Rethinking the Gender Gap: Gender Inequality and Monopsony Capitalism

We rethink gender wage inequality by moving beyond supply-side explanations that attribute women’s disadvantage to motherhood, career interruptions, or limited mobility. While these accounts highlight real constraints, they often assume competitive labour markets and understate the role of employer power. We argue instead that monopsony capitalism—characterised by unequal bargaining power in labour markets and global supply chains—systematically produces and entrenches gendered labour market inequality. Drawing on a case study of India’s garment industry, while women’s relatively inelastic labour supply enables discriminatory wages, the monopsony power —exercised by both global brands and manufacturers. Using data from India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey alongside ethnographic research, we document how monopsony practices generate wage gaps, occupational segregation, precarious contracts, workplace harassment, and early exit of women from paid work. We conclude that addressing gender inequality requires directly confronting employer power and regulating global supply chains to hold both manufacturers and brands accountable.