Globalization: Vision and Reality
Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen:
It is a great privilege for me to be able to attend this important event organized by the APEC Secretariat. I would like to express my deep appreciation to the organizers for hosting such a wonderful event; and I would also like to thank the organizers for inviting me to be here. Today, we are here to celebrate the achievements of APEC and we can take full advantage of this opportunity to reflect upon the positive and negative aspects of globalization. As the theme of the first session implies, we need to focus on the vision and reality of globalization. Regarding the visions, there are dreams to be fulfilled and objectives to be achieved. Regarding reality, we should be practical and honest about what problems we have encountered and what the possible solutions are.
As the minister of National Youth Commission in Chinese Taipei, I would like to point out the implications of globalization for young people. As a women's movement activist who has attended APEC's Women Leaders' Network (also know as WLN) last year in Mexico and this year in Thailand, I am strongly motivated to bring in gender perspective on the issue of globalization.
First of all, I would like to raise four points:
- industrial policy: domestic, local services are as important as export manufacturing;
- a balance between high tech and high humanity;
- inter-cities, inter-organizational, inter-life styles;
- the new approach of social welfare is to helping to build community based micro-enterprises.
In addition to high-tech industries, we need to develop high-humanity services sectors which can raise our quality of life and keep a sustainable equitable, ecological growth.
Vision of Globalization
As the introduction of this program shows, the vision of globalization for the community of Asia-Pacific economies includes the following principles:
- the spirit of openness and partnership;
- a vast Asia Pacific market of two billion people with extending economy
- free movement of goods, services, capital, and investment
- higher income and increased mobility
- rising literacy rate and improved training opportunities
- advances in ICT
- improved environment and sustainable growth
Reality of Globalization: More Energy Than Policy and Institutional Capacity
Globalization has been accelerated by economic and technological forces. The establishment of APEC was primarily to initiate and consolidate cooperative mechanisms for economic development. However, economic developments also brings about many new social and cultural changes which challenge the capacities of the government, the business sector, the NGO sector, communities and citizens regarding their capacities to adapt and respond to new environment, to preserve social cohesion, and to initiate innovative strategies to meet the challenges.
There have been all kinds of raw energies flowing among economic, social, cultural, and political fields of society; however, systematic policy planning to enhance the institutional capacity of respective sectors for solving problems and for equitable and sustainable growth lag behind these energies. Let me describe two areas of concerns. First I would like to describe the situation of youth. Second, I will bring in a gender perspective on globalization, with particular attention to the importance of care services enterprises and care workers. My discussions below are mainly drawn from Chinese Taipei. As each economy has its own characteristics, to what extend my perspectives are relevant to other economies is open to feedbacks from all participants here.
Youth : Over-credentialized and Under-experienced
To meet the challenges of global competition, every APEC economy is eager to raise the quality of its manpower. The up-grading of skills and knowledge is of paramount importance. In the late 1980s, Chinese Taipei adopted a policy of expanding higher education. Within ten years, the number of colleges and universities graduates grew almost three times, from 130,000 ten years ago to 310,000 in 2003. In addition to educational credentials, certificates for specific jobs have proliferated, in particular with regard to financial and insurance services. Continuing the Confucian literati tradition, parents and teachers exert great pressure upon young people to study hard to get educational credentials and technical certificates. The so-called "cram schools"--small private schools that offer intensive short-term courses for preparing specific examinations--have been an active and lucrative local business.
As young people obtain varieties of diplomas and certificates, their ability for knowledge application have not increased accordingly. They are lacking in hands-on experiences. As they enter the workplace, they have to adopt a new way of learning by doing. In the context of globalization in which young people themselves have the chance of working abroad, increasingly they face the daily challenges of cultural diversity and contingencies. Having credentials and certificates being mutually recognized by all APEC economies seems to be a way to set up a basic standard of qualification. However, I would like to point out here that we need HRD experts to develop a sophisticated method of personality analysis to make sure that prospective job applicants be qualified. Otherwise, credentials and certificates are only superficial indicators.
Gender Perspectives and Globalization: Problems and Difficulties in the Development of Care Services Enterprises
It is widely recognized that for women to fully participate in the labor market and to share the benefit of economic growth, governments and the business sector need to implement family-friendly policy, such as providing affordable child-care, elderly-care, and domestic help. Care services / household services themselves should be regarded as not only means to help career women but also providing employment opportunities and income for men and women who want to be care workers.
It is a pity that care services have not received enough policy attention as a growing service sector that can generate income for workers, bring in tax revenue for the government, help business to increase the productivity of their employees as they don't have to worry about their aging parents and small kids. Care services are mainly provided by individual care workers who belong to informal economy. Care workers--almost all of them women-- (1) receive little training; (2) have no or little provision of employment insurance and health insurance; (3) work in isolation within individual household and are vulnerable to unfair and unsafe work conditions; (4) do not pay tax and not visible to government statistics.
Therefore, here I want to emphasize the importance of care services as business enterprises. We need more enterprise operators to mobilize individual care workers in various organizational forms of co-operatives, associations, or companies. These enterprises need policy assistance such as access to credit and start-up loans, legal facilitation, tax incentives for start-ups, training courses on management and business development. The development of care-services is a social and political issue which signifies each government's commitment to women's welfare; but it is also an economic issue with the strategic purpose of transforming traditional, informal economic activities into a modern service sector in the formal economy.
Care-services enterprises can serve as intermediary organizations between service providers and users, thereby protecting the rights of both sides. Most important of all, these enterprises are most likely run by women as community-based micro and small enterprises. As women entrepreneurs, they encounter three kinds of barriers: gender, size, and sector. Official economic policies often favor large, global corporations without allocating enough public resources and policy assistance to small and micro enterprises.
In terms of sectoral development, high-tech sectors have received more policy assistance than service sectors which are low in technology but high in human concerns. As long as the economic mainstream is dominated by "high-tech" without due recognition of "high-humanity", care-services enterprises will continue to encounter barriers and career women will continue to face the dilemma of career and family.
Care services enterprises are important for another reason. The vision of globalization is to remove barriers which prevent the free movement of capital, knowledge, and human resources. In reality, much more has been in free flow which poses threats to social cohesion, basic human dignity, and national security. Here I am particularly concerned with immigrant women who work as housemaids. As companies in charge of "importing" them to the host economy are commercial operators who are only responsible for processing their working permits and who are lacking in social and humanitarian concerns, as well as lacking in the expertise of occupational training and supervision, immigrant women working as house maids are subject to the fair and unfair treatments of their employers.
Globalization creates career opportunities for highly educated men and women, and at the same time, the tyranny of traditional household labor is revived. Therefore we need capable care services enterprises that combine business acumen with humanitarian concerns to help immigrant domestic workers adjust to the new environment. At the same time, these enterprises can also educate citizens of the host economy to appreciate and respect the culture of immigrants and to eliminate racial and cultural discrimination.
Here I want to commend the APEC achievements with regard to the emergence of micro-enterprise as a major theme. I want to express my deep appreciation of Mexico. Last year Mexico set the theme of micro-enterprise development for various fora, and for youth forum and WLN (Women Leaders' Network). This year, Thailand continues this topic. In particular in WLN meeting held in Chiang Mai from July 30 to August 3, the importance of care services had been thoroughly discussed by participants, who emphasize that care services are not only a family issue and women's issue, they are also a business issue playing a crucial role in equitable and sustainable economic growth.
Regarding this point, one of the recommendations raised by WLN this year suggests :
"Recognize the care services, in which women predominate, is important for social and economic progress. Empower women care workers with good economic and social benefits, higher levels of professional training and better access to business development opportunities and programs in the care giving field".
We have encountered many difficulties and problems, but with so many cooperative mechanisms and platforms of information exchange as set up by APEC activities, I have strong confidence that together we can make changes and improvements, thereby realizing our vision of a global village in which economic growth and social solidarity can be integrated. And finally, let me express my gratitude again for Singapore, as the APEC secretariat, you have served a crucial role of bringing together the diversities of all APEC economies and help us find out our common concerns and interests.