Globalization and information technology: vanishing social contracts, the “pink collar” workforce and public policy challenges

Abstract

This paper critically examines the influence of information technology (IT) on women’s career structures. Globalization is forcing an increasing inter‐dependence of radically re‐engineered labour forces and the further “internal” exploitation of the internationalization of the dual labour market many women have endured. The global trend is towards further fragmenting a shrinking, gender‐based set of career opportunities and creating an increasingly marginalized, part‐time, “pink collar” labour force, associated with the putative revolution of the tertiary sector transforming out of industrial, manufacturing economies. The implications of the emergence of a “pink collar” labour force largely go unexamined. The much heralded argument that IT will transform “coercive” organizational structures and work practices needs, yet again, to be critically examined in the context of the further destruction of professional opportunities for women in radically re‐engineered public sectors, aggressively “micro‐economized” labour forces and rapidly dissipating organizational and social contracts.