This project involves the dissertation research of an anthropology student from the University of Pittsburgh studying the effects of industrialization on households in a Malaysian village. The student will examine the impact of young women's factory employment on other household members, including the reorganization of households activities to compensate for losing women's labor, the potential contributions of cash and goods from the women's wages, the potential change in the household members' control over resources and abilities to call upon village social networks for resources. Three groups of households will be studied: those with a currently factory-employed woman, those with factory-age women who never worked in factories, and those with former factory workers who returned to participate in the village economy. This research is important because aside from improving the US' expertise about this important part of the world and advancing the social scientific capacity of our society, the knowledge to be gained will help policy makers design programs to ameliorate the harmful social effects of this sort of factory employment. As the global market expands this type of employment will increase in the developing nations, and advances in our understanding of its social effects in the home-places of the factory laborers will be important in facilitating beneficial effects of such employment situations.
