Asian Development Bank

Bangladesh: Looking Beyond Garments Asian Development Bank

This study highlights the role played by growing female workforce in the positive economic turnaround in Bangladesh. It is now essential to shift workers to more highly productive sectors through structural transformations.

Economic growth in Bangladesh, above 6% in most years since the 2000s, has been on the fast track since the 1990s. Not many developing countries, especially the least developed, have been able to achieve this consistently for such a long period. Yet despite the jobs generated in the export-oriented ready-made garment industry, the fruits of growth have not been widely shared.

This joint study by ADB and the International Labour Organization examines the nature and magnitude of the employment challenge Bangladesh faces, looking at the nature of productive employment and its role in transmitting the benefits of growth into incomes for the poor. It indicates that the positive economic turnaround in Bangladesh is largely due to the rising presence of women in the workplace.