Jobs and Incomes in a globalizing world

The consequences of globalization, particularly for employment, wages and incomes, arouse widespread concern. This book investigates the basis for the anxieties by analyzing the effects of the growing two-way trade in manufacturing between North and South - the core of globalization. Its conclusions set the parameters for the globalization debate. Presenting results of new research, the author that, contrary to pop... perceptions, global income inequality is actually declining, South-North migration is falling , and job opportunities and wages are rising in a significant number in developing countries. Moreover, the author finds no evidence of falling labour standards in integrating economies, or that globalization can be blamed for the labour market disadvantages of low-skilled labour in industrialized countries. While showing many of the public concerns about globalization to be unfounded, the analysis exposes other serious problems that until now have received scant attention, such as increasing marginalization of the poorest countries heavily dependent on exports of primary commodities, a high and growing level of brain drain from poor to rich countries, the potentially high costs for developing countries of pursuing integration as an objective in itself, and the failure of globalization to stimulate global economic growth. This important book points to difficult challenges that the international community must meet if the potential benefits of globalization are to be realized and all nations and people are to share in them.