ABSTRACT
This chapter explores gendered dimensions within economic globalization, occupational safety and health (OSH), and home-based shoemaking. Gender within the social relations of economic globalization has important implications for the health and social welfare of both sexes. Home-based employment as part of global capitalism is having negative consequences—not only economic but any fundamental life aspects that depend on income earning: health, education, and power. A division chief of the OSH Center described the multiple burdens placed on women workers. Women bear multiple burdens in the informal and formal economies that become accentuated in home-based business management. One explanation is that a small business cannot afford to waste resources, therefore, both genders are needed in the management and manual labor tasks. Hazards in women's work have remained understudied and under-estimated, therefore, the health consequences have remained under-reported and under-compensated. Women's work needs female organizers and female women trade union leaders who understand women's concerns.
