Gender and Work in Global Value Chains
Capturing the Gains?

Explores the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more gender-equitable gains in sourcing countries.

Stephanie Barrientos (Author)

9781108729239, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 April 2020

334 pages
15.2 x 22.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.4 kg

'This empirically rich, multi-layered and insightful book breaks down the barriers around global value chain analysis to demonstrate how these chains have been shaped by and are reshaping gender relations across the wage production and social reproduction divide. Importantly, it allows for women's agency and for gender relations to open to change by exploring not only the very considerable evidence of exploitation and undervaluation of women's work but also evidence of the contestation of these conditions and associated gendered norms.' Jill Rubery, University of Manchester

This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialised production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or middle-income economies, using a 'cheap' feminised labour force to produce low-price goods. As women have been drawn into the labour force, households are increasingly dependent on the purchase of food and consumer goods, blurring the boundaries between paid and unpaid work. This book examines how gendered patterns of work have changed and explores the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more gender-equitable gains in sourcing countries.

List of tables
List of figures
List of abbreviations
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Retail shift and global sourcing
3. Gender patterns of work in global retail value chains
4. Global (re)production network analysis
5. Smallholder (dis)articulations: the cocoa–chocolate value chain
6. Mixed outcomes: downgrading and upgrading in African horticulture
7. Contested terrain: the limits of social compliance in Asian apparel
8. Upgrading strategies: innovation, skills and rights
9. Governance challenges: promoting gender-equitable value chains
10. Concluding reflections: future of work
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Service industries [KNS], Manufacturing industries [KND], Political economy [KCP], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Economic growth [KCG], Labour economics [KCF], Microeconomics [KCC], Economics [KC]