This anthology examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide. In a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange on an ever-increasing scale, women are moving around the globe as never before. Every year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Eastern Europe to work in the homes, nurseries and brothels of the First World - from Vietnamese mail-order brides to Mexican nannies in LA, from Thai girls in Vietnamese brothels to Czech au pairs in the UK. In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries to ease a 'care deficit' is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind. Is the main resource now extracted from the Third World no longer gold or silver, but love?

This is an honest account of the ever-increasing trend for women from Eastern Europe, Sri Lanka, Mexico and other Third World countries to migrate to the First World. This quest for a better way of life is not often rewarded, as the grim truth of the matter is that most of these women become maids, sex-workers or even mail-order brides. Global Woman not only demonstrates the detrimental effects of globalisation on women, but also discusses the effects on the children taken overseas and on the families left behind. There are some shocking personal tales recounted - real-life Cinderella sagas but without the happy ending, some especially harrowing from a Western point of view. Ehrenreich and Hochschild argue that these women now represent the Third World's main resource for exportation.

Barbara Ehrenreich writes regularly for Time, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine and various British newspapers including The Times and the Guardian. She lives near Key West, Florida. Arlie Hochschild is professor of sociology and co-director at the Center for Working Families at the University of California, Berkeley. She is author of The Managed Heart, The Second Shift, and The Time Bind.