The economic, social and cultural impacts of globalisation through global shift, migration and cultural diffusion, and its consequences for the development gap and the physical environment.

What this dot point is asking

Edexcel wants you to analyse the economic, social and cultural impacts of globalisation through global shift, migration and cultural change, and to evaluate its consequences for the development gap and the physical environment, including ethical and sustainable responses.

Global shift and its uneven economic impacts

Global shift created new Asian industrial regions such as the Pearl River Delta and Bangalore, generating jobs, foreign direct investment and rapid urbanisation. The flip side is deindustrialisation in the West: as factories closed, regions such as the US Rust Belt and northern England lost their economic base. Winners include emerging economies and consumers enjoying cheaper goods; losers include displaced industrial workers and informal-sector labourers in NICs who work without security or fair pay. The same process therefore lifts some groups while marginalising others.

Migration and remittances

Global shift pulls people towards opportunity. In China, rural-urban migration to coastal factory zones has been on a vast scale, although the hukou household-registration system limits migrants' access to urban services, creating a disadvantaged "floating population". International migration moves workers from LICs to HICs and the Gulf, while remittances sent home support families and economies in source countries, sometimes exceeding aid. Migration thus redistributes both people and income, with social costs (family separation, pressure on services) as well as benefits.

Cultural change

Glocalisation is the clearest evidence that cultural impact is two-way: McDonald's tailors menus to local diets, removing beef and adding the McAloo Tikki in India, showing global firms adapting rather than simply imposing. Yet diffusion can threaten minority languages and traditional livelihoods, so the cultural balance varies by place.

The development gap and the environment

The benefits of globalisation are unevenly captured, sustaining a development gap between the core and the periphery, often framed as the North-South divide and measured by GDP/GNI, the HDI and the Gini coefficient. Globalisation also imposes environmental costs: long supply chains and rising consumption drive deforestation, pollution, carbon emissions, virtual (embedded) water transfers and a growing ecological footprint, with pollution often outsourced to LICs. Responses include Fair Trade, ethical consumption, TNC CSR codes, recycling and the circular economy to reduce e-waste.

Examples in context

Example 1: Agbogbloshie e-waste site, Accra, Ghana. Discarded electronics from HICs are shipped to this site, where informal workers burn cables to recover copper, exposing themselves to toxic fumes and contaminating soil and water. It shows how globalisation outsources environmental costs to LICs and how the development gap shapes who bears the harm. Ethical responses include the circular economy and tighter controls on e-waste exports.

Example 2: Detroit, USA. Once the heart of US car manufacturing, Detroit's population fell from around $1.85$ million in 1950 to under $650{,}000$ today as global shift relocated production abroad. Factory closures brought unemployment, dereliction and falling tax revenue, illustrating that deindustrialised regions in HICs can be losers from globalisation even as NICs gain.

Try this

Q1. Explain how remittances can affect development in source countries. [4 marks]

• Cue. Remittances raise household incomes, fund education and healthcare and boost demand, though they can create dependency and lose skilled workers.

Q2. Suggest one ethical response to the environmental costs of globalisation. [3 marks]

• Cue. Fair Trade, ethical consumption, the circular economy or tighter e-waste controls reduce exploitation and outsourced pollution.