The Reproduction of Difference: Gender and the Global Division of Labour

Volume 6 Number 1 of the international interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal 'Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation focuses on gender in the international division of labour. The new global division of labour is bringing about huge changes in who does what work, how, when and where. But this dynamic new landscape is shaped by some very old forces. The gender division of labour in the home still, directly or indirectly, plays a dominant role in determining the very different experiences of women and men in this new global labour market, although it faces multiple new contradictions and stresses in a context of rising female employment and mass migration: clashes between traditional and modern values; shifting boundaries between work that is paid and unpaid, formal and informal; and a situation where the time pressures on one group of women may only be resolved through the 'grey' labour of others, often migrants. Drawing on research in Asia, Africa, Europe and America, this issue explores and analyses some of these dilemmas and describes how women are addressing them in their daily lives, in the process raising new questions for future research.