In a remarkable pairing, two renowned social critics offer a groundbreaking anthology that examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide.

Women are moving around the globe as never before. But for every female executive racking up frequent flier miles, there are multitudes of women whose journeys go unnoticed. Each year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and other third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor associated with women's traditional roles results in an odd displacement. In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind. The migrant nanny — or cleaning woman, nursing care attendant, maid — eases a "care deficit" in rich countries, while her absence creates a "care deficit" back home.

Confronting a range of topics, from the fate of Vietnamese mail-order brides to the importation of Mexican nannies in Los Angeles and the selling of Thai girls to Japanese brothels, Global Woman offers an unprecedented look at a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange on an ever-increasing scale. In fifteen vivid essays — of which only four have been previously published — by a diverse and distinguished group of writers, collected and introduced by bestselling authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, this important anthology reveals a new era in which the main resource extracted from the third world is no longer gold or silver, but love.

"This very interesting collection focuses on the multiple effects of globalization on women and their families. Among its subjects are the rise in female migration, the transfer of domestic services from low to high-income countries, the care crisis left behind by transnational families, and the problems of international sex tourism. The different essays raise key questions and are important reading for our time." Lourdes Beneria, Professor of City and Regional Planning and Women's Studies at Cornell University

"This important book should find a place for itself among scholars of globalization, migration studies, and women's studies." Publishers Weekly

"Global Woman is an extraordinary and original book documenting the effects of far-flung globalization on that most local, domestic, and essential of pursuits?mothering. The commercialization of domestic activity has been hidden in plain view. The authors of Global Woman make it vividly visible." Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect

"A series of vivid and devastating portraits of women caught up in the global commodification of women's traditional labor, this collection also illuminates the larger forces driving the transnational traffic in child and elder care, housecleaning, and sex services....Global Woman will change the way we think about globalization and about women's caring labor." Evelyn Nakano Glenn, author of Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor

"For women?s study courses, this look at a heretofore largely unexplored phenomenon is sure to provide controversial material." Kirkus Reviews

"Two of the best social thinkers of our time have joined together to produce a volume of deep insight and impeccable scholarship about what it means to be female, poor and ready to move across borders. Long after the advocates of Neoliberalism have been forgotten, this book will live on." Patricia Fernández-Kelly, author of For We Are Sold, I and My People

In a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange on an ever- increasing scale, women are moving around the globe as never before. This anthology examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide.

Examines the consequences of globalisation on the lives of women worldwide. Ehrenreich is the author of "Nickel & Dimed", which was a "New York Times" bestseller and sold 25,000 copies in the UK. "Ehrenreich is a mature and eloquent writer", Jeremy Seabrook, "Independent". Feature piece for the "Guardian Weekend Magazine".