How Globalization Impacted Labor

ISERP

Working Paper 08-05

How Globalization Has Impacted Labor:
A Review Essay
SEYMOUR SPILERMAN
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
DECEMBER 2008

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH AND POLICY
PIONEERING SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND SHAPING PUBLIC POLICY

How Globalization has Impacted Labor: A Review Essay*

Seymour Spilerman
Department of Sociology
Columbia University

ISERP Working Paper 08-05

December 2008

*

I gratefully acknowledge support for this work from the Ford Foundation, grant #1040-1239.

How Globalization has Impacted Labor: A Review Essay
Seymour Spilerman

December 2008

ABSTRACT
This essay outlines the features of
388-391).
Nonetheless, the formulations of the Annales school and of World Systems Analysis, while global in scope and dynamic in their focus on change processes, differ from the specifications used in globalization studies in several respects. Unlike the literature on globalization, they do not presume the operation of a single, or a narrow set of driving forces that underlie the change. Wallerstein (2004,
p. 21) is emphatic on this point: “[W]orld-systems analysis lacks a central actor in its recounting of history. ... [The various actors in other theoretical systems are seen here as] part of a systemic mix out of which they emerged and upon which they act.” The earlier formulations also depart from the globalization literature in that the primal drive, whether conceived as a systemic mix of factors or more narrowly, as in the case of Marxian historiography, tends to be conceptualized as an inexorable force of nature that is beyond the control of the impacted nations. In studies of globalization, by contrast, the engine of development and change is an outcome of intention and design, the result of negotiated agreements among nation-states to advance a neo-liberal
Finally, each volume has a concluding chapter that collates the country findings and attempts to generalize them, with the intent of assessing the success of the different types of institutions in moderating the effects of globalization.
Careers, then, are seen as evolving within a setting of institutional structures. In the Globalife formulation there are several broad configurations of institutional structures, variants of the welfare regime types proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990) and Pontusson (2005), among others. Blossfeld and his associates use the following nation-state categories: social-democratic (active labor market policies with a goal of full employment, gender equality, and income protection--e.g., Denmark,
Sweden), corporatist (strong family policies, traditional gender division of labor, income protection-Germany), familistic (similar to corporatist, emphasizes the role of kin and family in ensuring against social risks--e.g. Italy, Spain), liberal (passive labor market policies, modest public sector employment-e.g., U.S., Great Britain), and post-socialist (emerging welfare regimes--e.g., Hungary, Czech
Republic).
Globalization has internationalized markets and intensified competition, compelling employers