The 'Mistress' and the 'Maid' in the Globalized Economy

Abstract

An examination of the infrastructure for the production/reproduction of global capital reveals a wide variety of work cultures, including secretaries, delivery persons, maids, child care workers, & other low-skilled workers, that are overlooked in studies focusing on the hypermobility of capital & the power of transnationals. Although the flexibility of the labor market has created greater equality between educated middle-class women & men, it has produced greater inequality among women, especially between professional women & those who work in the informal economy. Social differentiation & globalization are described as "complementary processes which are restructuring both the private & the public arenas." The increase in both professional women & those who do paid work in households marks the end of the Fordist family breadwinner model, reveals a new power relationship between women, & represents a connection between the formal & informal labor markets that is directly linked to the neoliberal character of globalization reflected in state policy. Suggestions are made for ways to avoid the creation of a new ethnically defined female underclass. J. Lindroth