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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA )

What are the Social Impacts of Neoliberal Free Trade Agreements?. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ). What is Neoliberalism ?. Views markets as self regulating Actively restructures governments to eliminate regulatory oversight of economies

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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA )

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  1. What are the Social Impacts of Neoliberal FreeTrade Agreements? North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

  2. What is Neoliberalism? • Views markets as self regulating • Actively restructures governments to eliminate regulatory oversight of economies • Restructuring of public sector (health, education, sanitation, etc.) accelerates entry to wage-economy

  3. NAFTA’s Impact on Mexico • Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – investment arriving from outside the nation-state – increased from $4.4 billion in 1993 to $10.2 billion in 1998. • Increased wage employment in labor intensive factory work • Short Term FDI Speculation Increased Instability in Financial Markets • Long Term FDI Increased for building of factories • Exports to U.S. Increased from $49.4 billion in 1994 to $109.7 billion in 1999. • Number of employed in factories increased: from 420,000 in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2000.

  4. NAFTA’s Negative Impacts on Mexico • Wages in Mexico declined from 40 to 50% the first year under NAFTA • Cost of living increased 80% • Over 20,000 small and medium business have failed • 1,000 state owned enterprises have been privatized • Increase in Foreign Debt

  5. What is at Stake?

  6. Gender & Transnational Migration

  7. Transnational Migration • The study of transnational migration is largely under a male-centered lens (andocentric) (Pessar and Mahler 2003). • Transnational migration has excluded the study of refugees and other exile groups (Al-Ali et al. 2001). • Pessar, Patricia R. and Sarah J. Mahler. 2003. "Transnational Migration: Bringing Gender In." International Migration Review 37:812-846. • Al-Ali, Nadje, Richard Black, and Khalid Koser. 2001. "Refugees and transnationalism: the experience of Bosnians and Eritreans in Europe." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27:615-634.

  8. State Masculinism • Juridical-legislative • Capital Finance • Labor • The Police/Military

  9. Informality • 2/5ths of economically active population in developing world • In Latin America the informal economy employs 57% of the workforce • Twice as many domestic workers were working in LA in 1990 as in 1980. • Mike Davis, “Planet of Slums,” Verso, New York 2007. • Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Domestica,” UC Press, Berkeley 2001.

  10. Race & Gender • “Third World women constitute the majority of migrants seeking jobs as maids, vendors, maquila operatives, and service industry workers. • “Women [of color] also pay the highest price for cuts in education, health, and housing programs, food and energy subsidies, and increases in their unpaid labor” Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, “Mexican Immigrant Women Workers,” 2003.

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