Journal of International Development

J. Int. Dev. 16, 93–109 (2004)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jid.1065

GLOBALIZATION, GENDER AND POVERTY:

BANGLADESHI WOMEN WORKERS IN
EXPORT AND LOCAL MARKETS
NAILA KABEER1 AND SIMEEN MAHMUD2*
1
Institute of Development Studies, UK
2
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Bangladesh

Abstract: Economic liberalization in Bangladesh has led to the emergence of a number of

export-oriented industries, of which the manufacture of ready-made garments is the most
prominent. The industry currently employs around 1.5 million workers, the overwhelming
majority of whom are women. This paper explores the poverty implications of this new form of
employment through a comparison of the socio-economic backgrounds, wages and working
conditions and contributions to household needs of women working for global markets with
those working for domestic markets. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1 INTRODUCTION: AIMS OF THE STUDY1

Bangladesh is one of 189 countries that signed up to the Millennium Development Goals
of which the first and overarching one is to halve world poverty by 2015. Its National
Strategy for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction (Government of Bangladesh, 2003)
commits it to halving national poverty over the same time period. This paper examines one
route through which this goal could be achieved, which is the enhancement of employment
opportunties for women from poorer households. The focus on globalization in the paper
is not intended to suggest that it is a necessary precondition for achieving this goal. But in
Bangladesh, trade liberalization has been associated with a significant expansion of
women’s paid employment in a context where they had previously limited access to
such opportunities. To that extent, it is important to ask which women have benefited from
this expansion and what this implies for the country’s efforts to reduce poverty. This
expansion in employment has taken place in a number of export industries, but it is export
garment manufacturing that accounts for the largest expansion. Consequently, this paper
will analyse the relationship between globalisation, women’s employment and household

*Correspondence to: S. Mahmud, Senior Research Fellow, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, E-17,
Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh. E-mail: simeen@sdnbd.org
1
This paper has been prepared as part of a research programme on globalisation and poverty funded by the
Department for International Development of the UK government.

Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

94 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

poverty in Bangladesh through a focus on women workers in the export-oriented garment

industry.

2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Although poverty levels have declined from over 70 per cent in the 1970s to 40 per cent in
2000, Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries in the world (Government of
Bangladesh, 2003). And while fertility has also declined from rates of around 7 children
per women in the late seventies to around 3 today, it remains one of the most densely
populated countries in the world, with around a million new entrants joining its labour
force every year. The land frontier was reached several decades ago and while there is
considerable scope for improving the productivity of agriculture through the spread of new
high-yielding varieties, it is unlikely to generate sufficient employment for the existing
labour force, let alone those who join each year. As a result, there has been increasing
diversification into off-farm activities in rural areas and migration into urban areas in
search of employment. However, for the majority of the poor who have no land, few assets
and little education, low rates of return to their livelihood efforts remain significant
barriers to their attempts to lift themselves out of poverty. If poverty is to be halved in
Bangladesh, it will have to be through the continuing generation of employment
opportunities which can absorb the large pool of ‘surplus’ labour in the countryside and
contribute to the incomes of poor urban households.
Bangladesh is also an extremely patriarchal society. It is part of a region of ‘extreme
patriarchy’ where higher rates of female than male mortality at most ages resulted in adverse
sex ratios ie. ‘abnormally’ fewer females than males within the overall population unlike
the rest of the world where women generally outlive men (see discussion in Kabeer, 2003).
The societies in this region tend to be characterized by the practice of female seclusion,
patri-lineal principles of descent and inheritance, patrilocal principles of marriage and strict
patriarchal authority structures within the family. Restrictions on women s mobility in the
public domain mean that they either work as unpaid family labour or in forms of paid work
that can be carried out within the home. The invisibility of such work has meant that the
female labour force participation rates in these regions have tended to be extremely low.
Official labour force statistics in Bangladesh, for instance, showed low, and largely
unchanging, rates of female labour force participation: women’s share of total employment
rose from 5 per cent in 1967 to just 7 per cent in 1987 (World Bank, 1990).
However, patriarchal relations, like any other form of social relations, can be modified,
intensified or transformed over time. While progress has been slow on many fronts in
relation to gender equality in Bangladesh, there have been some remarkable achievements
on others. There has been an improvement in the overall sex ratio from 109.7 men to every
women in the population in 1951 to 105.5 in 1996 (Government of Bangladesh, 2001,
p. 25). Gender disparities in gross enrollment ratios have been eliminated at primary level
and reduced at secondary level.
Bangladesh also pioneered micro-credit programmes which lend to women from poor
and landless households on the basis of group-based collateral. These programmes have
expanded women’s opportunities for self-employment in rural areas. However, social
barriers to women’s participation in paid work outside the home remain and returns to
women’s labour in these off-farm activities remain low (Kabeer, 2001; Rahman and
Khandker, 1994).

Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 16, 93–109 (2004)
 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 95

As a result, many women migrated into towns in search of work, either with their
husbands if they were married, or on their own, if they were widowed, divorced or
abandoned. Community-related constraints were less severe in the relative anonymity of
urban areas and female participation in paid work tended to be higher. However, here too,
gender biases kept women out of mainstream employment, confining them to casual
waged work or self-employment in the informal economy. Men dominated formal, mainly
public sector employment in government administration, nationalized banks and industry
where pay and working conditions were far superior and trade unions more active.
The rise of an export-oriented Ready-Made Garment industry, one result of trade
liberalization policies adopted in the early 1980s, has helped to change the face of female
employment in the country. Expanding from a handful of factories in the late 1970s to over
3500 by the mid-1990s, the industry now accounts for around a quarter of gross value
added in the manufacturing sector and 75 per cent of foreign exchange earnings (estimates
from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association). It has also
generated considerable employment and, as in other parts of the world, this has been
largely female employment. The percentage of working women in manufacturing rose
from around 4 per cent in 1974 to around 55 per cent in 1985–86, while urban female
labour force participation rates rose from around 12 per cent in 1983–84 to 20.5 per cent in
1995–96. The industry currently employs around 1.8 million workers of whom around 1.5
million are women (estimates from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters
Association).
The reasons for the female intensity of the workforce in the garment sector inter-
nationally have been discussed extensively in the literature and will not be repeated here
(Nash and Fernandez-Kelly, 1983; Elson and Pearson, 1981; Beneria, 2003). Suffice it to
say that one strategy for survival in an intensely competitive global market, particularly in
the labour-intensive stages of the production process, where a great deal of Bangladesh’s
industry is located, has been the ‘primitive’ exploitation of labour: the extraction of
maximum possible labour at minimum possible costs. As a section of the work force with
few labour market choices, and lower returns to their labour than men with equivalent
skills (or lack of skills), women workers offer employers the kind of low-cost and
compliant labour force that helps them achieve this competitive advantage.
The garment industry in Bangladesh is made up of a number of segments. Factories
within the country’s export-processing zones (one in Dhaka and one in Chittagong)
account for around 12 per cent of its employment. They are generally large, often
employing several thousand workers, they operate with more complex and up-to-date
machinery, deal directly with international buyers and a number have developed backward
linkages, particularly with the local textile sector. While the government operates a ban on
trade unions within the EPZs, wages and working conditions in these factories tend to be
far superior to those elsewhere, primarily because of the pressure that can be exerted by
buyers who are in turn under pressure from consumer lobby groups, NGO-led campaigns,
student activists and northern labour movements concerned to improve working condi-
tions in the factories from which their countries import clothing. Factories outside the EPZ
consist of those which also deal directly with buyers and hence are under the same
pressures to comply with their codes of conduct and others, which rely on some
combination of direct and subcontracted orders. There is considerable variation here in
size, profit margins and pressure from buyers and they merge imperceptibly into the
informal economy, many offering wages and working conditions not very different from
those found elsewhere in this section of the economy.

Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 16, 93–109 (2004)
96 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

3 A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY

A major impact of globalization in the Bangladesh context therefore has been the very
visible increase in female employment in both absolute terms, and relative to men. The
aim of this paper is to consider the implications of this employment for the goal of poverty
reduction. It attempts to do this through a comparison of women workers in the
export garment industry and those working for the domestic market. This will allow it
to assess which group of women have benefited from the opening up of the economy and
in what ways.
The data for the analysis comes from a survey of 1322 women workers and their
households carried out in 2001. The sample consisted of two broad categories of workers:
862 women working for the garment export sector and 460 women working in the
domestic market. The garment workers were themselves divided into two futher sub-
categories: 125 from an EPZ located in the peri-urban outskirts of Dhaka city and 737
were from garment factories located within the city itself. The majority of the garment
workers in our survey worked as machine operators. However, the EPZ sub-sample
included many more supervisors/quality controllers (17 per cent) compared with the
Dhaka sub-sample (2 per cent), perhaps because many more women were in these
positions in the EPZs. In contrast, many more ‘helpers’ were included among the Dhaka
garment workers (41 per cent) compared with the EPZ workers (24 per cent).
Workers in the domestic economy were also made up of two sub categories: 119 self-
employed women and 341 women working in various other forms of waged employment
(‘other waged workers’). These women were obviously spread over over a wider range of
occupations than the garment workers. Nevertheless, the gender segmentation of the
labour market was evident in the fact that the majority were clustered into a limited range
of occupations. Those in waged work were largely concentrated in domestic service,
casual manual work, often on construction sites, and small-scale manufacturing while
those in self-employment had their own small shops, tailoring businesses or worked in
petty trade.
All the workers in the sample, with the exception of the EPZ workers, were drawn from
the same 8 bastee (slum) neighbourhoods in Dhaka in order to control for variations in
their economic circumstances. The EPZ workers were an exception because they lived in
rented housing which had sprung up in neighbouring villages around the zone specifically
in response to the presence of EPZ factories. Because there were few work opportunities
available for women outside the EPZ in these areas, it was not possible to select a ‘control
group’ of women working for the domestic market. As we shall see, the EPZ workers
proved to be ‘anomalies’ in a number of ways in the research.
The analysis in this paper is based on a three-stage comparison of the
different categories of workers in our survey. The first stage is a comparison of the
socio-economic characteristics of the workers and their households in order to establish
who they were and where they came from. The second stage is a comparison of their
wages and working conditions in order to evaluate the quality of employment generated by
global in relation to local market forces. The final stage is a comparison of the patterns of
utilisation of the wages earned by women workers in order to assess the nature of their
contributions to household basic needs. The concluding section of the paper draws
together the findings from the different stages of analysis in order to reflect on what
they tell us about the likely impact of globalization on the goal of poverty reduction in
Bangladesh.

Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 16, 93–109 (2004)
 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 97

4 SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF WOMEN WORKERS

We start our analysis by exploring the history and background of the different categories of
workers in our sample. Table 1, which provides a demographic profile of the workers,
highlights the fact that the workers in our study were at very diffferent stages of their life
course. The garment workers as a group, but particularly those in the EPZ, were younger,
more likely to be single or, if they were married, to have fewer children. For instance,
48 per cent of ‘ever-married’ women in EPZ factories and 40 per cent in Dhaka factories
had no children, while 32 and 39 per cent had just one child. Women working for domestic
markets, particularly those who were self-employed, were at a later stage in their life
course: they were older, more likely to be married and to have children: only 3 per cent of
ever-married self-employed women and 10 per cent of other wage workers had no children
while 22–25 per cent had just one child.
Differences in stages of their life course partly explain differences in the occupational
patterns of the workers. Factory work, particularly in export garment manufacturing where
long hours of overtime are common, imposes a discipline which make it difficult for
women to combine earning an income with caring for their families. Consequently,
married women, particularly those with children, were generally found in self-
employment or informal forms of wage employment where hours of work are likely to
be more flexible or at least open to some negotiation. For instance, the domestic servants
included in our sample were those who lived at home and worked a fixed number of hours a
day for one or more employers. Our sample failed to include those domestic servants who
lived with their employers and were at their beck and call 24 hours a day; these group
would have found it difficult to reconcile paid work with child care.
The vast majority of garment workers (over 90 per cent) had started their working life
within the garment industry, usually in the previous five years. The remainder had started
out in the same cluster of jobs that the non-garment workers were to be found in, viz.
domestic service and cottage industry. While many of the women working for domestic
markets also began out in occupations similar to those they were currently doing, it should
be noted that 38 per cent of women who were currently self-employed and 25 per cent of
‘other’ waged worker had been garment workers at an earlier stage in their lives. In
addition, 24 per cent of self-employed women reported some form of tailoring activity as
their primary occupation. As might be expected, many of these had learnt their skills in the
garment industry. This both confirms the ‘life-course’ element in women’s occupational
choices and also suggests some degree of overlap between women working in the
domestic and global economy.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics by category of worker

Category of Mean Mean age Single Married Divorced or Mean no. of
worker age at start of (%) (%) separated children per
paid work (%) ever-married
woman

EPZ garment workers 21.8 17 38 57 5 0.7

Dhaka garment workers 21.2 17 45 43 9 1.0
Other waged workers 29.2 23 13 67 9 2.4
Self-employed workers 32.4 23 5 80 11 2.6

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98 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

Table 2. Migration history and patterns by category of worker

Category of Migrated Mean no. Migrated Migrated Migrated Migrated Migrated

worker from rural of years with with with with alone
location in Dhaka husband/ siblings relatives friends (%)
(%) parents (%) (%) (%)
(%)

EPZ garment workers 98 4.9 37 24 26 1 10

Dhaka garment workers 82 5.5 47 17 20 3 4
Self-employed workers 73 14.1 62 7 5 2 5
Other wage workers 74 11.0 60 — — — 8

Tables 2, 3 and 4 provide information on the migration history, reasons for migration
and current residential arrangments of the workers in our sample. They show that the
overwhelming majority of garment workers, and a significant majority of the rest, had
migrated to Dhaka from rural locations, but over very differing time periods. Those
working for domestic markets, particularly the self-employed, had migrated more than a
decade ago, mainly with their husbands or parents, the ‘associational’ pattern that typified
female migration in earlier decades. They had also started work at a later stage in their
lives. As might be expected, the most frequent reason given by this group for migration
was ‘accompanying parents/husband’. However, a significant percentage of other waged

Table 3. Reasons for migrating by category of worker

EPZ Dhaka garment Self-employed Other wage

workers workers workers workers
(N ¼ 123) (N ¼ 663) (N ¼ 98) (N ¼ 282)
(%) (%) (%) (%)

Scarcity 9 16 16 21
Accmpanying parents/husband 14 27 45 37
Study 4 — 1 —
Seeking job 34 21 17 34
Seeking garment job 26 26 6 2
Visit 9 5 9 3
Death/sickness of breadwinner 3 1 2 1
Family conflict 1 3 1 2

Table 4 Current residential arrangements by category of worker

Category Permanently ‘Divided’ Single Mean Rented Housing Purchase

of worker settled in household person household accomodation material: water
Dhaka arrangements households size (%) durable (%)
(%) (%) (%) (%)

EPZ workers 28 34 10 3.9 100 77 0

Dhaka garment 22 31 4 4.7 90 24 8
workers
Self-employed 66 13 2 4.9 65 27 6
workers
Other wage 39 12 3 4.6 79 23 14
workers

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 99

workers had migrated in search of employment. The fact that they were also more likely
than self-employed women to cite ‘scarcity’ as their reason for migrating suggests that
they came from poorer backgrounds than the latter.
The majority of garment workers had migrated within the last five years which is also
when they had started paid work. Many more of this group were likely to have migrated
alone or with siblings, relatives and friends, a less conventional form of female migration.
The main reason given by this group for migration was the search for employment. The
fact that many said that they had migrated explicitly in search of garment employment
indicates the growing pull that the industry now exercises for female migration from rural
areas. In addition, the fact that a higher percentage of Dhaka garment workers cited
scarcity as a reason for migrating than EPZ workers suggests that they came from poorer
backgrounds than the latter.
Differences in patterns of migration resulted in differences in residential patterns.
Women working for domestic markets, who had migrated to Dhaka over a decade ago,
were generally at a more settled stage of their lives. They were more likely to be married, to
live with their husbands and children and to consider themselves permanent residents of the
city. In addition, a significant minorty owned the accomodation they lived in: 35 per cent of
self-employed workers and 20 per cent of other wage workers. However, as Table 4 shows,
most slum accomodation tended to be of makeshift rather than durable materials, whether it
was owned or rented, and in some cases had no water supply. 14 per cent of other waged
workers and 6 per cent of the self-employed had to purchase their water.
The garment workers, on other hand, did not consider themselves permanent residents
of the city. This partly reflected the large proportion of single women among their
numbers: most expected to get married at some stage in the near future to men from their
own or neighbouring village and hence expected to return to the countryside. The greater
impermanency of their current arrangements is also evident in the fact that a third of
garment workers (compared to only 12–13 per cent of non-garment workers) belonged to
what we classified as ‘divided’ households: ie. households some of whose members lived
elsewhere. This arrangement reflected the fact that many garment workers considered
themselves to be members of the families they had left behind in the countryside. Garment
workers were also more likely to be living in atypical residential arrangements ie. on their
own or with co-workers, friends and other relatives rather than with husbands or parents.
Many of those with children had left them behind with their families in the village. The
overwhelming majority of garment workers—90 per cent of Dhaka garment workers and
100 per cent of EPZ workers—lived in rented accomodation. However the EPZ workers
were more likely than any other category of worker to live in houses made of durable
materials with access to their own water supply.
It is already clear therefore that there were socio-economic differences between the
different categories of workers and that these were particularly marked between EPZ
workers and the rest. If ‘scarcity’ as the reason for migrating to the city is taken as a
preliminary indicator of household poverty, the data in Table 3 suggests that EPZ workers
came from the more prosperous end of the economic spectrum represented in our survey
while other wage workers came from the poorer end. Dhaka garment workers and self-
employed workers occupied an intermediate status between the two. This ranking is
corroborated by some of the other indicators reported in Table 5.
First of all, EPZ workers reported the highest mean annual household incomes, other
wage workers report the lowest while the household income levels reported by the Dhaka
garment workers and self-employed workers fell between the two with similar levels of

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100 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

Table 5. Economic characteristics of households by category of worker

Category of Mean Experiencing With no With no Mean years Of adult

worker annual food land agricultural of education hh members
household shortage in (%) land per worker with no
income past year (%) education
(%) (%)

EPZ garment workers 66052 4 58 76 8.4 10

Dhaka garment workers 53171 23 70 86 3.8 40
Self employed workers 52236 28 79 94 3.6 37
Other wage workers 45555 34 88 97 2.4 55

income. Secondly, the families of EPZ workers were least likely to have experienced a
period of food shortage in the previous year (4 per cent) while other waged workers were
most likely to have done so (34 per cent). Once again, Dhaka garment workers and self-
employed women were in the intermediate category (23 per cent and 28 per cent). Data on
landholding are an unreliable indicator of the household’s economic situation for those
women in our sample who left the countryside over a decade ago and now consider
themselves permanent residents of the city. However, among the garment workers, who
have migrated more recently and still consider themselves to belong to rural families, the
data serve to confirm that 70 per cent of those working in the Dhaka factories came from
families who were entirely landless compared to just 58 per cent of EPZ workers.
Data on education further corroborate the economic ranking suggested by the other
indicators. The EPZ workers had an average of 8 years of education, much the highest in
our sample while other wage workers, with an average of 2.4 years had the lowest. Once
again, the Dhaka garment workers and self employed women occupied an intermediate
status with broadly similar levels of education (3.8 and 3.6 respectively). While the higher
levels of education among EPZ compared with Dhaka garment workers partly reflected the
higher percentage of supervisors and quality controllers amongst the former group, it is
also reflected genuine differences in their levels of education: over 50 per cent of EPZ
workers had at least 8 years of education but only 17 per cent of them were supervisors/
quality controllers. Finally, data on the education of other family members tell us that only
10 per cent of EPZ workers came from families which had no educated adult members
compared 37 per cent of self-employed workers, 40 per cent of Dhaka garment workers
and 55 per cent of other wage workers.
The findings in this section therefore tell a fairly consistent story about the different
catetgories of workers in our sample. First of all, they tell us that the workers in the export
garment industry were generally young, unmarried women or if married, unlikely to have
children, who had migrated from the countryside within the past five years in search of
employment, and specifically employment in the garment industry.
Secondly, they tell us that the EPZ workers came from distinctly better-off backgrounds
than Dhaka garment workers, and indeed, than other categories of workers in our sample.
Dhaka garment workers and self-employed workers appeared to come from similar
economic strata in terms of their education, education of other family members, experience
of food shortage, family income levels, reasons for migrating and so on. Other wage workers
were the poorest group in our sample. With the exception of the EPZ garment workers,
therefore, the industry is recruiting from poor and landless families, but not necessarily the
very poorest who are likely to be found in more casualised forms of wage work.

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 101

And thirdly, these findings suggest that the degree of overlap we noted between export
garment workers and workers in the domestic economy is largely an overlap between
Dhaka garment workers and self-employed women. They suggest that a significant
percentage of the women working in the Dhaka garment industry, who do not currently
see themselves as permanent residents of the city, may not in fact return to the rural areas
when they get married. Instead, the better-off among them will set up their own
enterprises, perhaps building on their tailoring skills, while the poorer ones amongst
them will take up other more flexible forms of waged work which can be combined with
caring for their children.

5 WAGES AND WORKING CONDITIONS

OF THE WOMEN WORKERS

We turn next to the wages and working conditions associated with the different categories
of work represented in our sample in order to compare how women working for global
markets fared relative to those working for local markets. Table 6 provides estimates of the
maximum, minimum and average monthly income for each category of worker. Not
surprisingly, given their higher levels of education, EPZ workers reported higher levels of
average, maximum and minimum earnings than any other category.2 Dhaka garment
workers and self-employed women reported roughly similar levels of earnings while other
wage workers reported the lowest levels. Returns to labour thus mirrored the economic
ranking of workers: the poorer the worker, the more desperate her household, the lower her
education, the fewer her options in the labour market and the lower the ‘reserve’ price of
her labour.
Focusing on the wages of the Dhaka garment workers, who make up the bulk of workers
in the export sector, it should be noted that their average monthly earnings were roughly
double the monthly per capita ‘poverty line’ income (725 takas in urban areas and 635
takas in rural areas in 2000, Government of Bangladesh, 2002), suggesting that they were
able to support at least one other adult or two children with their earnings. While their
monthly earnings varied, because of fluctuating overtime earnings, it never fell below the
poverty line income in contrast to that of other wage workers.
The next set of tables report on benefits and requirements in the work place by category
of worker. However, they are confined to the three groups of wage workers in our sample

Table 6. Mean monthly income in past year by category of worker (in takas)
Average monthly Maximum Minimum
income monthly income monthly income

EPZ garment workers 3014 3403 2305

Dhaka garment workers 1706 2019 1248
Self-employed workers 1799 2606 1256
Other wage workers 919 1215 699

2
To allow for the fact that part of the difference in monthly earnings reported by EPZ and Dhaka garment workers
might reflect the fact that the former group included many women in the higher grades, we examined monthly
returns separately for helpers, operators and higher grades for the two sets of workers. While wage differentials
remained, they were considerably reduced.

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102 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

Table 7. Indicators of ‘formality’ in working conditions by category of waged worker

Test on Permanent Received Trade union presence Heard of

entry status contract letter in workplace labour laws
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

EPZ garment workers 91 30 64 5 23

Dhaka garment workers 65 8 1 1 18
Other wage workers 16 12 4 0 3

Table 8. Benefits enjoyed by category of waged worker

Paid Maternity Overtime Tiffin Child care Transport Accomodation Medical
leave leave pay provided facilities faciliities (%) care
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

EPZ garment 76 96 97 84 46 72 42 91
workers
Dhaka garment 37 60 83 28 7 3 3 63
workers
Other waged 29 18 8 2 2 0 0 13
workers

as much of the information does not apply to self-employed workers who determine their
own working conditions. Tables 7 and 8 suggest that the EPZ factories most closely
approximate ‘formal’ conditions of work. Their workers are more likely than the rest to be
given a test on entry, to receive a contract letter of some sort, to enjoy paid leave and
maternity leave, to receive overtime pay, tiffin at work, transport facilities, accomodation
facilities, medical care at work and child care facilities. Workers in the Dhaka garment
factories also received some of these benefits but to a lesser extent while other wage
workers hardly received them at all. There was very little evidence of a trade union
presence in any of the workplaces covered by our sample and the majority of workers,
particularly other wage workers, had not heard of the country’s labour laws.
Table 9 focuses on other aspects of working conditions which are likely to impinge on
workers’ well-being. Once again, garment workers fared better than other waged workers,
with EPZ workers faring best. They were most likely to have received a bonus in the past
month, followed by Dhaka garment workers. None of the other waged workers had
received such a bonus. EPZ workers were also most likely to know how overtime was

Table 9. Other well-being related aspects of working conditions by category of waged worker
Recived Knows Money Less than Withhout Income Income
bonus in how earned on 10 hr work for increased decreased
past overtime is regular working some time in past in past
month calculated basis day in past year year year
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

EPZ garment 43 30 98 30 20 81 4
workers
Dhaka garment 25 16 85 72 29 60 10
workers
Other wage workers 0 0 72 8 52 37 13

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 103

calculated, followed by Dhaka garment workers. None of the other wage workers had this
information, perhaps because so few received overtime pay. In fact, it is likely that very
few did any overtime. They reported the shortest working day of the three categories of
wage workers in our sample: only 8 per cent of them worked more than 10 hours a day,
compared with 30 per cent in the EPZ and a staggering 72 per cent in the Dhaka garment
factories.3
However, while it is clear that Dhaka garment workers put in unacceptably long hours of
work, the fewer hours of work put in by other waged workers were not necessarily an
active choice on their part. Casualized wage work, while more flexible than formal factory
work, can also entail high levels of underemployment. This is confirmed by the very high
percentage of other wage workers who had been without work for some time in the past
year—52 per cent compared with 29 per cent of Dhaka garment workers and 20 per cent of
EPZ workers. Salway et al. (2004) confirm that manual wage labourers, in particular,
worked fewer hours and also fewer days a month than other women workers, a matter of
availability of work rather than preference.
Given that so few of workers in any category considered themselves to have permanent
status and given also the interruptions to work that many had experienced in the past year,
a remarkably high percentage reported that they earned a regular income: 98 per cent of
EPZ workers, 85 per cent of Dhaka garment workers and 72 per cent of other wage
workers. Finally, 81 per cent of EPZ garment workers, 60 per cent of Dhaka garment
workers and 37 per cent of other wage workers reported a rise in their earnings in the past
year while 4 per cent of EPZ workers, 10 per cent of Dhaka garment workers and
13 per cent of other wage workers reported a decline.
Data was also collected on what different categories of wage workers considered to be
the most important advantages and disadvantages of their current employment. Regularity
in the payment of salaries and overtime was identified as the most valued aspect of their
employment by over 60 per cent of garment workers, both those within the EPZs as well as
outside it. The next most frequently mentioned advantage by EPZ workers was the
provision of meals at work while Dhaka garment workers cited the good conduct of
management. Among ‘other’ wage workers, on the other hand, only 23 per cent identified
regularity of salary/overtime as a positive aspect of their employment while another
27 per cent identified ‘working in a domestic environment’, presumably because it did not
entail the public exposure faced by women working in factories. Also important among
other wage workers were a cluster of advantages which referred to various aspects of
flexibility in their use of time: 16 per cent referred explicitly to the the ability to work
independently while a further 20 per cent referred to ‘less pressure at work’, ‘the ability to
take leave when required’, ‘the absence of night duty’ and ‘proximity to the home’.
As far as the main disadvantages were concerned, ‘low salaries’ featured most
frequently for all three groups but particularly for ‘other wage workers’ (27 per cent
compared with 15 per cent of general garment workers and 9 per cent of EPZ workers).
Other disadvantages mentioned were management behaviour (Dhaka garment workers),
irregularlity in overtime payments (Dhaka garment workers) and in salary (both garment
and other wage workers) hard labour and difficulty of getting to work (other wage
workers).

3
Again this is partly a life-cycle pattern. For instance, Salway et al. (2004) found that women and men in the
slum areas that they studied put in similar hours into paid work a day (over nine hours), but that single
women tended to work longer hours than married women.

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104 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

To sum up, therefore, the pay and working conditions reported by different categories of
workers appeared to partly reproduce the socioeconomic ranking of their households. EPZ
workers were, by far and away, the best off, enjoying more benefits, higher wages and
better working conditions than any other category of waged worker. Other wage workers
were at the poorer end of the occupational spectrum, earning lower and less regular wages,
enjoying fewer or no benefits, experiencing a greater likelihood of periods without work
and declining or static earnings in the past year. Secondly, given our interest in the impact
of garment employment on poverty reduction, it is worth noting that garment workers in
general earned enough to support themselves and at least one other adult member of their
family at a standard of living above the poverty line. This is, of course, not a particularly
high standard of living but it does suggest that certain minimum basic needs were met.
Finally, it is worth noting that the responses of workers concerning the advantages and
disadvantages of their employment suggested that married women faced a trade-off
between regularity of income and flexibility needed to also take care of their children.

6 WOMEN’S WAGES AND HOUSEHOLD NEEDS

We have noted what different categories of workers earned from their occupations. The
third stage of our analysis examines how these earnings were utilized. Table 10 suggests
that all categories of workers in our sample contributed their wages to meeting basic
needs: the most frequently mentioned uses of their incomes related to food, shelter,
clothing and health. However, the differences noted earlier in the socio-economic status,
stage of life course and current residential arrangements of the different categories did lead
to some variations in their patterns of income allocation.
First of all, the higher incidence of owner-occupied housing among self-employed and
other wage workers explains why they were far less likely than garment workers to report
contributions to rent as one of the uses of their wages. Secondly, the higher percentages of
self-employed workers and other wage workers who used their wages to pay for children’s
education is consistent with the fact that they were more likely to have children than the
garment workers. Among garment workers, however, it was the EPZ workers who were
more likely to contribute to children’s educatation, despite the fact they had fewer
children; this could reflect the fact the EPZ workers themselves had far higher levels of
education than did Dhaka garment workers.

Table 10. Most important uses of earnings by category of worker

EPZ garment Dhaka Self-employed Other wage
workers garment workers workers workers
(%) (%) (%) (%)

Rent 85 77 45 54
Food 86 82 89 79
Clothing 86 82 45 81
Medical expenses 44 38 46 43
Sent home 22 21 9 4
Savings 24 24 18 12
School fees 13 8 34 19

Note: The figures represent the five most important uses of their wages mentioned by workers.

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 105

Thirdly, both groups of garment workers are far more likely to remit some of their
income ‘home’ than self-employed or other wage workers. Again, this is to be expected,
given the higher incidence of ‘divided’ households in the former group, but it does indicate
that garment employment was associated with some redistribution of income from urban
to rural households. And finally, garment workers as a group, were more likely to save
some of their wages than non-garment workers. Other wage workers, the poorest category
in our sample, were least likely to report savings as a use of their wages.
Direct questions regarding savings and remittances4 provide some further insights into
the use of women’s earning (Table 11). It suggested that 78 per cent of EPZ garment
workers, the best paid and best off group in our sample, reported the ability to save
compared with 31 per cent of other wage workers, the worst paid and poorest. Of the
intermediate categories, 54 per cent of self-employed workers and 46 per cent of Dhaka
garment workers were able to save. EPZ workers were more likely to keep their current
savings in banks while self employed workers were most likely to keep their money with
an NGO. One reason for the latter finding was that self-employed workers were more
likely to belong to an NGO: 34 per cent compared with 11 per cent among other wage
workers and around 2–5 per cent among garment workers. Similar percentages of the two
groups of garment workers reported sending remittances (29–33 per cent) compared with
self-employed and other wage workers (10–13 per cent). Less than 5 per cent of workers in
all categories had received any form of material help from their families. There is thus a
net flow from urban to rural areas, particularly among garment workers’ households.
Our final set of tables considers the main benefits and drawbacks of employment for
workers’ households and for workers themselves. Table 12 shows that ‘economic
solvency’ of the family (having enough income to support family expenditures) and
‘financial support to the family’ were cited by over 65 per cent of EPZ workers, Dhaka
garment workers and self-employed workers and 55 per cent of other wage workers as the
main benefits of their earnings for their families. The more modest benefit of a ‘reduced
burden on the family’ was cited by a further 10 per cent of the garment workers and
between 4–6 per cent of self-employed and other wage workers. Other wage workers, the
poorest in our sample, were more likely than the rest to cite specific examples of basic
needs satisfaction: the ability to have three meals a day, to purchase clothing/household
amenities, regular payment of rent and medical expenses. Over 80 per cent of all categories
of workers said that there were no disadvantages to their current employment from the
household point of view (table not shown). Of those that did state a disadvantage, neglect
of domestic chores featured most prominently.

Table 11. Ability to save and remit by category of worker

Category of Able to Sent money Saved Saved with Saved with Gold
worker save to family in bank informal group NGO jewellery
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

EPZ garment workers 78 33 25 1 1 66

Dhaka garment workers 46 29 7 4 3 34
Self-employed workers 54 13 5 6 24 56
Other wage workers 31 10 3 8 9 31

4
These included question on whether women saved or not, what they did with their savings, did they send any
money to other familiy members and did they receive any money from other family members.

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106 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

Table 12. Main benefits of women’s employment for their households

EPZ garment Dhaka garment Self-employed Other wage

workers (%) workers (%) workers (%) workers (%)

Economic solvency 38 31 33 27
Financial support to family 31 36 36 28
Reduced burden on family 11 10 4 6
3 meals a day 14 17 20 22
Regular payment of rent 5 11 8 11
Capacity to save 4 2 2 2
Clothes/amenities 1 3 4 8
Children’s education 8 8 18 12
Remittances 6 6 — 2
Medical expenses 1 2 3 6
Reduction of debt 1 3 4 1

Note: The figures represent the two most important benefits to their households mentioned by workers.

Table 13. Main benefits of current employment for the workers

EPZ garment Dhaka garment Self employed Other wage

workers (%) workers (%) workers (%) workers (%)

Contribution to family budget 3 3 4 2

Bearing own expenses 42 52 46 42
Economic self-reliance 39 29 27 44
Overcoming want 5 9 3 6
Ability to save 11 18 10 5
Status/mental wellbeing 5 5 7 4
None 2 6 3 13

Note: The figures represent the two most important personal benefits mentioned by workers.

As far as the benefits of employment for workers themselves, variations on the theme of
reduced financial dependence featured as the most frequent response for all categories of
workers: over 80 per cent in each category either cited ‘bearing own expenses’ or
‘economic self-reliance’ as the main benefit of their employment. It should also be noted
that only 2 per cent of EPZ workers and 3 per cent of self-employed workers were not able
to cite any personal benefits from their employment compared to 6 per cent of Dhaka
garment workers and 13 per cent of other wage workers.
The main drawback of their employment from the workers’ perspective related to
effects on their health, more frequently cited by Dhaka garment workers and other wage

Table 14. Main drawbacks of current employment from workers’ perspective

EPZ garment Dhaka garment Self-employed Other wage
workers (%) workers (%) workers (%) workers (%)

Effects on health 9 24 14 21
Hard labour 4 7 17 10
Neglect of children 5 3 2 2
Away from family 2 3 — 1
None 74 56 65 62
Poor health status 13 29 29 30

Note: The figures represent the two most important personal drawbacks mentioned by workers.

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 107

workers, and heavy work burden, particularly among self employed and other wage
workers. It should be noted in this connection that around a third of Dhaka
garment workers, self-employed workers and other wage workers complained of suffering
from poor health status compared to just 13 per cent of EPZ workers. It should also be
noted that EPZ workers were least likely to cite any personal drawbacks to their present
employment and that Dhaka garment workers were the most likely to do so.

7 CONCLUSION: GLOBAL MARKETS, WOMEN’S WORK

AND HOUSEHOLD POVERTY

We are now in a position to pull together the various findings provided by our survey data
and consider their implications for the question that this paper set out to address. It is clear
that the export industry is largely drawing on young women, most of whom are either
unmarried or else married without children, who migrate into Dhaka and its environs in
search of employment, often specifically garment employment. However, it is also clear
that EPZ factories draw on considerably more educated workforce from considerably
more prosperous families than does the rest of the industry. The employment of these
women is unlikely to have any direct impact on poverty in Bangladesh. Women working in
the Dhaka garment factories, on the other hand, came from poorer sections of the rural
population and appeared to have more in common economically with other workers from
the same bastees than they did with EPZ workers from the same industry.
With the exception of EPZ factories, therefore, which in any case account for a very
small percentage of overall employment in the industry, the export manufacturing of
garments in Bangladesh can be said to have generated employment opportunities that have
directly benefited women from the poorer sections of the rural population. Moreover, it has
provided these opportunities in a context where women had hitherto been marginalised
from mainstream forms of employment and confined to casualized and badly paid work in
a limited number of occupations or to unpaid family labour. The fact that most of the
women working in the garment industry have entered the labour force for the first time
suggests that the industry is adding to the quantity of employment available to women
rather than subsituting for jobs that have displaced in other sectors.5 However, the garment
industy is clearly discriminating against the very poorest women in the population. Only a
small minority of other wage workers, the poorest group in our sample, had worked in the
industry at any stage in the past.
The second aspect of the relationship between household poverty and women’s
employment examined in the paper relates to the returns to employment and the uses to
which these returns were put. The EPZ workers earned far higher wages on average than
the other three categories of workers included in our sample but in as much as they came
from households likely to be above the poverty line, their wages did not contribute directly
to the reduction of household poverty. The Dhaka garment workers, on the other hand,
earned enough to meet their own basic needs and to contribute to the basic needs of other
family members. While their earnings were less than those reported by self-employed
women, many of whom had the benefit of access to NGO loans, they were considerably
higher than those earned by women in wage employment outside the garment industry

5
Of course, globalization has led to the loss of jobs as well, mainly for men, but the fact that overall poverty is on
the decline suggests that the gains have so far outweighed the losses in terms of quantity of employment.

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108 N. Kabeer and S. Mahmud

whose monthly earnings often fell below the per capita poverty line. Remittances by
garment workers to their families in the countryside can be seen as mechanism for the
redistribution of income from urban to rural areas, where much of the poverty in
Bangladesh is concentrated.
The third aspect of the relationship between women’s employment and household
poverty relates to working conditions associated with the different sectors covered by our
study. Although trade unions are banned in the EPZs, buyer pressure has ensured that
working conditions in EPZ factories most closely approximated those of the formal sector.
However, these improvements in working conditions have mainly benefited more educated
women from better-off families who are the favoured workforce in these factories. While
labour standards in the rest of the industry were lower, particularly in factories where
buyer pressure had less direct effect, they were still an improvement on working
conditions in alternative forms of waged employment available to women from low-
income households: wages were more regular and the level of benefits higher. The key
criteria by which garment workers appeared to be worse off than other wage workers
related to length of the working day. On the other hand, the fewer hours a day worked by
other wage workers and the self-employed was not necessarily a matter of choice but of
the unavailability of work.
Employment in the export garment industry cannot be said to represent an unambiguous
improvement on the conditions of work prevailing elsewhere in the economy. Our findings
suggest that turnover in the garment industry is high, with the current workforce reporting
an average of less than five years in employment within the industry. It is clear that
garment employers regard their female workforce as dispensable labour to be exploited
ruthlessly for a period of time and then replaced by the apparently unlimited supply of
young women flowing in from the countryside in search of such work. It is equally clear
that many garment workers do not regard their jobs as a sustainable option for their future.
Some leave because of the toll the work takes on their health; others when they get
married, or more frequently, when they have children. However, as long as they are in the
industry, they hope to work as hard as they can in order to accumulate some savings for
their future. Those who are successful will set up their own businesses when they leave, in
some cases, using the skills they acquired in the garment industry. Those who are less
successful will take up informal wage work where wages may be lower but hours are
sufficiently flexible to combine with their domestic and child care responsiblities.
Finally, however, there is one other finding from our study which bears on the
implications of the garment industry for the lives of women in Bangladesh which is
only partly related to poverty. In a society which defines men as the primary, and even sole,
breadwinners and privileges male access to employment, women historically have been
defined, and have experienced themselves, as economic dependents within the family.
Such a dependency status is not confined to poor women although it is likely to be
exacerbated by poverty. It is clear from their responses that many women are beginning to
chafe at this sense of being a burden on their families. The most frequently cited benefit of
their employment from their personal perspective related to the greater sense of self-
reliance it gave them, the lessening of the burden on their families and their ability to stand
on their own feet.
The significance of export garment industry does not lie in the fact that it has provided
this possibility for greater self-reliance for the first time to women in Bangladesh, but that
it has provided it on a scale that is historically unprecedented. It has expanded the number
of women who are able to achieve a degree of self-reliance and economic agency within

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 Globalization, Gender and Poverty 109

the family and it has made visible the significance of their economic contribution to their
families. It consequently presents a radical challenge to the myth of the male breadwinner
model of the family in Bangladesh. It may be that the phasing out of the MFA over the
coming years will lead to a major decline in the industry and that many of these women
will lose their jobs, but the recognition of the importance of women’s paid work to the
survival of poor families and to the goal of poverty reduction in Bangladesh will hopefully
outlast the industry.

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