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

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
become increasingly confined to a narrow range of occupations, a
dual (male/female) wage structure may gradually emerge; it is thus
imperative that the notion of discrimination be raised in a more
dynamic sense.
The difficulties of making meaningful comparisons between
export-oriented manufacturing and the rest of the manufacturing
sector also become apparent when we turn to those conditions of work
which impact on workers’ health and well-being. Here there is some
agreement across the political spectrum that physical working
conditions — in terms of levels of heat, dust, noise and hygiene — are
probably much better in the export-oriented factories than in the
informal sector (Edgren, 1982; Joekes, 1995; Lim, 1990). However, the
health hazards — both physical and mental — specific to some exportoriented
industries should not be ignored. These can include the use
of carcinogenic substances, long working hours, and also the nature
of the work, which is repetitive, monotonous and fast, and can leave
the young workers prematurely “burnt out” or “used up” in the labour
process (Edgren, 1982; Heyzer and Kean, 1988; Lee, 1995). 3
One of the contentious issues dividing feminists writing on
export-oriented industries concerns the interpretation of women
workers’ own assessment of labour conditions. According to Gita Sen,
the fact that young women sometimes voice a preference for this type
of work rather than going back to the confines of rural households
only emphasizes how harsh the conditions of rural poverty and rural
patriarchal dominance are for these women, rather than being a
positive indicator of the conditions of work in the factories (Sen, 1999).
Providing a somewhat different reading of women’s voices, Kabeer
(1995) has argued that work in export industries in Dhaka has helped
households meet basic survival needs, improved their security, and
begun a process by which women are being transformed from
representing economic burdens on their families into economic assets.
Kibria’s chapter in this volume tends to agree with Kabeer’s
interpretation of the situation in Dhaka. Although she documents the
extremely long working hours of female garment workers — often
from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., six days a week – the workers themselves
consider factory employment to be “cleaner” and less physically
taxing than the limited alternative employment options open to them:
brick breaking, agricultural labour and domestic work. In addition,
as Afsar (this volume) points out, escalating dowry costs have added
to the economic burden that girls are perceived to place on their
families. Girls who obtain factory employment and thereby support
themselves for a period of time are able to delay marriage — which
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