The two Asian giants have achieved rapid and sustained growth -- China by focusing on goods, India by tilting toward services.

Throughout history, much of women’s work has taken place in the home rather than in the marketplace. Recent generations of women, however, have been more likely to work in the formal economy, particularly in the United States and other developed countries.

Two types of immigration, physical (immigration that brings the workers to the work) and virtual (immigration that moves the work rather than the workers, involving the long-distance delivery of services), have contributed to globalization of the labor force over the past quarter century. In the...