Tragedies garner a lot of press, but the garment industry's wider-reaching effects receive less attention.
A tragic boiler explosion killed 10 Bangladeshi garment workers over the summer, an incident reminiscent of the catastrophic 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse, which focused public attention on working conditions in that developing country. Last month, a factory fire killed six more workers. In the wake of such disasters, many people in rich countries assume the compassionate response is to impose trade restrictions and stop buying clothes made in Bangladesh.
Ironically, such a response would actually harm Bangladeshi garment workers, most of whom are women, by forcing them into far worse situations than factory work. What many people do not know is that the rise of factory work in the country has helped bring about significant positive change in many Bangladeshi lives—particularly for women.
The country is home to 18.4 million of the world’s poorest people and has strict gender norms. Yet Bangladesh was recently called “the happiest economic story in the world right now,” as extreme poverty has plummeted.
Despite its dangers, factory work has slashed extreme poverty and increased women’s educational attainment while lowering rates of child marriage in Bangladesh. It has also sparked cultural change towards more freedom for women, not only by enabling them to earn money but by granting them freedom of movement.
Many Bangladeshi women now interpret purdah to simply mean modesty instead of social and economic segregation. In the words of social economist Naila Kabeer of the London School of Economics, factory work let women “renegotiate the boundaries of permissible behavior.” Today, in Dhaka and other industrial cities, women walk outside and interact with unrelated men.
A version of this piece first appeared in Forbes.