The Ready Made Garments (RMG) workers’ gender ratio in Bangladesh: the case of Mapped in Bangladesh (MiB)

Abstract

It has been widely acknowledged that female workers account for 80% of the Ready Made Garments (RMG) industry’s workforce in Bangladesh but a number of studies estimated different male to female workers’ ratios ranging from 35: 65 to 55:45. To contribute to such debate, this paper leverage the data of ‘Mapped in Bangladesh’ (MiB) project. While the objective of the MiB project is to enable transparency and accountability in the RMG sector by providing the industry stakeholders accurate, updated and authentic factory data collected through factory census method and published in a digital map; this paper aims to shed light on the male to female ratio of workers employed in the RMG factories of Bangladesh is not 20:80, but it is 42:58 according to the findings from MiB data. Presenting such data, the study seeks to discuss how factory issues can influence the gender composition of RMG Workers. These issues such as factory locations, factory type, factory size and production sections are important to understand the