Social globalization pdf

Open societies and cultural globalization go hand in hand with open markets and open media, with rapid penetration of advertising and brand promotion by global corporations, together with the depiction of supposedly desirable Western lifestyles which in turn help create a merging of food environments and food cultures as globalization progresses.

Secondly, with greater clarity about the key aspects of globalization becoming available, the challenge to public health policy becomes better focused. For example, if it is shown that fast food outlets are closely associated with overweight prevalence, then what are the policy implications? Is the fast food chain itself a problem, or does it simply reflect the composite effects of FDI policy and cultural openness to advertising and brand promotion, or a more direct effect of a closely related factor, such as a rise in soft drinks consumption Basu et al.

Increasing attention is being paid by health promoters to the role of transnational corporations Hastings, and accumulating evidence that the rate of increase in consumption of unhealthy food products parallels that of tobacco and alcohol and is fastest in low- and middle-income countries Stuckler et al. This has led to public health policy analysts calling for public regulation and market intervention to prevent the harm caused Moodie et al.

While these policy proposals are widely discussed in the public health arena, they remain marginal to the larger discussions on economic growth and global development. Thus there was no expression of the need to tackle the negative health effects of globalization in the Millennium Development Goals UN, which are due to expire in The following is the supplementary data related to this article:.

National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Sponsored Document from. Soc Sci Med. Philip T. James , d and Marc Suhrcke b, e. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Yevgeniy Goryakin: ku. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Associated Data Supplementary Materials mmc1. Abstract Anecdotal and descriptive evidence has led to the claim that globalization plays a major role in inducing overweight and obesity in developing countries, but robust quantitative evidence is scarce.

Keywords: Developing countries, Globalization, Obesity, Overweight. Introduction Globalization has often been blamed for the rapid rise in obesity in much of the developing world Hawkes, ; Popkin, ; Zimmet, Methods and their rationale 2.

Definition and measurement of the component variables of globalization Globalization is our independent variable of primary interest. Results 3. Description of main variables In the annex Table S1 , we present overweight prevalence by country and year Supplementary material.

Open in a separate window. Overall globalization Table 1 sets out the association between overweight and the overall globalization index, split into 4 quartiles. Table 1 The relationships between the index of total globalization and overweight in women aged 15—49, Ordinary least squares OLS regression results.

Baseline Individual controls Individual and country controls 1 2 3 Total globalization quartile 2 0. Sub-components of globalization Prior to entering into the regression results, we determined whether each of the sub-components of globalization indeed captured distinct phenomena. Table 2 Correlation matrix of each dimension of globalization, — Total Economic Social Political Total 1.

Economic globalization The first three columns in Table 3 assess the influence of economic globalization on overweight. Table 3 The relationship between economic, political and social globalization and overweight in women aged 15—49 years, OLS regression results. Baseline Individual controls All controls Baseline Individual controls All controls Baseline Individual controls All controls All controls 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Econ globalization, quartile 2 0.

Political globalization Columns 4—6 in Table 3 provide the results on the role of political globalization in affecting individual chances of being overweight. Social globalization In columns 7—9 of Table 3 we consider the association between social globalization and overweight.

All globalization indices combined Next, we consider the association between overweight and all globalization indices taken together. Robustness checks Some of our findings may be partly driven by the differences in sample size across specifications.

Table 4 Robustness checks: identical sample size across specifications. Baseline Individual controls All controls Baseline Individual controls All controls Baseline Individual controls All controls 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Econ globalization, quartile 2 0. Table 5 Robustness checks: estimating the relationship between overweight and globalization using original globalization scores. Discussion While most of the existing literature focussed on the relationship between economic globalization and obesity, specific quantitative measures of the range of potentially very different globalization-related drivers involved have not been examined previously.

Appendix A. Supplementary data The following is the supplementary data related to this article: Click here to view. References Amine E. World Health Organization; Asiedu E. On the determinants of foreign direct investment to developing countries: is Africa different? World Dev. Foreign direct investment in Africa: the role of natural resources, market size, government policy, institutions and political instability.

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Globalization and International Social Work. Social Work in a Globalizing World. Written by a leading social work academic whose work is internationally renowned, this book confronts contemporary challenges facing social workers in relation.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of social work find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best availab. International Social Work. International Social Work: Professional Action in an Interdependent World, Third Edition, is a comprehensive treatment of all dimensions of international social. Written by the director of the country's first center for international social work studies, the original edition of this book set the stage for recent years' e.

A useful systematic approach for addressing such mechanisms can be developed from the framework used by Alan Winters to analyse the impact of trade liberalization on poverty. The enterprise channel This can involve both a direct effect on those employed by the foreign firm and an indirect effect through creating demand for local suppliers.

If the increased demand is for unskilled labour, then it is possible that the newly employed will be from among the poor. For example, in Bangladesh the growth of the export industry in ready-made garments has created employment opportunities for women workers, many of whom are migrants from poor rural areas. However, the overall impact on poverty of FDI is limited by the relatively small numbers directly involved. Moreover, foreign investors often require more skilled workers, which means that the poor are not the main beneficiaries.

There may be benefits where the foreign firm provides training to its workers, particularly if those workers acquire skills which can raise their earning potential, but training also tends to be concentrated on the higher echelons of the labour force, again bypassing the poor. There is greater potential for FDI to benefit the poor indirectly by creating linkages with local firms, especially where suppliers are micro-enterprises or agricultural smallholders.

The growth of export horticulture in some African countries has provided new market opportunities for smallholders. However, where foreign firms depend heavily on imported inputs, such as fabrics in the garment industry or parts and components in electronics assembly, as is usually the case in export processing zones EPZs , these indirect impacts are limited.

The location of investment is also an important factor, since indirect effects on poverty are likely to be greater when investment takes place in a poor 30 See e. Hopkins, Is there a role for large-scale corporations in alleviating poverty in developing countries?

McCulloch, A. Winters and X. However, although he provides inspiring examples of success stories in India and other countries, several of the cases which he cites are of not-for-profit organizations and relatively few are foreign investors.

He consistently overestimates the potential purchasing power of poor people, often by extending the definition of the poor to include those who are relatively well off by developing-country standards. However, labour migration means that some of those in a poor region may benefit from employment opportunities elsewhere.

Madden and C. Sankey, In focus. Understanding the poverty—business interface: experiences from Tanzania, Resource Centre for the Social Dimensions of Business Practice, , available at: www. Prahalad and A. However, it is a mistake to assume that because a reduction in poverty would help business by expanding the market, it is in the interest of individual firms to take steps to reduce poverty.

The firms which are best placed to take advantage of these potential markets are those which produce fast-moving consumer goods such as beverages, cigarettes and soap.

There are instances where such firms have sought to expand their markets by making goods more readily available to the poor, for example supplying products in small unit packages or providing consumer credit. Aaron suggests that FDI in infrastructure such as water supply and sewerage services, which directly address basic human needs, and in the telecommunications and transport sectors can make a substantial contribution by improving access and reducing the cost of service provision.

It should also be noted that the fact that some TNCs sell their products to the poor is no guarantee that they will contribute to either improving the welfare of the poor or reducing poverty. See K. Murphy, A. Shleifer and R. Foreign investors, particularly in the extractive industries, contribute to government tax revenues, which may in turn be used for anti- poverty measures. The efficacy of this channel depends on the extent to which the state is able to levy taxes on foreign capital and the uses which are made of any tax revenues.

A number of factors limit the revenue gains from FDI. This is especially true in EPZs, where taxes and regulations are minimized. TNCs are also well placed to minimize their global tax burden. They pass a large part of their profits through tax havens, and are able to use various forms of transfer pricing in order to reduce the profits which they declare in high-tax juris- dictions. The largest companies devote considerable resources to ensuring that they pay as little tax as possible.

Although companies are careful to distinguish between tax avoidance regarded as legitimate and tax evasion which is illegal , the boundaries between them are often blurred.

This review of the channels through which FDI could contribute to poverty reduction suggests that in the normal course of events the impact is likely to be limited and in some cases may even be negative. The relationship between FDI and growth is ambiguous and likely to depend on local circumstances.

The direct and indirect effects on employment are limited and only rarely extend to include the poor. Despite the claims concerning the poor as a potential market, in practice they do not constitute an important market for the majority of TNCs; and where they do, they do not necessarily benefit. Finally, globaliza- tion has made it increasingly difficult for governments to secure tax revenues from internationally mobile capital.

CSR and poverty impacts If, as argued in the previous section, TNCs do not necessarily contribute significantly to poverty reduction in the South and may even have negative impacts, does the adoption of CSR by such companies offer a way of achieving a more positive outcome? Christensen and R. CSR and the enterprise channel One of the main ways in which business can help reduce poverty is through job creation.

Will CSR contribute to the creation of more employment for poor people or help reduce poverty in other ways, such as raising wages or providing greater stability of income? At first sight it would seem that some of the labour issues on the CSR agenda could indeed contribute to poverty reduction. Equal pay for women can also be seen in this light where many poor households have female heads.

As pointed out above, the positive impact of TNCs on poverty in the South is severely limited by the relatively small numbers that they employ, and nothing within the current CSR agenda encourages them to create more employment than is economically justified.

Indeed, it is even possible that the requirements imposed by firms regarding the treatment of labour tend to make more labour-intensive production less competitive. This occurred in the football-stitching industry in Pakistan, where unit costs for low-grade balls rose by 6—12 per cent as a result of monitoring, leading to increased competition from more mechanized production in China. The location decisions of foreign investors, which can have an important impact on poverty, are driven by economic considerations and are not currently challenged by the CSR agenda.

Indeed, some aspects of CSR lead firms to avoid employing the poor, as when Nike refused to employ homeworkers because of public concern about exploitative conditions. Since it is easier for firms to monitor a small number of large suppliers than a myriad of small ones, there is a tendency to concentrate suppliers. Again, the football-stitching industry in Pakistan provides an example: in Sialkot, the shift to concentrate production in factories, in response to concerns about child labour, led to many women homeworkers losing out.

This is particularly so where the benefits are extended to family members and to workers after they leave employment. This channel operates through the price and availability of goods consumed by the poor; but generally, the goods produced by firms practising CSR are not sold to the poor. Since a major source of pressure for CSR comes from markets in the North, the focus is often on firms which produce for export.