In The News

China's Tech Factories Turn to Student Labor

Eva Dou September 30, 2014
Chinese factories that assemble electronics for high-tech firms or their suppliers rely heavily on student interns from vocational schools for labor, reports Eva Dou for the Wall Street Journal. Some students claim they must work 12-hour shifts, six days a week, for three months to a year as a condition of graduation. "China has traditionally relied on migrant workers to man factories in...

The Tale of Two Middle Classes

Branko Milanovic July 31, 2014
Thanks to globalization and trade, middle-class incomes have more than doubled in countries like China and Indonesia, but still remain a fraction of those earned by the middle class in Europe or the United States . Meanwhile, in Europe, the United States and Japan, incomes for the middle class have stagnated even as their richest citizens accrue more wealth, profiting by investing in...

Theorist Eric Maskin: Globalization Is Increasing Inequality

July 15, 2014
Waves of trade and globalization can lift average incomes and reduce inequality, but that requires intervention to prevent rewards landing in only a few hands. Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin of Harvard University points to two types of inequality for World Bank News: In the more tolerable case, only select industries and their workers benefit from increased demand, and “In the ‘worse’ version, the...

Telangana Illegal Immigrants in Iraq in No Man’s Land

TNN July 14, 2014
Around 15,000 illegal migrants from India, according to Gulf Returnees' Welfare Association, GRWA, are trapped in Iraq, and their families are scrambling for official help with their safe return, gathering documents to establish their nationality at the Indian embassy. Many workers were illegally sent with “dummy” visas into Iraq to work for US soldiers as the Indian government had imposed...

US Companies Head to Mexico

Damien Cave June 24, 2014
Manufactured goods from Mexico have comprised a larger share of the US imports, reaching 14 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, while China’s share in it has declined. With labor costs rapidly increasing in China, and wages doubling every few years, US investors have looked to Mexico as a more competitive place for manufacturing their products. Damien Cave, writing for the New...

Europe Divided Over Immigration, Work Ethics

Pallavi Aiyar June 5, 2014
Immigration, transfer of new technologies and evolving work ethics have put entire industries in flux. This has stirred anti-immigration fervor in some communities as demonstrated by big gains of far-right parties in the European Parliament elections. Author Pallavi Aiyar analyzes the forces of globalization transforming the diamond-cutting industry in Antwerp. Once dominated by Jewish merchants...

Globalization Responsible for Factory Tragedy

Grahame Lucas April 28, 2014
A year has passed since the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex that killed more than 1100 workers – the worst accident in Bangladesh history. Activists in Bangladesh report some improvements in wages, inspections and worker training. Yet wealthy consumers around the globe fail to see the connection between their quest for affordable fashion and the workers who toil for low wages and...