Women and rural industrialization: Garment production reaches old land and new labor in Bangladesh

Abstract

After the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factories in 2013, international attention turned toward the conditions of garment production in Bangladesh. What occurred next was a shift in the regulatory environment with increased brand oversight and corporate-driven efforts to improve factories. In order to compete amid new regulations, some factories are relocating to rural industrial estates established decades ago. This article presents the social and economic context at one rural estate where a garment factory opened after the Rana Plaza tragedy. Interviews conducted with garment workers and people who live near the factory demonstrate the gendered constraints on women's labor and the experiences of women driven to seek factory work. The article also describes the garment factory itself, which operates in a new building on an old industrial estate. This factory is an early adopter in a national political shift toward rural industrialization, making observations there an important contribution to our understanding of what may be coming.