Why do labor regimes change? Worker power, the supplier squeeze, and structural transformation in the global apparel industry

Kristoffer Marslev and Lindsay Whitfield

Journal of Economic Geography, 2025, vol. 25, issue 4, 487-507

Abstract: Debates on labor regimes situate worker outcomes at the intersection of globalized production and specific social formations, but they do not specify how and why labor regimes change over time. This article presents a new approach to explaining how labor regimes change in the global apparel industry, the labor-led profit squeeze approach, combining insights from global production networks (GPN), development economics and labor studies. This approach argues that workers’ bargaining power is largely conditional upon processes of structural transformation. The article demonstrates this conceptual approach through a comparative analysis of the apparel export industries in Madagascar, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Keywords: labor regimes; apparel; global production networks; structural transformation; worker bargaining power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P52 Q10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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