It is not an exaggeration to state that in the contemporary form of globalization, dominated as it is by free-market ideology, a consumerist culture, and a global form of capitalism, what the academic literature terms the “old division of labor” remains in place, although in a form that is now global. This persistence of the old division of labor within globalization is arguably most apparent in the plight of female laborers working in fields such as domestic work: when considering how such occupations are structured in today’s globalization, many of the pre-globalization inequalities continue to show themselves. For example, many domestic workers in countries such as the United States are uneducated women from so-called “third world” countries. Whereas the hiring of domestic workers from such countries demonstrates that in the Western world, women’s rights have been gained, as women have entered the workplace, the domestic void needs to be filled and this is here completed by hiring women from poorer countries.
This reflects an old division of labor in multiple senses. Firstly, the traditional gap in gender between men and women is maintained, now it is only women from specific economically disadvantaged countries that are taking the place of women. Secondly, there is a clear division between types of work, where in lower paid occupations are those that once again involve a form of manual labor. In one regard, it could be said that despite the changes globalization has made, in terms of phenomena such as “outsourcing”, what the experience of domestic workers has indicated is that globalization has also “outsourced” the gender gap, while maintaining the old division of labor.

This “outsourcing” of the gender gap reflects various aspects of the division of labor. Consider, for example, what Adam Smith termed the efficiency of globalization in its capitalist form. Unable to maintain the old division of labor domestically because of phenomena such as women’s rights, capitalism “efficiently” now uses workers from economically underprivileged countries to fill its necessary “underclass”, i.e., domestic workers from underprivileged countries. Solidarity, which Durkheim defined above all in terms of the unity of agricultural cultures, is now further fragmented by this division of labor, since domestic workers are now living thousands of miles away from their homes.

Hence, while Durkheim noted that solidarity despite the division of labor may exist, even in industrialized societies, such solidarity is threatened by the “tyranny of distance” created by globalization. Furthermore, it can be added that Weber’s concept of work ethic has been fundamentally altered: work ethic is now transported across national borders, and it is often those from poorer countries who now accept jobs that those in affluent countries consider themselves to be “above.” Lastly, the female domestic worker clearly maintains a form of what Marx termed alienation: with the outsourcing of domestic labor, domestic labor is being taken out of its cultural and what Durkheim would call its “organic” context, arguably radicalizing rather than appeasing alienation, since now the latter phenomenon is global. Hence, new female laborers, exhibit signs of all these concepts, despite the apparently profound changes of early twenty-first century globalization.

It appears clear, therefore, that the relevance of such concepts in relation to female laborers show that globalization’s changes are in fact superficial: it produces the same inequalities and phenomena as before, although now on a global level. This is because of the capitalist form of globalization, as this is the common thread between the societies analyzed by figures such as Marx and current society. Accordingly, the plight of female workers will continue to be tied to the exploitation of capital, and arguably, in a more radicalized and negative form, since the reach of capital is now global. What needs to occur, as the textbook suggests at times, is to re-think the model that says globalization needs to be “free market”, consumerist and capitalist and ideology, and think other forms of globalization, so as to minimize the exploitation of specifically endangered groups within globalization, such as female laborers.