Unfavourable working conditions during pregnancy, issues of age appropriateness, difficulty in balancing home and work responsibilities and absence of proper childcare facilities are among the reasons behind the declining number of women workers in the Bangladesh garment industry.
This is as per a study conducted by the BRAC University with support from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Ethical Training Initiative Bangladesh even as the data collected between August and October 2022 for the study, has shown the proportion of women garment workers had continued to decline from 54.22 per cent in 2015 to 53.89 per cent in 2018, which then went down to 53.65 per cent in 2021.
As per the report, 89 per cent of the surveyed former apparel workers reportedly responded that their departure was voluntary even if as per the report, among the workers who left the apparel industry in 2021, 50.63 per cent were women, which was 48.86 per cent in 2015, indicating an increased exit proportion.
