Q.With the help of an example, explain the impact of globalization and the New International Division of Labour.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Concept understanding — Globalization Effects
Globalization Effects — A First Look
Think about your morning. You wake up to an alarm made in China, check a phone designed in California and assembled in Vietnam, drink coffee grown in Brazil, and wear sneakers stitched in Bangladesh. None of this feels strange — and that is exactly the point. Globalization is the reason your everyday life is woven from threads that cross every continent.
What Globalization Actually Means
At its core, globalization is the growing interdependence of economies, cultures, and populations across the world. It is not a single event but a long-running process driven by trade, investment, technology, and movement of people. Goods, services, money, ideas, and even norms travel across borders faster and more cheaply than ever before.
For a commerce or humanities student, the key is to see globalization not as a force "out there" but as a set of concrete effects that reshape how countries, firms, and individuals live and work.
The Economic Effects
The most visible impact is on trade and production. A company no longer needs to make everything in one country. It can design in one place, source raw materials from another, manufacture in a third, and sell everywhere. This is called global value chains.
A simple example: a "Swedish" car may have its engine from Germany, electronics from Japan, assembly in Belgium, and final sale in India. Which country "made" it? The old answer was one country. The globalized answer is many.
This has several consequences:
- Consumers get more choices at lower prices — because producers compete globally, not just locally.
- Jobs shift — manufacturing moves to countries with lower labour costs, while high-skill service jobs concentrate in advanced economies.
- Small economies can specialise — a country like Vietnam can focus on textiles and electronics assembly, selling to the whole world rather than just its own small market.
- But vulnerability rises — a recession in the US or a factory shutdown in China can ripple through supply chains and hit a small exporting nation hard.
The Cultural and Social Effects
Globalization is not just about money. It carries culture with it.
You see the same movies, wear similar jeans, eat at the same fast-food chains, and follow global social media trends. This has two sides. On one hand, people gain access to a wider range of ideas, art, and lifestyles. On the other hand, local traditions and languages can weaken under the weight of dominant global culture — often called cultural homogenisation.
The debate is not about whether globalization is "good" or "bad". It is about who gains, who loses, and how the costs and benefits are distributed — within countries and between them.
The Political Effects
Globalization challenges the traditional idea of the nation-state. Borders become more porous. International organisations (like the WTO, IMF, or UN) and multinational corporations gain influence that sometimes rivals or exceeds that of national governments. …
Part (a): The New International Division of Labour relocates labour-intensive production to low-wage nations (e.g. garments stitched in Bangladesh/Vietnam for Western brands) while high-value work stays in rich countries, deepening inequality.
Part (b): Globalisation affects culture through homogenisation, hybridisation/glocalisation, a growing consumption culture, and resistance reasserting local identity.
Globalisation has restructured where and how goods are produced. Under the New International Division of Labour (NIDL), transnational corporations no longer make a product in one place; they break manufacturing into stages and locate each stage wherever costs are lowest. Developing countries offer cheap labour, tax incentives and relaxed regulation, so labour-intensive assembly moves to the Global South, while developed countries keep the high-value activities - research, design, branding, finance.
Example - the garment industry. A shirt sold in Europe may be designed and branded in New York or London, but the cotton is grown in India, spun and woven in one low-wage country, and cut and stitched in Bangladesh or Vietnam, where workers earn a fraction of Western wages. The brand captures most of the profit; the physical, labour-intensive work is scattered across poorer nations. The result is a hierarchy: high-skill, high-wage jobs cluster in wealthy countries, low-wage production migrates to poor ones. Millions gain factory employment, but jobs are often precarious, poorly paid and unsafe (as the Rana Plaza disaster showed), and governments compete by keeping wages low. The NIDL thus integrates the world economy while deepening inequality between and within nations.
Concept understanding — Cultural Diversity Threat
What "Cultural Diversity Threat" Means — A First Look
Think of a garden. If every plant in it is identical, a single disease can wipe out the whole garden. But if the garden has many different species, some will survive no matter what comes. That resilience is the value of diversity.
Now imagine the opposite: someone sees that variety and feels uneasy. They worry that the different plants will crowd each other out, or that the original plants will disappear. That worry — that diversity itself is a problem — is what we call the cultural diversity threat.
The Precise Meaning
In social science, the cultural diversity threat is the fear or perception that the presence of multiple cultures within a society endangers the dominant culture's identity, values, or way of life. It is not about actual harm — it is about the perceived risk that diversity will lead to cultural conflict, loss of national unity, or the erosion of traditions.
This threat is often felt by members of the majority or historically dominant group. They may believe that:
- Their language, customs, or religion are being diluted.
- Newcomers or minority groups are "taking over" public spaces.
- National identity is becoming unclear or fragmented.
The cultural diversity threat is a perception, not a fact. It can exist even when no actual harm is happening. It is shaped by history, media, politics, and personal experience.
Why It Matters
This concept is central to understanding debates around immigration, multiculturalism, and national identity. When people feel threatened by diversity, they may:
- Resist policies that promote inclusion (like multilingual education or religious accommodation).
- Support assimilation — the idea that minorities should give up their culture to fit in.
- Vote for political parties that promise to "protect" the national culture. …
Part (a): The New International Division of Labour relocates labour-intensive production to low-wage nations (e.g. garments stitched in Bangladesh/Vietnam for Western brands) while high-value work stays in rich countries, deepening inequality.
Part (b): Globalisation affects culture through homogenisation, hybridisation/glocalisation, a growing consumption culture, and resistance reasserting local identity.
Globalisation reshapes culture as powerfully as it reshapes economies, because the same flows that carry goods and capital also carry ideas, images and lifestyles. It works in several ways:
- Homogenisation (a "global culture"): Western - especially American - products, films, fast-food chains and brands spread worldwide, along with English as a global language, creating shared consumer tastes. Critics call this cultural imperialism, warning that it erodes local traditions.
- Hybridisation / glocalisation: Cultures do not simply flatten; global and local forms mix to create new hybrids - pizza topped with paneer, Bollywood blending Western dance and narrative, global brands adapting to local tastes ("think global, act local"). …
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