Hey everyone, MNK99 here, How's It going? I just wanted to share an essay with you. This was written for a Master's level Trade Policy and Integration Course I took, regarding Human Capital and how "Growth" economics, are favored but often leave the true economic value of many people, including women outside of the equation. Hopefully some of you can learn or find this interesting. Several semesters ago, I watched this video and completed much research in Liberalization of Trade vs. Real Upward Mobility of Capital in Developing Economies. I came across a video by New Zealand Human Rights Activist and Politician, Marilyn Waring. This video informs the following essay. Watch and read, and tell me what you think. I look forward to comments.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/whos_counting/
International policy has favored “growth” economics to reduce poverty worldwide. Despite significant wealth and Income improvements in many developing nations, more than half of the inhabitants remain impoverished, with women disproportionately left economically powerless.
Has economic growth, synonymous with "trade" helped improve the life outcomes and opportunities of women?
Sadly, it often has failed to do so.
Rapid growth in Latin America, and especially in East Asia, where many have been moved out of poverty, provides support in favour of liberalization. However, even though there is immense wealth and affluence in certain segments, there is an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor.
The Standard of Death:
Marylin Waring, a human rights activist and feminist economist, in her film, ‘Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics’ uncovered shocking truths about the values underlying our international economic system. In her words:
"This system doesn't include everything. It's highly selective... The system records no value other than money, regardless of how (its) is made. This means there is no value to peace... the preservation of natural resources... the unpaid work of women who feed and nurture their own family... This system leaves out the work of (women).
It is the cause of massive poverty, illness, and death of millions of women and children... This is an economic system that can eventually kill us all.”
The National System of Accounts (NSA )dictates the International Monetary Fund (IMF) borrowing constraints. Surely, founding international economics on shaky values is detrimental to humanity at large.
The most rapidly growing nations are those with the largest gender-wage-gaps, according to the United Nations Development Programme (the UNDP).
Domestic activities of women support the accumulation of human capital. And yet much of this work "does not count", as Waverly phrased it. Rapid expansion of global markets does not automatically make trade "fair" or equitable.
Women, as mothers and daughters bare the majority of holding a family together. Disrupting family units harms everyone. In America, negative outcomes can be seen in historically marginalized groups, like African Americans, with results in educational attainment, violence, and life expectancy. This has been debated to be partly be caused by the large number of single-mother households.
The System of National Accounts much like Macroeconomic concept of convergence is mere fabrications.
"Growth" economics, as the means to end poverty, is a fallacy at best. It is a product of a system, designed in error at worst.
UNIFEM’s Report, 2005 researched various occupations in the developing world. One such case was of the "Waste Pickers" in Lucknow, India. The severe risks of infectious disease are common to male and female workers. Women, face the heightened risks of harassment and further isolation. Conditions are deplorable and dehumanizing.
As a Canadian with an East Indian ethnicity, I have seen some disturbing results back home. For instance, I've seen a $300,000 dollar car and 12 year-old girl begging alongside, amongst the chaotic New Delhi streets.
In India, the historical caste system, political corruption, and religious and cultural context make it impossible for many to ever leave poverty.
In Mexico, rapid liberalization enabled US firms to move offices there. This is to lower tax burdens and pay lower wages.
Liberalization created many export-driven growth in developing nations. Jobs there are frequently of low security, low wages, and non-permanence. Women tend to be hired here. This indicates that firms view women workers as indispensible.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is common for women to work 16-18 hours a day.
Basic cooking energy, and water gathering tasks take many hours in this region. I think fixing this should be prioritized by policy.
Many of the world's poor, are working poor. They sustain a basic modicum of well-being, but remain impoverished indefinitely.
Many jobs created are those in low-paying factory and labour capacities, such as the garment industry in Bangladesh, and coffee picking in Latin America.
Are slavery like conditions in sweatshops, and waste-picking jobs acceptable? The WTO, IMF, and World Bank policies, create these deplorable circumstances, throughout the entire developing world, by means of liberalization of trade policies and rapid growth, driven by exports. Is this “fair” trade?
Such work can destabilize family units and perhaps entire economies in the long run, more than it creates the opportunity to truly improve one’s life.
Human rights and gender activist, Zo Randriamaro, wrote a report on Gender trade dynamics. The report showed that factors like gender, nationality, social, and cultural differences contribute to differing outcomes. Women, be expectation and self-responsibility take care of the family, often to their own detriment. It is imperative, that policy and economics focus on their affects to humankind, to make fair and equitable outcomes for all.
Does a gain in Real GDP-per-capita warrant the displacement of millions, often relegated to immense poverty?
The quality of "Life" should be the concept to which development is based on. I support Randriamaro’s recommendation of the creation of a Task Force on gender, in the WTO.
It is the choices available to us, in determining our own education, economic and business participation, and ability to seek health and employability that are left out of trade rounds at the WTO.
The UNDP remarked
"The only real relationship between liberalization of trade restrictions and subsequent economic growth, is that nations remove barriers, as the become richer." This is counter to the proponents of ever-increasing “openness” of trade. Open markets are not enough.
Essentially, a human development approach is the only manner in which many diseconomies of international development can be improved. Policy must be reformed to enable women to have power over their decisions of employment, spending, free time, education, and healthcare. Autonomy over one's decisions and life outcomes and the ability to succeed, with equitable work and wages should be the goal of international developmental policy, economic and otherwise.
The status quo, that leaves the work of women’s formal and informal, and unpaid work, off the books, is the "Economics of Death."