In recent years a massive, transnational commodification of information has occurred, represented by the expanding industry of informatics. Informatics is data entry and processing for a wide array of services and products such as airlines, insurance companies, consumer warranty cards, and a variety of texts ranging from the scientific to the pornographic. Workers sit at computer stations and enter data from objects such as airline ticket stubs or medical insurance claims in a monotonous fashion. Informatics workers are almost exclusively women, in a new “pink collar” job.

Companies from the U.S. choose developing countries such as Barbados and others throughout the Caribbean for their informatics job sites because they can pay the workers there relatively little. Informatics is sold to Afro-Caribbean women as a job that includes the status of high tech white collar work: they are offered a romanticized picture of a well-dressed work force, an air conditioned office (which the machines require), and a computer at which to work for eight hours a day. Some people think these well-dressed office workers are paid well. In truth, during the year of 1990 workers were paid an hourly rate between $1.44 (trainee) and $2.55 (data entry operator). Workers strive to portray themselves as successful (a large portion of which is dressing for success) while also trying to supplement their low wages. This leads to a ‘triple shift’ of wage baking, sewing, and trading goods and services--strategies women of the Caribbean have employed for centuries to make a living.

In the information age of transnational capitalism, are these informatics offices middle-class high tech jobs, or are they “electronic sweatshops”? Either way, these jobs certainly point to the very different relationships and opportunities various women have with computers, work, and technology.

Suggested Reading:
Freeman, Carla. High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identities in the Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.