Staying Secure, Staying Poor: The “Faustian Bargain”

Economic liberalization in Bangladesh has led to the emergence of a number of export-oriented industries, of which the manufacture of ready-made garments is the most prominent. The industry currently employs around 1.5 million workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are women. This paper explores the poverty implications of this new form of employment through a comparison of the socio-economic backgrounds, wages and working conditions and contributions to household needs of women working for global markets with those working for domestic markets. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Globalization, gender and poverty: Bangladeshi women workers in export and local markets

Written by a team of internationally respected experts, this book explores the conditions under which social policy, defined as the public pursuit of secure welfare, operates in the poorer regions of the world. Social policy in advanced capitalist countries operates through state intervention to compensate for the inadequate welfare outcomes of the labour market. Such welfare regimes cannot easily be reproduced in poorer regions of the world where states suffer problems of governance and labour markets are imperfect and partial. Other welfare regimes therefore prevail involving non-state actors such as landlords, moneylenders and patrons. This book seeks to develop a conceptual framework for understanding different types of welfare regime in a range of countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa and makes an important contribution to the literature by breaking away from the traditional focus on Europe and North America.

Insecurity and welfare regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America

Introduction Esping-Andersen (1990; 1999) has developed a typology of welfare regimes for developed countries. His analysis focuses on the production of welfare, understood as the articulation of welfare programmes and institutions – including the state, markets and households – insuring households against social risks. In his later book he notes that understanding welfare regimes, and their change over time, involves ‘(a) a diagnosis of the changing distribution and intensity of social risks, and (b) a comprehensive examination of how risks are pooled between state, market, and family’ (Esping-Andersen 1999: 33). This chapter undertakes this task for Latin America. The welfare regime approach can provide a much-needed framework enabling a comprehensive analysis of changes in welfare production in Latin America, including the study of the linkages existing between social protection and labour market institutions, and an evaluation of the outcomes of these changes. There is important research on specific programmes or institutions, but few have attempted to compare and integrate their findings. Extending this framework beyond its original focus on industrialised nations can provide a valuable new dimension, and the chapter will consider whether the fundamental change in economic and social institutions undergone by most countries in Latin America provides a rare example of a welfare regime shift. The chapter is organised as follows. The next section identifies welfare systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. The following section considers the welfare mix prior to recent social protection and labour market reform and identifies a welfare regime for Latin America.

Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: Latin America : towards a liberal-informal welfare regime

Introduction Ian Gough and Geof Wood Part I. Understanding Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in the South: An Analytical Framework: 1. Adapting welfare regimes to development contexts Ian Gough 2. Informal security regimes: embedding social policy in the search for a secure institutional landscape Geof Wood 3. Conceptualising in/security regimes Philippa Bevan Part II. Regional Regimes: 4. Latin America: towards a liberal-informal welfare regime Armando Barrientos 5. East Asia: the limits of productivist regimes Ian Gough 6. The dynamics of Africa's in/security regimes Philippa Bevan Part III. Regimes in Global Context: 7. Rethinking the welfare regime approach in the context of Bangladesh Peter Davis 8. Multi-tiered international welfare systems Graham Room Conclusion Geof Wood and Ian Gough.

Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts

Drawing on survey and ethnographic data, this article presents empirical evidence regarding the impact of work participation on poor women's lives in urban Bangladesh. Working for pay is common among poor, married women in Dhaka and working women commonly make an important contribution to household income. There is evidence that working women are more likely to manage money, shop for household provisions and move about outside the home than non-working women. Working women also appear better able to accumulate personal assets and take steps to secure their own well-being. Despite such signs of challenge to ‘traditional’ gender identity, social and economic structures continue to be heavily weighted against women, limiting the impact of employment on other dimensions of their lives. In the acutely insecure urban setting, women (and men) are found to pursue multiple strategies aimed at both securing ‘centrality’ within their families, as well as protecting personal interests should familial entitlements prove unreliable.

Women's Employment in Urban Bangladesh: A Challenge to Gender Identity?

A profile of women's work participation among the urban poor of Dhaka

Qualitative and quantitative data from the Urban Livelihoods Study (ULS) are used to describe the patterns of marriage and in particular the rising incidence of marital instability among the bustee (slum) population of Dhaka. The changing nature of bustee society provides greater options for women compared with their rural counterparts. Reduced social sanctions against divorce dysfunction of the goshti weaker familial ties and increased options for labour force participation are giving women greater freedom. Bustee women appear more able to avoid serious domestic violence by rejecting unfavourable marital ties. However despite these factors women are faced with a dilemma regarding marriage. Marital discord insecurity and instability are high and yet marriage remains a necessity. The unstable nature of bustee life harassment from men social and economic dependency the difficulty of returning to the village and absence of strong kin networks force women to marry. On balance women appear to be suffering from the increasingly unstable and uncertain nature of marriage. The experience of marital breakdown has serious social and financial implications. Women living without husbands are poorer than their married counterparts. Children too are faring badly. (authors)

Sonia Jesmin

Papers

Women's Employment in Urban Bangladesh: A Challenge to Gender Identity?

A profile of women's work participation among the urban poor of Dhaka

Marriage among the urban poor of Dhaka: instability and uncertainty.