Working the night shift
Subtitle: women in India's call center industry
By: Reena Patel.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 191
ISBN-13: 9780804769136; 9780804769143
Subjects: Women employees -- India -- Social conditions; Call centers -- India -- Employees; Night work -- India; Women -- Employment -- India; Women -- India -- Social conditions
Description: "Relatively high wages and the opportunity to be part of an upscale, globalized work environment draw many in India to the call center industry. At the same time, night shift employment presents women, in particular, with new challenges alongside the opportunities. This book explores how beliefs about what constitutes "women's work" are evolving in response to globalization. Working the Night Shift is the first in-depth study of the transnational call center industry that is written from the point of view of women workers. It uncovers how call center employment affects their lives, mainly as it relates to the anxiety that Indian families and Indian society have towards women going out at night, earning a good salary, and being exposed to western culture. This timely account illustrates the ironic and, at times, unsettling experiences of women who enter the spaces and places made accessible through call center work."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Off-shoring customer service : a new global order; title: Mobility-morality narratives : the effects of the industry on the physical mobility of women; title: Traveling at night : the effects of night shift employment on the temporal mobility of women; title: Fast money, family survival, and the consumer class : the effects of call center employment on economic mobility; title: On the home front; title: Social mobility : other openings and constrictions.