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Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco against the potential for relative freedom from subordination outside it. The free mobility of capital, the downward spiral of labour conditions, and political decisions by states and employers to eschew responsibility for workers’ well-being are clearly important concerns for large numbers of men and women. But political responses and the search for coalescing strategies will most probably be shaped at the juncture of three sets of issues: 1) despite being problematic, there is a need to maintain these jobs, and very few women would like to see their jobs disappear, 2) the high-wage/high-tech road may be an option available to only a few countries and may be open to a limited number of men (and even fewer women), 3) the agenda for social and gender-equitable development needs to be widened to include the conditions for social reproduction that can effectively subsidize the social wage — this is an area that needs to be explored creatively from a gender perspective. The political processes to drive this agenda include national and international acts of solidarity, but in either context the extent to which the interests of women workers can be genuinely represented will depend critically on their politicized presence in those movements. Elson (1996) makes the important point that the observed processes associated with global feminization are not intrinsically interlinked: the flexibility of production made possible by technological changes does not have to be associated with the erosion of workers’ rights made possible by the unfettered mobility of capital, or with political decisions by states and employers to eschew responsibility for workers’ well-being. She also makes the critical observation, from a gender perspective, that male norms of full-time employment may not necessarily be the desirable norm to which all workers do and should aspire. Similarly, the message that may be drawn from women’s experiences with trade unions at the national level is that the obvious workers’ priorities may be, in fact, implicit male priorities. Furthermore, as Battacharya and Rahman argue, even where access to wage employment is of immediate advantage to women, there is a need to look beyond such short-term advantages to longerterm strategic gender interests. These will include continued access to employment and enhanced gender equity in the labour market. Access to employment will entail first, that these manufacturing sectors remain competitive in world markets, and second, that women not be displaced by men in the restructuring process. Continued competitiveness will require increased productivity through 28
Introduction improved technology. The studies in this volume clearly suggest that gender discrimination is an impediment to increased productivity, because of employers’ reluctance to provide training for women, or to improve working conditions in order to reduce labour turnover, which in turn is necessary for training and the adoption of new technologies. Much of the problem here, of course, is that traditional gender roles and gender stereotypes, in the short term, tend to be reproduced rather than transformed by factory work. Employers often have the attitude that women are not committed to the labour force, and that they are not capable of benefiting from technological training. Thus, while macroeconomic and trade policy changes may have stimulated export-oriented industrialization and the emergence of new forms of employment for women, the significant interventions that will have to be made in order to enable women to secure labour market entitlements are not achievable through the manipulation of such macroeconomic tools. Exchange rate and interest rate changes may affect the performance of the industrial sector as a whole, but they are too blunt to influence women’s access to employment or gender equity within the labour market. Instead, these social objectives will have to be addressed through a wide range of micro-policy instruments, which will necessarily vary under different conditions, and which may include such disparate measures as improved street lighting or transportation, affordable housing facilities, accessible training programmes, childcare facilities or health insurance schemes. The labour market interventions needed in the context of the restructuring of export-oriented industry are essentially aimed at making both public authorities and the private sector more accountable for the social costs of production — i.e. making them more “socially responsible” — thereby enabling women workers to enhance their capabilities (in terms of health, skills, decision-making power) and to obtain more sustainable labour market entitlements. 29
Page 1 and 2: Women’s Employment in the Textile
Page 3 and 4: This United Nations Research Instit
Page 6: Acknowledgements Many people have b
Page 9 and 10: notwithstanding the inertia of the
Page 11 and 12: Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
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Page 15 and 16: Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
Page 17 and 18: Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
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Page 21 and 22: Introduction The chapters on Bangla
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Gender and employment in Moroccan t
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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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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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258 Women’s employment in the tex
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260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
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