Gender Perspectives on Globalization The social impact of globalization: case of Indian nurses migration

The globalization advent can be dated back to the post WWII era leading to the cold war period where countries increasingly chose the nations that they aligned their diplomatic, political and economic allegiances to. This trend was informed by the global economic trends that prevailed after the WWII and the need for economic allies in order for a country and to some extent a region to survive. The World Bank (2014a) advances globalization as the increased interdependence of countries on each other due to the ever increasing finance, trade, human resources and ideologies at the global level. It is characterized by the significant increase in the international trade patterns and the establishment of cross-border investments and these are noted to be the two major characteristics of globalization as sated by Mrak M. (2000:Pp3-6) and these cannot be overlooked.

Abstract

This paper will delve into the social influence that the globalization trend has take, especially in line with the human resources relocation across borders that are becoming more fluid allowing population flow across the world, creating a more beefless world each day. The case in point within the scope of the paper is the issue of female nurses' migration in India and how this plays a role in the disruption and the reshaping of the role of gender in India. In as much as globalization might have started after the WWII, it really intensified in the years leading to 1980s. This is when there was a massive change and technological advancement that made transport and communication much cheaper and faster as well as the liberalization of trade and capital markets and cross border investment, this is the period that this paper will focus more on within the context of India nursing profession.

A number of international institutions came into being in the course of globalization like the World Bank, the IMF, World Trade Organizations and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GAAT) which helped make the capital markets more fluid and uniform, the labor capital inclusive. These bodies have all along helped in opening up the market and promoting free trade as opposed to the protectionism tendencies that were the norm before the onset of globalization and the subsequent bodies. This opening up of markets also got extended to the labor markets where professions were no longer confined to a given country or a given region, but went far beyond the conventional borders. This has seen the movement of labor and skills plus professions across the globe with subsequent consequences being felt by the concerned nations. There is a significantly high exportation of labor from the least developed nations whose economies are weak as compared to the nations with better established economies (International Organization for Migration, 2006:Pp3). The motivations for this type of migration of labor, the effects and the consequences for both countries will be a subject of discussion in this paper as well.

Thesis

The process of globalization has disrupted and reshaped the gender norms and led to extensive migration of the women nurses in particular from India to other parts of the world, with accompanying consequences.

Globalization and the social impact

India has seen a massive shift in the labor market trends over the last two decades with people in the nursing fraternity being one of the highest affected in the shift in labor supply bearing the demand occasioned by globalization and the subsequent trends. Ideally, in the face of globalization, if the forces of demand and supply hold constant, there is need to see the two countries that engage in trade exchange mutually benefit from each other and not just one side taking the full credit or benefits (Gupta G., 2013:Pp47).

The above claim is further solidified by the Ricardo Theory of comparative advantage, which indicates that a country will only export the commodity in which it has a comparative labor-productivity advantage in (Costinot A. Donaldson D., 2012). This means that a country can only export the excess labor or goods, after taking care of the production costs and other indirect cost and still remain with an advantage in terms of the internal supply for the demand of the service or the goods. However, this is rarely the case, particular among the developing countries and the underdeveloped nations. In the DCs, the resources do not allow for the establishment of adequate skilled labor and even...

This trend is further perpetrated by the attractive nature of the skilled labor from the DCs once they land in the developed nations since their labor cost is relatively lower and still offer quality service, the employers would then hire from outside as many as is logical for the organization to effectively run since this would save the organization from extra costs in terms of high salaries and related benefits that may not extend to the immigrant employees.
The historical perspective of nursing in India gives the value that was attached to nursing especially under the British colonialism and how this changed hence the roles of the nurse also evolved. The British found it important to have the nurses from the Indian community to conduct several assignments in the hospital. The British wanted to have trained nurses from the Indian community to take up several administrative and even teaching responsibilities. However, they found it harder than they initially thought to teach the local Indian population. This was due to the view that the local population held towards nursing. It was considered widely as a menial job and that people from the lower caste are the ones who were to take up such jobs. The caste and the religious ways and practices hindered the Islam and Hindu women from taking up the nursing jobs. Apart from the caste system, there was the low social status that was accorded to women that made them be looked down upon hence shied away from by many people. The British however set out to sort this misconception, in the 1920s and the 1930s they established several nursing schools in different parts of the country with the sole aim of standardizing the nursing training and bring it dignity. By the time India attained its independence from Britain, almost each province had built its own nursing school. Since then, nursing has been considered as part of the curative and the preventive measures of the health system within the nation. The centrality of nursing was further emphasized in the post-colonial times with strategic plans like the five-year plans being put in place for boosting nursing and making it more relevant to the community. Currently nursing courses take four years and six months and yet another half a year in the internship program. These comprehensive programs have not solved the problem of shortage of nurses in India and this shortage has been attributed to among other reasons lack of basic amenities in the rural areas, lack of sufficient accommodation, low professional and educational chances for the nurses in the country, poor working conditions, lack equipment and supplies for the nurses, no incentives for promotion, too much workload, difficult staffing norms, time spent doing other duties apart from those of nursing as duty, low salaries fro nurses, few teaching staff for nurses and lack of regulation of private nursing institutions. These conditions prevalent in India have made the trained nurses to look elsewhere for employment especially among the more developed nations with prospects of better working conditions in general (Gill R., 2011).

Shortage of nurses in India

The health needs of the people of India are not taken into serious consideration when it comes to employment of nurses. The graveness of the situation is seen from the heath indicators of India which point at a serious lack of human resources in this particular sector. The health indicators of India in comparison to other countries have it that it still experiences quite high mortality rates standing at 41 dead infants before attaining one year for every 1,000 births (The World Bank, 2014b). The disparity in the nurses to patient ratio is also indicative of a gross shortage of nurses within the country with the nurse to population ratio standing at 0.80:1000 as at 2004. The need for nursing services is noted to be direr in the rural India than in the urban areas bearing the lack of facilities, poor road infrastructure and the lack of incentives for the nurses to keep working in the rural areas. Generally, the nursing profession in India lacks the needed professional status in the country, they are offered low and unattractive salaries, and even there is little recognition within the community. It is also worth noting that most of the learning institutions work as appendages to the hospitals and not independently as is required due to lack of enough facilities…