Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
landholding families.
Studies conducted in poorer urban agglomerations found that
women have less than one year of schooling (Afsar, 1991; 1995). By
contrast, female workers in the garment industry had 2.5 years of
schooling prior to migration while the figure was 3.3 for female
workers from other manufacturing factories. The corresponding
figures for their male counterparts were 3.0 and 3.9 years respectively.
Similarly, the median years of schooling of a female garment factory
worker is four, compared to zero years in the case of their age cohort
in rural areas (Afsar, 1998b). These findings suggest that work
opportunities in garment factories provide incentives for female
education as women with primary education had greater access than
their illiterate counterparts.
2. Importance of information and the role of social
networks in the process of labour migration
The role of information and social networks as important
determinants of migration and settlement is amply demonstrated in
a number of studies in Bangladesh (Afsar, 2000b; Majumdar et al.,
1995) and elsewhere (Lansing and Mueller, 1967; Caldwell, 1969; Gore,
1971; Hugo, 1978, 1981; Ritchey, 1976; Skeldon, 1990). A large majority
of respondents in the present study had acquaintances in Dhaka prior
to migration, who helped them in the process of migration and
settlement. The study suggested that 90 per cent of female garment
factory workers, compared to 80 per cent of their male colleagues in
the same industry or female counterparts of other manufacturing
industries, had family members and relatives in Dhaka city prior to
migration. Friends and neighbours, as well as employers and their
agents, are the other acquaintances the migrant labourers had prior
to migration. They assisted in providing shelter and job-related
information.
Similarly, a large majority of respondents (59 per cent of men
and 73 per cent of women) received shelter from their relatives and
acquaintances after migration. Responses recorded on this account
do not vary much either by duration of migration or by types of
factories. The other major types of support they received at the urban
end relate to procurement of employment and job-related information.
Variations in this connection are observed along gender lines, duration
of migration and types of factories. In the case of garment factories,
the level of support to both male and female respondents increased
substantially over the years (Table 5). More respondents (both male
112