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

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Female employment under export-propelled industrialization Table 7: Share of female employment in total employment of the textile sector (1991-92 and 1994-95) Sub-sectors 1991-92 1994-95 RMG Local market-oriented 1/10 1/10 Export-oriented 9/10 9/10 Dyeing & finishing 1/50 1/50 Weaving (powerloom) 3/100 3/100 Handloom 11/25 11/25 Silk 1/2 13/25 Knitting & hosiery 1/25 7/50 Spinning 1/20 1/10 Source: Ministry of Commerce, Government of Bangladesh, 1996. female workers in the non-export-oriented sub-sectors in Bangladesh’s textile industry, these must be viewed with some scepticism. 3. Wages Female participation in the RMG sector in Bangladesh is confined mainly to the low-paid segments of the production process. In general, the level of wages in the RMG sector is low, for both males and females. The daily wage rate of RMG workers compares unfavourably with that of similar categories of workers in both the public and private sectors. Low wages go a long way in explaining the attractiveness of Bangladesh-made garment to foreign buyers. Table 8 gives an indication of comparative wage levels in the RMG sector in some of the major textile producing countries. As can be seen from the table, Bangladesh’s wage level is relatively low, even by South Asian Table 8: Average hourly wage rates in the RMG sector across countries Country Wage/hour (US$) Germany 25.00 USA 16.00 South Korea 5.00 Mexico 2.40 Poland 1.40 Sri Lanka 0.45 China 0.35 India 0.35 Nepal 0.30 Bangladesh 0.15 Source : The Financial Express, 15 June 1995, Dhaka. 233
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco standards. For instance, the average hourly wage in the RMG industry in Bangladesh is 50 per cent, 42 per cent and 33 per cent of those of Nepal, India and Sri Lanka respectively. Abundant, readily available labour and its low opportunity cost lead to low wage levels, providing a comparative advantage to female labour in particular operations in the RMG production cycle. At the same time, inter-industry wage differentials indicate a depressed wage situation in the export-oriented RMG sector. This needs to be interpreted in the light of structural rigidities (e.g., enforcement of national minimum wages) that characterize the wage determination process in other formal manufacturing units, particularly in the public sector. In other words, wage rates in the RMG sector can be interpreted as market clearing wages established in a more or less flexible labour market. Substantial differences in wage levels between male and female workers for comparable jobs are not discernible in the RMG sector. However, there is a caveat to this observation. In RMG production, female workers are predominantly concentrated in “low-skill, lowwage” operations and, thus, are low paid. As shown in Table 9, most women are either production workers or “helpers” (female workers constitute 40-60 per cent of the total workforce in the latter category). Women employed as production managers, supervisors, finishing and machine operators, and “in-charges” (drawing salaries varying from 2-10 times that of the average operator, depending on the type of operations) are extremely rare. Export-oriented RMG entrepreneurs in Bangladesh argue that low wages in the RMG sector reflect the low productivity of workers in the sector. Yet it is noteworthy that the overwhelming majority of the workforce in the RMG sector are non-unionized women, which has also enabled entrepreneurs to keep the wage levels depressed. Moreover, workers in RMG factories in the export processing zones (EPZs) are barred by law from organizing trade unions of their own. Workers often try to complement their low wages by working overtime, which, in effect, is a mandatory practice in Bangladesh’s RMG factories. As labour standards and labour rights are gaining prominence on the WTO’s agenda (in addition to that of the ILO, which has long treated such issues), the working environment in Bangladesh’s RMG sector is likely to undergo substantial changes. Furthermore, complaints by some US NGOs and the Harkin Bill (which calls for sanctions on imports to the United States from countries using child labour) forced Bangladesh to take urgent measures to enforce a Memorandum of Understanding on the phase- 234
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Women’s Employment in the Textile
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This United Nations Research Instit
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Acknowledgements Many people have b
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notwithstanding the inertia of the
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Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
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xii VII. Contribution of different
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Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
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Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
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Introduction women have been tradit
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Introduction The chapters on Bangla
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Introduction occurs, on average, at
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Introduction women workers related
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Introduction in low-income countrie
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Introduction by repaying their “d
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Introduction participate in labour
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Introduction their bargaining power
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Introduction processing zones hypot
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Introduction IV. The case studies T
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Introduction experience in garment
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Introduction V. Conclusion Although
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Introduction improved technology. T
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Introduction References Afsar, R. (
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Introduction Household Power Relati
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Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
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Gender and employment in Moroccan t
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Gender dimensions of labour migrati
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Table 1: Total number of male and f
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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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Becoming a garment worker garment w
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Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
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Becoming a garment worker view of t
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Becoming a garment worker that time
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Becoming a garment worker 2. “I e
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Becoming a garment worker out that
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Becoming a garment worker being. Th
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Becoming a garment worker support t
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Becoming a garment worker they firs
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Becoming a garment worker V. Conclu
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Becoming a garment worker is a job
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Becoming a garment worker Endnotes
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Becoming a garment worker Cole P. D
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Women’s employment in the textile
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