Labor standards

Sweatshop scandals in which workers are harshly exploited and sometimes even die in horrible industrial accidents appear regularly in the international media. Yet those same sweatshops also create millions of jobs, many of them filled by young women with few alternatives to earn a living. So is globalisation leading to a race to the bottom or the top for the world’s workers? Would improving labor standards threaten jobs in poorer exporting countries? Alongside the debate over the economics of trade and labour standards, there is a political economy debate over the use of trade sanctions to enforce standards. Overall, the available evidence suggests that globalisation and labour standards can be complementary rather competing paths to improved living standards in developing countries. The tools for promoting labour standards alongside globalisation remain relatively weak, however.