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

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Companies place emphasis on health only at the time of employment.
After recruitment interviews, workers are usually required to take an eye
test, x-rays, medical examination, and a pregnancy test, for management and
placement purposes rather than for the workers' health. In general, newly
hired workers test at above average physical and mental health. Once on the
job, though, it is up to the worker to have regular check-ups, although a
few TNCs are now beginning to set up biological monitoring systems.
Outside of work, the literature also portrays a workforce of young,
helpless women who are ruthlessly exploited, in the pejorative (rather than
economic) sense, by TNCs. Table 9 summarizes the literature on the
conditions for the reproduction of labor power.
For migrant workers, at least in Malaysia and Indonesia, men pose an
additional stress factor in their lives outside the factory (Blake 1975;
Grossman 1978; L. L. Lim 1982; Jamil ah 1980; Mather 1982). Back in the
villages, traditional family life both protected and controlled this
factor. Courtship and marri age, if not actually decided by the family,
always involved family advice and consent. But after migration, a worker is
cut off from these interactions. Many young women do not know how to cope
with bei ng accosted by strange men. The typi ca 1 image of the modern ci ty
al so creates an impression for vill agers that factory workers are immoral,
or "loose." Village men often refuse to marry women who have worked in
factories. In their new communities, the women are also seen as outsiders.
In Thail and and the Phil i ppi nes, factory workers sometimes drift into the
large and well-established prostitution industry either when they are
retrenched or when they need additional income, thus further tarnishing the
image of women factory workers (Eisold 1982).
While most of the research to date has portrayed electronics workers as
oppressed vi ctims, there are some reports that look at the experi ence from
the workers' subjective viewpoint and consider their adaptive processes
(Jamilah 1981). It does appear that, in the 10 to 15 years of being part of
the industrial workforce, these women workers' outlook and aspirations have
changed; they have developed their own ways of adapting and coping.
Increasingly, young women with limited skills see jobs in electronics
factories as a means of gaining economic and social independence as well as
finding new friends who come from different places and varied backgrounds.
The job experience has given many workers the hope of better job
opportunities. While some are pursuing further vocational studies, others
plan to move into government service, all ied health professions, or shop
ownership (Fatimah 1983). Increasingly, women are making their own choices
of marital partners rather than following family preferences. Migrants are
indicating a preference for settl ing in urban areas. Al so, famil ies are
beginning to accept the independent decision of working daughters, be it
marriage or job choice. Their voices are more respected in family financial
decision-making and their advice is sought on the futures of their siblings
(Kung 1978).