Mainstream economics and development economics lacks a neutral cross-cultural model that may be applied to changing socioeconomic circumstances spanning historical periods at numerous levels. A combination modes theoretical model with a neutral methodology is suggested that may be used to assess socioeconomic change from all three major levels of analysis used in economics, the world economic order, the nation state and the family/household, cross-culturally and over differing historical periods. The combination modes analysis is used in this context to assess how the uniting factor of British Imperialism at the level of the world economic order caused women, against the tradition of their cultures, to become the main, independent breadwinners of their families causing resentment among their menfolk. It is also argued that the connection to the British Empire tended to make women the foundation of nascent capitalist industrialisation processes.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
DjamourJudith (1959). Malay Kinship and Marriage in SingaporeLondon School of Economics, Monographs on Social Anthropology, 21.
2.
ElsonDianePearsonR. (1981). ‘Nimble Fingers Make Cheap Workers: An Analysis of Women’s Employment in Third World Manufacturing’, Feminist Review, 7, 87–107.
3.
FirthRosemary (1966). Housekeeping Among Malay Peasants, London: Athlone Press.
4.
FrobelJ. HeinrichsKreyeO. (1980). The New International Division of Labour, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5.
FuentesAnnetteEhrenreichB. (1983). Women in the Global Factory, Boston: South End Press.
6.
GrossmanRachel (1979). ‘Women’s Place in the Integrated Circuit’Southeast Asia Chronicle, 66, 2–17.
7.
HowardC.W.BushwellK. P. (1925). A Survey of the Silk Industry of South China, Hong Kong: Commercial.
8.
KatzNaomiKemnitzerD. (1983) ‘Fast Forward: The Internationalisation of Silicon Valley’ pp. 332–45 in NashJ.KellyM. (eds) Women, Men and the International Division of Labour. Albany: State University of New York Press.
9.
LewanhakSheila (1980). Women and Work, Glasgow: William Collins and Sons.
10.
MoulderFrances (1977). Japan, China and the Modern World Economy—Towards a Reinterpretation of East Asian Development ca.1600 to ca. 1918Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11.
OngAihwa (1983) ‘Global Industries and Malay Peasants in Peninsula Malaysia’ pp 426–41 in NashJ.KellyM. (eds) Women, Men and the International Division of LabourAlbany: State University of New York Press.
12.
PaglabanEnrico (1978). ‘Philippines Workers in the Export Industry’, Pacific Research, IX, 3 and 4.
13.
PinchbeckIvy (1981, 1930). Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution 1750–1850, London: Virago.
14.
PolanyiKarl (1957). The Great Transformation—the political and economic origins of our timeLondon: Rinehart and Co. Inc.
15.
PurcellV. (1963). The Boxer UprisingCambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16.
RobertsB.C. (1958). The Trades Union Congress 1868–1921, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
17.
SafaHelen (1981). ‘Runaway Shops and Female Employment: The Search for Cheap Labour’SIGNS7, 2, 418–33.
18.
SankarAndrea (1978). The Evolution of Sisterhood in Traditional Chinese Society Ph.D. DissertationUniversity of Michigan.
19.
Semiconductor International (1982).
20.
SiegalLennyGrossmanR. (1978). ‘Fairchild Assembles an Asian Empire’Pacific Research, 2.
21.
SivanandanA. (1980). ‘Imperialism in the Silicon Age’Monthly Review, 32, 24–42.
22.
SmedleyAgnes (1976). Portraits of Chinese Women in RevolutionNew York: The Feminist.
23.
SnowRobert (1979). ‘Multinational Corporations in Asia: The Labour-Intensive Factory’Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 11, 26–9.
24.
SoAlvin Y.C.ChengM. T. (1981). ‘Rural Industrialisation and Women’s Liberation: A Study of Female Workers in the South China Silk District’. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
25.
SricharatchanyaPaisal (1983). ‘A Peek into the Grey Areas’Far Eastern Economic Review, May, 12, 60–1.
26.
StrangeHeather (1981). Rural Malay Women in Tradition and TransitionNew York: Praeger.
27.
TaplinRuth (1989). Women’s Economic Role in Development, Aldershot: Gower Press.
28.
TaplinRuth (1986). ‘Women in World market factories: East and West’Ethnic and Racial Studies, 9, 2, 168–195.
29.
TaplinRuth (1984). ‘The Effects of the Electronics Industry on Rural Kinship Relations in Malaysia’Michigan Academician, XVII, 1, 77–88.
30.
TopleyMargorie (1975) ‘Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung’ pp 67–88 in WolfM.WitkeR. (eds) Women in Chinese Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
31.
WeinbaumBatya (1976). ‘Women in Transition to Socialism: Perspectives on the Chinese Case’The Review of Radical Political Economics, 8, 1.
32.
Women in Struggle (1978). MalayaLondon: Women in Struggle Collective.
33.
WongAline (1981). ‘Planned Development Social Stratification and the Sexual Division of Labour in Singapore’SIGNS7, 2, 434–52.
