“Examine the social impact of globalization on labour and society.” (2013)
Anthony Giddens (Runaway World, 1999) defines globalization as the intensification of worldwide social relations, so that local events are shaped by distant ones. Its advocates promise growth, jobs and choice; its critics see a race to the bottom. Examining the claim means testing both against evidence on labour and on wider society.
Impact on labour
- Power shifts to capital. Capital can relocate but workers mostly cannot. Zygmunt Bauman (Globalization: The Human Consequences, 1998) contrasts mobile “tourists” with immobile “vagabonds”, and this asymmetry weakens unions and bargaining.
- Informalisation. Instead of formalising work, integration expanded subcontracting. Contract workers formed 40.7% of factory workers in 2022-23 (Annual Survey of Industries).
- Precarity. Guy Standing (The Precariat, 2011) identifies a growing class without job, income or occupational security, now visible in India’s platform workforce.
- New opportunities. IT, business services and export manufacturing created a salaried, English-educated workforce. Export garment work gave many women their first independent income, as Naila Kabeer (The Power to Choose, 2000) found in Bangladesh.
- Migration. Labour itself globalised: India received about $129 billion in remittances in 2024 (World Bank), the world’s largest inflow.
Impact on society
- Inequality. Gains concentrated at the top. Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty and Anmol Somanchi (2024) estimated that India’s top 1% held 22.6% of national income and 40.1% of wealth in 2022-23, higher than under colonial rule.
- Spatial divides. Global cities such as Bengaluru and Gurugram prosper as hubs of the network economy, while lagging regions send circular migrants to build and serve them. Saskia Sassen (The Global City, 1991) showed that such cities polarise between professionals and low-wage service workers.
- New middle class and consumerism. Malls, credit and branded lifestyles became markers of status, while rural and informal India saw fewer gains.
- Culture. Roland Robertson’s idea of glocalisation explains how global forms are adapted locally, such as regional-language streaming or the Indian-style menu of global fast-food chains. Homogenisation fears are overstated, yet revivalist and identity politics often grow in reaction.
- Family and gender. Dual-earner households, delayed marriage and transnational families have spread, but women’s unpaid care burden has hardly changed.
- Risk. Ulrich Beck (Risk Society, 1986) shows that global markets spread shared risks, such as financial crises and pandemics. The 2020 lockdown exposed migrant workers’ lack of protection.
Limits of the argument
- Globalization is not a single external force. States, caste, kinship and local markets filter its effects: Barbara Harriss-White (India Working, 2003) shows informal economies regulated by social institutions.
- Much Indian informality predates 1991, so globalization intensified old patterns rather than creating them.
- Counter-movements matter: India’s labour codes (in force November 2025) and state gig-worker laws show society pushing back.
Conclusion
Globalization’s social impact is uneven rather than uniformly harmful or beneficial. It has created mobility and new identities for some while widening inequality and insecurity for many. The sociological task is to ask who benefits; in India, a small networked class has gained most, while the informal majority bears the risks.