Pathway to Productivity and Leadership: Evolution of Female Garment Workers in Bangladesh

Mahreen Khan, Atonu Rabbani and Christopher Woodruff

No 2025-07, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: The garment sector has contributed to an increase in women’s labor force participation in Bangladesh. But while women are now a majority of the sector’s 4.2 million workers, women’s representation in management roles remains low. We conduct an evaluation of an IFC program that successfully increased the share of female line supervisors in 50 participating factories from 10 percent to 18 percent. We find that sewing machine operators supervised by the women rate them more favorably than a matched sample of male supervisors. Moreover, while productivity on the lines the women manage is lower than the matched comparison lines in the first six months following the program, women catch up to the male-managed lines after that and, indeed, significantly outperform the male-supervised lines after two years of experience.

Keywords: female management; Bangladeshi garment sector; export manufacturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J71 M51 M54 O14 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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