative protections for the labour market which leaves their most vulnerable employees, mainly uneducated women, without protection from exploitation. 

The investment in developing countries that accompanies the implementation GVCs is highly influential to said country’s economic structure. GVCs provide better access to information, opens new domestic and international market opportunities, and acts as a conduit for a faster technological learning and labourer skill acquisition. GVCs in developing countries also introduces new standards of quality control and working conditions. Though Global Value Chains do add positives to the economies of developing countries, the companies of the labour is completed by unskilled workers and an increase in wage inequality which negatively impacts the women in the country’s labour market. Developing countries often lack the legislative backbone used to protect workers against discriminatory practices such as unequal pay for equal work and the work roles for men and women. Some employers in developing nations have made strides to improve the health and safety conditions but it is not always accompanied with the development of workers associations to fight for higher wages or better working conditions.

When GVCs are introduced into developing countries, existing gender inequalities are reinforced in hired labour situations. Hired labour includes positions which the worker is not required to be extremely skilled or well educated. When highly feminized GVCs are present there is an exploitation of young female workers who migrate from rural areas. These women are unskilled and poorly educated, migrating to the factories in large numbers to aid through remittance to poverty stricken family members. In a survey of 292 Cambodian garment workers 90% were female with only 47% having only elementary school education or less. 90% of the women sent their paychecks to their families to care for them in their absence. 

In agricultural based developing countries the introduction of GVC may help to increase the ability for women to gain access to landownership but the physical hardships, such as needing to de-weeding of the property for planting crops, continues to deter them from the process.  

Developed Countries

The increase in outsourcing jobs to the developing countries does have negative consequences for the developed nations. When GVCs are created, many of the markets are driven by the global buyers who is are likely to be situated in a developed country. As companies owned by person from developed countries seek to outsource to cheaper labour in developing countries, less skilled workers are at risk for job loss. Domestic producers in developed countries tend to be the hardest hit when GVCs expand. Global buyers tend to prefer to purchase items from vendors they are already aligned with, continuing to remain loyal to the familiar brands even they begin to outsource, thus limiting the interaction with domestic producers. Though women in developed countries help to drive GVCs, they still experience discrimination in the labour market. For example, in the Tanzanian tea value chain there are very few tea tasters and tea buyers or brokers who are female.  

Pathways to Empowerment

The emphasis on gender within GVCs presents potential implications that may arise in other levels, therefore, impacting the GVC as a whole. Without including women, GVCs are unable to function to their highest potential in order to maximize outputs. However, with increased participation of women in the workforce has resulted in the expansion of production for the global market. The feminisation of labour is associated with greater insecurity, and precarious work as those participating in global value chains are seeking economic independence and an alternative to labour within the home. GVCs can generate empowerment for women in 3 ways: being, going, and sharing. Being involves seeing alternative within gender relations that provide women with tools that hold worth in enacting change and exercising agency within the chain. Doing focuses on the increase of creativity within women's employment when trying to overcome the obstacles that they face daily and achieving new possibilities such as increase awareness of their capabilities. Supportive management is important to the success of female employers within the chain because it provides women with tools to cope with challenges that may arise as a result of the structure of the chain. Lastly, sharing provides women with opportunities to share experiences to increase actions towards creating chances of empowerment which can help the other two pathways work more efficiently.

Women's choices impact strategic and practical gender needs such as their identifications as a result of their subordination in society and the conditions of they position within the division of labour of the chain. The linkages between women's empowerment and their employment presents empowerment opportunities through earning a wage that gives women more power and access to opportunities, however, it burdens them of more responsibilities without increasing their autonomy.

Kenyan tea and cut-flower industries

Women in Kenyan tea and cut-flower industries supply products to firms in Europe who are large employers of female bringing potential empowerment to them. Employment fosters women's self-confidence and social interaction by minimizing fears of being a working woman in a man's world of the labour force because they are able to participate more fully in all arenas of their lives. This results in financial independence and self-reliance.