As China has evolved into an industrial powerhouse over the past two decades, a new class of workers has developed: the dagongmei, or working girls. The dagongmei are women in their late teens and early twenties who move from rural areas to urban centers to work in factories. Because of state laws dictating that those born in the countryside cannot permanently leave their villages, and familial pressure for young women to marry by their late twenties, the dagongmei are transient labor. They undertake physically exhausting work in urban factories for an average of four or five years before returning home. The young women are not coerced to work in the factories; they know about the twelve-hour shifts and the hardships of industrial labor. Yet they are still eager to leave home. Made in China is a compelling look at the lives of these women, workers caught between the competing demands of global capitalism, the socialist state, and the patriarchal family. Pun Ngai conducted ethnographic work at an electronics factory in southern China’s Guangdong province, in the Shenzhen special economic zone where foreign-owned factories are proliferating. For eight months she slept in the employee dormitories and worked on the shop floor alongside the women whose lives she chronicles. Pun illuminates the workers’ perspectives and experiences, describing the lure of consumer desire and especially the minutiae of factory life. She looks at acts of resistance and transgression in the workplace, positing that the chronic pains—such as backaches and headaches—that many of the women experience are as indicative of resistance to oppressive working conditions as they are of defeat. Pun suggests that a silent social revolution is underway in China and that these young migrant workers are its agents.

This collection contributes to key theoretical debates about women workers in Asia and breaks new ground by focussing on issues that have been little documented in other studies in the area. It provides new information and insights into labour systems associated with labour intensive export manufactures and state-labour relations in a comparative context. The contributors present a range of unique and varied perspectives from which they consider aspects of the increasing integration of Asian economies, exploring implications for their labour markets.

Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate 'disposable' labour force, enduring gruelling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research, it provides the reader with a gendered account of the role of women migrant workers in Thailand's factories and interrogates the ways in which they manage their families and their futures.

This volume is focused on Asian women who migrate either globally or across the Asian continent or within their respective countries in order to seek work. The contributors cover a broad terrain of issues including the changing gender composition of migration streams; the motivations of individual migrants; the different outcomes of male and female migration; and discernible patterns in the migration of women.

Classical Japanese: A Grammar is a comprehensive, and practical guide to classical Japanese. Extensive notes and historical explanations make this volume useful as both a reference for advanced students and a textbook for beginning students. The volume, which explains how classical Japanese is related to modern Japanese, includes detailed explanations of basic grammar, including helpful, easy-to-use tables of grammatical forms; annotated excerpts from classical premodern texts. Classical Japanese: A Grammar - Exercise Answers and Tables (ISBN: 978-0-231-13530-6) is now available for purchase as a separate volume.

Since economists traditionally focus on market activities, women's non-wage labour has not been registered in works on economic development. On the other hand, women's wage labour has been described as supplementary or marginal to the household income as well as to economic development as a whole. The contributors to this collection did their research on women workers in countries from the core, the semiperiphery, and the periphery. The eight articles are introduced by Kathryn Ward, who presents a critical overview of the literature on women workers and globalization. In Ward's opinion we have to develop new definitions for some key concepts in our theories on women and work. These concepts should aim at including housework and work in the informal sector, and women's various acts of resistance. Ward also suggests new perspectives from which we should theorize about women's work in the process of global restructuring.

The 2018/19 edition analyses the gender pay gap. The report focuses on two main challenges: how to find the most useful means for measurement, and how to break down the gender pay gap in ways that best inform policy-makers and social partners of the factors that underlie it. The report also includes a review of key policy issues regarding wages and the reduction of gender pay gaps in different national circumstances.

Misconceptions regarding gender identity and issues of inequality that women around the world face have become a predominant concern for not only the citizens impacted, but global political leaders, administrators, and human rights activists. Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis explores how an analysis of language use in the South Asian region exposes issues related to gender identity, representation, and equality. Emphasizing emerging research and case studies focusing on the concept of gender in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Nepal, this publication is an essential resource for social theorists, activists, linguists, media professionals, researchers, and graduate-level students.

Since the ILO's founding in 1919, gender equality and non-discrimination have been pillars of its mission to promote social justice through the world of work. As the Organization approaches its second century, it has chosen to focus on women at work as one of its centenary initiatives. Women at Work: Trends 2016 is a key contribution to these efforts and seeks to further the central goals of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. The report provides a picture of where women stand today in the world of work and how they have progressed over the past 20 years. It examines the global and regional labour market trend and gaps, including in labour force participation rates, employment-to-population rates and unemployment rates, as well as differences in the type and status in employment, hours spent in paid and unpaid work, sectoral segregation and gender gaps in wages and social protection. It also presents an in-depth analysis of the gender gaps in the quality of work and explores the key policy drivers for gender transformative change. The discussions and related recommendations focus on three main dimensions: sectoral and occupational segregation, the gender wage gap, and gaps in the policy framework for work and family integration.