Examining the Socio-Economic Conditions of Women Workers in Garment Factories of Bangladesh: An Empirical Study

Bangladesh is an emerging economy which is fast growing, courtesy, the sector of readymade garments (RMG) which has helped the nation unshackle itself from the stranglehold of poverty. The RMG sector has been driven largely because of a huge proportion of women workers who form the cream of workforce in garment factories. In this light, it is almost imperative to talk about the women workers who work in the garment factories of Bangladesh. The present research study is attempted to find out the socio-economic conditions of women workers of garment factories of Bangladesh by examining and analysing the various socio-economic factors concerning the women workers. An in-depth survey done of a large number of women workers in Bangladesh fulfils our endeavour.

It is a no-brainer that industrial sector forms the backbone of the economy of all nations, especially the developed countries. Unlike few countries of the world, where agricultural sector plays a more prominent role as witnessed in all developing countries, Bangladesh has been such a country which has been heavily reliant on industries when compared to agriculture. The crux reason behind this is that Bangladesh has a shortage of labour force as well as agricultural land, meaning it has a low land-man ratio. When talking in the light of industrial sector in Bangladesh, it is noteworthy to mention that the garment sector which was non-existent in the 1980’s, has actually grown at an impressive rate of 17% every year since then. The garment industries of Bangladesh is a source of employment for close to 5 million people and was the first to provide employment opportunities to women in massive scale breaking the jinx of women working outside their home. Women form the fulcrum of the garment industries in Bangladesh. In fact, the employment of the women in the garment sector of Bangladesh has been instrumental in the country’s declining poverty over these years. Truth to be told, the growth and development of Bangladesh garment industry has been characterized by measly wages, poor labour legislation and unskilled women work force. There has been myriad viewpoints expressed towards employment of women workers in Bangladesh garment factories. Most of the people have opined the feminisation of the garment sector as a positive step towards women emancipation, but it has also increased to some extent the chances for exploitation of women workers of garment industry.

A closer analysis of existent literature would actually reveal that the study done on garment factories run by Church does not exist at all, albeit there are studies which has previously conducted on garment industry. This is a major research gap which has been identified and accordingly a holistic survey of literature has been conducted to get an in-depth view of the scenario of the socio-economic conditions of women workers in Bangladesh garment factories especially those run by Churches. The garment sector was virtually non-existent in 1980 [1]. The industry currently employs almost 5 million workers in Bangladesh, and was the first to provide employment opportunities to women in large-scale in a country where women traditionally have not worked outside the home [2]. Women are the driving force in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Paper further noted that the country experienced a dramatic growth in garment exports in the 1980s and 1990s [3]. Five million people are directly or indirectly involved in garment industry. Of all workers in garment industry, 80% are female workers. Stressed on the economic incentives like provision of exchange rate adjustment, lower interest rate, duty drawback scheme, bonded warehouse scheme, tax holiday for export industries, back to back letters of credit, customs duty exemption, export credit facilities for the development of garment industry [4]. Wage employment in the garment industry of Bangladesh has improved in the standard of Living of female workers significantly [5].

·To explore the various factors that affects the socio-economic condition of the female workers in Bangladesh garment factories.

To prune out the differentials in facilities and working conditions of female workers who are employed in several privately-operated garment factories, as well as those operated by the Church.

For the purpose of data collection, both primary as well as secondary data has been resorted to. Secondary data has been used to establish a concrete structure of the theoretical base of the present research study. Several books, articles, journals, blogs, project thesis have been enquired into to gain a robust understanding of the theoretical base of our endeavour. Data from BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association), BKMEA (Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association), BGBA (Bangladesh Garments Buyers Association), and EPB (Export Promotion Bureau) in Bangladesh, have been consulted. Primary data has been collected through the help of a questionnaire by convenient sampling method, where 192 respondents who are Bangladeshi female workers employed in 10 different garment factories predominantly belonging to districts of Dhaka, Savar and Gazipur have been chosen. Then again 168 female workers working in the garment factories run by Church parishes in 5 districts of Dhaka, Dinajpur, Khulna, Rajshahi and Natore have been chosen. All the respondents were surveyed by the help of a questionnaire which was given to them to be filled by them and face-to face interviews. All the data collected has been meticulously processed by using statistical software packages of IBM’s SPSS 23.0 and STATA [6,7].

Presentation and interpretation of data

As is evidenced from the above table, women workers of a very young age group are seen working in garment factories of Bangladesh of both the Church owned and Non-church owned ones. However, the study confirms that more young people exist in non-church garment industry. We also see women of older age group working in Bangladeshi garment factories mainly in Church-run garment industry. It is also witnessed women above 50 years of age working in garment factories owned by Church. According to our field survey, a reason for this is that their houses are adjacent to the churches and they find it extremely convenient being under the direct control of Church (Table 1,2).

Table 1: Age group according to ownership (in %).

In the above table, it is evident that a huge chunk of the respondents in our study working in garment factories owned by Church are mostly Christians while those working under the Non-Church owned ones are mostly Muslims (Table 3).

As per the above table, it is observed that majority of our respondents working in Church-owned and Non-Church owned factories are married while myriad women are unmarried (Table 4).

According to the above table, it can be inferred that albeit there exists women without any education who are working in garment factories, but there are also women who are at least qualified at the primary level or at the secondary level. We even see few women who have qualified higher secondary level of education while some have also attained higher education (Table 5).

As per the above table, we can see that almost all families, irrespective of age, are nuclear families or single families as compared to the category of a joint family which accounts for only a measly proportion of the total respondents surveyed (Table 6).

From the above table, we can see that most of the respondents belong to mediocre low income group. Women workers of both Church owned and Non-Church owned garment factories largely belong to an income group of 10001-15000 and 15001-20000. We also see a good proportion of respondents (n=27.38%) belonging to an income group of 6001-10000 in Church owned factories as compared to Non-Church ones. A reason for this could be that women prefer to work in Church owned factories not only because of money but also for a plethora of other non-monetary facilities offered (Table 7).

From the above table, it is evident that a healthy proportion of respondents belonging to an income group of 15000-20000 are Muslims and Christians. These two religion also has its respective adherents working in garment factories also belonging to a lower income level of 10001-15000 (Table 8).

According to the above table, women workers both in Church owned factories as well as Non-Church owned factories have an impeccable record in terms of a healthy life. Respondents have put their views forward about their frequency of sickness as we see myriad respondents have said that they seldom fall sick while most of the respondents opined that they fall sick occasionally (Table 9).

From the above table, we can see that almost all the women workers of Church owned factories work in the stitching department while only a few are supervisors or coordinators and hardly any women doing work of cutting and trimming. But if we compare this with Non-Church owned factories, we see all women are moderately distributed across all departments of the garment factories. A reason for this is that Church owned factories have many machines and equipment which makes work easier for women workers so that they do not have to do any additional works. This is missing in Non-Church owned garment factories which is labour intensive and do not have a rich arsenal of machines and equipment and hence have to depend on their women workers (Table 10).

According to the above table, we can see that most of the women workers working in garment factories do not have a contract while some women workers in Non-Church owned factories have a contract which is missing in the factories which are owned by Churches (Table 11).

We again see that most of the respondents do not have a permanent job in the factories they are working. But, we see a mediocre proportion of respondents working in Non-Church owned garment factories who do have a permanent job, which is entirely missing in the case of Church owned garment factories (Table 12).

Table 11: Is job permanent as per ownership in percent.

Table 17: How much do they save as per ownership (%).

It is evident from the above table that a whopping proportion of respondents belonging to both Church owned and Non Church owned garment factories at least save 20% of their salary. Many respondents even save 40% of their income. This reflects their conservative nature to mobilize savings and keep it reserved for future (Table 18).

The current research study is a very distinct one as the study emphasizes purely on Bangladeshi women workers who are working in garment factories. This endeavour was an effort to probe into the various socio-economic factors of women workers of Bangladesh garment factories. We have explored many crux socio-economic factors like salary, savings, health, designation and job security and various other demographic variables like age, income and religion which have an impact on the socio-economic conditions of such women workers. We have evidenced that there are certain differences as well in the socio-economic conditions of women workers working in Church owned and Non Church owned factories. Women workers in Church owned garment factories enjoy certain flexibility in working hours as they even workers are paid money even if they work for 4 hours in a day. This is something which is missing in the Non Church owned garment factories as women workers work at least 8 hours a day and a shorter duration of working hours are not available. We have also seen that the Church owned garment factories are capital intensive where women workers do not have to do odd jobs manually themselves and this is another crucial social aspect of work which is clearly missing in the Non Church owned garment factories as they are labour intensive. We also see that there only a few respondents in our study working in Church owned garment factories who are illiterates as compared to those working in Non-Church owned garment factories thus reflecting the amount of importance that Church owned factories pay to education. The only weaklings of the Church owned garment factories lies in that there is not even a single worker who has been employed on a permanent basis and there does not exist any contractual obligations both which have been fulfilled by Non-Church owned garment factories.

The socio-economic conditions of workers is always an intriguing subject of study and will always continue to be in the domain of economics. Albeit, there exist many other such socio-economic factors which have not been addressed in the current research study, nevertheless, such factors can be pruned out in future researches. Women workers of Bangladesh form a very crucial component of a potent workforce. In fact, women workers of Bangladesh garment factories form the fulcrum of such sector. Their importance is highly reflected in the ever increasing economy of Bangladesh who depends to a large extent on its industries especially garment industries. From being an economic dreg to an emerging economy, the stunning transition should be credited to the women workers without whom the emergence of a new Bangladesh would have been impossible.