Gender, Industrialization, and Industrial Hubs

Industrial hubs are a key component of open-economy industrialization and have the potential to influence gendered patterns in industrial development as well as contributing to structural transformation. In most countries, the majority of the workforce in hubs is female—employment is highly feminized. An extensive literature documents the experiences of women workers in hubs, drawing attention to low wages and poor working conditions in export processing zones (EPZs) in particular. This chapter considers the effects of hubs on women and on gender equality. We propose a conceptual framework for analysing these effects, both direct/static and indirect/dynamic, through the channels of employment, wages, working conditions, rights and benefits, empowerment, and social effects. The negative experiences of women workers in many hubs derive in part from the typical concentration of women’s employment in low-wage, low-skill, low value-added hubs, rather than in forward-looking hubs that build on dynamic comparative advantage with decent labour standards.