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Becoming a garments worker
Kibria, Nazli
Kibria, Nazli
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"In Bangladesh, relatively low rates of women s participation in wage employment have traditionally been understood as a reflection of cultural factors unfavourable to such participation.1 Recent developments, however, challenge the notion that women in Bangladesh, whether due to cultural or other factors, are disinclined to enter the wage labour market. Since the 1980s, an export-based garments industry has mushroomed in Bangladesh. Perhaps the most notable feature of this industry is its heavy use of women workers; an estimated 70-80 per cent of those employed in the industry are women (Majumdar and Chaudhuri, 1994). The rapid development of the garments sector, along with its mobilization of women workers, has made it a popular issue of concern among a wide variety of groups in Bangladesh, including policy makers, activists and scholars. Despite this attention, many basic questions about the industry s workers remain unanswered, hampering the effective assessment of the impact of macro-policies on the sector. This paper looks at the factors and processes that underlie the mobilization of women into the garments labour force. How and why do women come to seek and enter into jobs in garments factories? The materials for this paper are drawn from a qualitative study, based on 70 in-depth interviews with women garments workers and members of their households, in Dhaka and various rural parts of Bangladesh. The garments sector in Bangladesh has helped to create a new group of women industrial workers in the country. Studies indicate that many of the women who work in the sector have had no prior wage work experience (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, 1992); Majumdar and Chaudhuri, 1994).2 In explaining this development, employer preference and global tradition are clearly important points to consider. In export production factories around the world, women have emerged as preferred workers; employers often cite the lower costs, and the docility and nimbleness of women in comparison to men (Elson and Pearson, 1981; Lim, 1990). However, a full understanding of the movement of women into the garments factories of Bangladesh requires us to consider not only the pull but also the push factors that underlie this trend. What has driven or enabled women to respond positively to the expanded job opportunities? Analyses of women s entry into wage employment in Bangladesh often emphasize the role played by extreme poverty and the related dynamic of male unemployment and desertion in driving women into the wage labour market. Since the 1970s, growing numbers of rural women in Bangladesh have sought wage employment in the areas of agricultural labour, as well as earth-cutting, brick-breaking, construction and road maintenance. Mahmud (1992) notes that two groups of women have been particularly likely to engage in these jobs: women in low-income male-headed households, and women heads of household. Thus impoverishment and the absence of a male breadwinner are two characteristics of the wage-seeking women."(pg 1)
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1998-03
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With permission of the license/copyright holder