Global Capitalism, National Experiences, and Changing Labor Markets in Asia

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Asia has provided the “evidence” that postcolonial status need not mean underdevelopment and stagnation. Beginning with Japan, followed by South Korea and the three other “dragons”, and more recently even China and India in their own way have reinforced this favourable prognosis of global capitalism. The rise of Asian manufacturing in a US dominated geopolitical environment with built-in local egalitarian institutions had contributed to a region where millions experienced prosperity and social wellbeing. Yet today they are increasingly characterized by labor market outcomes such as temporary, contract, and part-time employment, considered to be the hallmarks of contemporary OECD afflictions. Even China (and India on a smaller scale), whose economic growth and employment creation has been historically unprecedented since opening up is faced with severe employment challenges as global growth slows down, the state withdraws, and businesses invest in automation and hire skilled workers. Consequently, employment growth in Asia remains a conundrum and ironically seems to converge with the OECD prematurely in a perverse way. This panel brings in four specialist scholars on China, South Korea, Japan, and India to focus on the common theme of how labor markets, employment, and labor relations are changing in Asia. They focus macro/global structural dynamics of production and employment, the local/national responses to changing labor markets, including the rise of informal markets, and the worsening employment conditions of women in Japan. The collective analysis addresses not only the workings of labor markets but also why, how, and who are impacted.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizer

• Anthony D'Costa, University of Melbourne

Individual Presentations

• Global Post-Fordism and the Rise and Fall of China’s Export-Oriented Growth - Ho-fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University

• Unusual Suspects: Privatized Violence and Dispossessive Litigation in the (un) Making of Labor Politics in Korea - Yoonkyung Lee, SUNY Binghampton

• The Changing Japanese Labor Market: Increasing Insecurity and Marginalization of Women - Machiko Osawa, Japan Women's University

• Jobless Growth Even in Labor-Abundant India: Capitalist Transition and the Challenges of Employment - Anthony D'Costa, University of Melbourne

Discussant

• Dorothy Solinger, University of California, Irvine