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Health Impact of Women's Wage Employment: A Case Study of the Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Majumder, Pratima Paul

    (Senior Research Fellow, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS))

Abstract

This paper has analysed the impact of women's wage employment on their health. The analysis in the paper shows that the female workers employed in the garment industry of Bangladesh had to pay a high price in terms of ill health to acquire a socio-economic status in the society with their wage employment. A large number of female workers suffered from various illnesses after starting work in the garment industry in spite of the fact that due to wage employment they could afford to buy better food and better accommodation which have a positive impact on health. This is mainly due to overwork, incongenial working conditions and above all because of wide-ranging labour law violations. A bi-variate analysis and a multivariate regression analysis of the determinants of workers' health status shows that gender is a significant variable in this context. The result of the regression analysis further shows that work hour exerts the largest negative influence on the relative probability of having good health. Grave concerns have also been expressed in this paper about the negative impact of garment work on female workers' mental health. Finally, the paper suggests that the introduction of a twoshift working system, the implementation of labour laws regarding employing a qualified medical practitioner and installing fire fighting equipment and the introduction of health insurance and health education programmes would ease the health problems of the female garment workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Majumder, Pratima Paul, 1996. "Health Impact of Women's Wage Employment: A Case Study of the Garment Industry of Bangladesh," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 24(1-2), pages 59-102, March-Jun.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:badest:0352
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Vollmer & Sarah Khan & Le Thi Ngoc Tu & Atika Pasha & Soham Sahoo, 2017. "PROTOCOL: The effect of interventions for women's empowerment on children's health and education: A systematic review of evidence from low‐ and middle‐income countries," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 1-61.
    2. Hossain, Mohammad A. & Tisdell, Clement A. & Ayon, Tonmoyee Hasan, 2012. "Does Workforce Participation Empower Women? Micro-Level Evidence from Urban Bangladesh," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 35(3), pages 51-78, September.
    3. Robayet Ferdous Syed & Kazi Tanvir Mahmud, 2022. "Factors influencing work-satisfaction of global garments supply chain workers in Bangladesh," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 69(4), pages 507-524, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Factories; Working women; Clothing; Development studies; Commuting; Headache; Work hours; Workplaces;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines

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