Health, Women's Work, and Industrialization - Center for Gender in ...

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social relations for women. While Indians and Malays speak at length about
new friendships established on the assembly line, the Chinese are more
concerned with income. Thei r status withi n the family has ri sen as their
income-earning abil ity increased. The transition to the factory-centered
1 i fe has been most natural for the Chi nese. Havi ng come to Singapore and
Malaysia as traders and wage laborers, the Chinese had already been enmeshed
in capitalist relations. The disenchantment of clerical workers with
factory work in Singapore suggests rising expectations of employment
opportunities and a discriminating hierarchy of those opportunities.
Perhaps the most striking difference in how people viewed their jobs and
work in general is found between Singapore and Malaysia. In Malaysia, many
production workers aspired to become clerical workers, since they showed
considerable pride in their position in life. In Singapore, many clerical
workers were quite disenchanged, for they desired jobs outside the factory.
In Malaysia, workers worried about job security and wished for employment in
the government sector. In Si ngapore, many wi shed for retrenchment in order
to start anew in another job and receive severance pay upon 1 eavi ng. In
Malaysia, most workers identified money and friends as important job
factors; however, they wou1 d choose to stay home if they di d not have the
financial need to work. In Singapore, while money and friends were
important, more were inc1 ined to identify a broadening of horizons as an
important aspect of working, than workers in Malaysia. Indeed, most
indicated a desire to continue working regardless of financial need,
suggesting that work has meaning at an abstract level.
Although working conditions and management practices are relatively
similar across companies and countries, they too were changing. With each
economic downturn, labor was being replaced by machines. As machines
increased, the proportion of women workers began to decrease. Increase in
the use of machi nes a1 so 1 ed to hi gher producti on targets, but the targets,
no longer ti ed to a person's dexterity, were now ti ed to the machi nes.
While supervisors still remained central authority figures (if not
authoritarian), the machines provided a buffer against management demands on
producti vity. In other respects, however -- from bei ng all owed to see a
nurse to being given a promotion -- it is still the supervisor who dominated
workers'lives. It is the combination of financial incentives and direct
supervisory authority that has kept workers working. By and large,
corporate paternalism was recognized by workers as insincere. Workers
readily accepted what was useful to their existence, such as health care and
transport, and rejected what was not, such as sports and other social
activities. Even though workers' labor could be bought, their loyalty could
not. Workers accepted, even preferred, separation between their social and
economic lives.
With respect to the physical working environment, changes can also be
noted. Over the past few years, the companies have become increasingly
concerned about health and safety issues, largely in response to pressure
from headquarters. With the physical plants being new and therefore in
reasonable condition, more attention has been paid to safety guards on