Sweatshop Wages

Sweatshop Wages

After researching the working conditions of factory workers my next step was to see the reason why workers would choose to work in a sweatshop. The reason that countries outsource their work is same reason the workers accept work at a sweatshop. It all boils down to money. Businesses are interested in the bottom line. The less it costs to make a garment the more the profit margin is so businesses look for places that have a low cost of living because they will have the lowest wage requirement. Many arguments contest that the pay for sweatshop workers is greater than the alternatives. I have yet to find resources backing up this information. I also find it difficult to find resources showing the average wage of a sweatshop worker versus the average wage in any given country. My assumption is that the average wage is hard to determine since there are so many sweatshops that are unregulated and it is hard to determine what alternative jobs the sweatshop worker would be qualified for. After much research on the pay of sweatshop workers I determined it’d be best to refine my search to a specific country and see what the sweatshop wage allows for quality of life. I decided to focus on the country of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of garments and employee roughly 3.5 million workers in their sweatshops. 

After much research I finally came across a website Numbeo.com that shows the cost of living in Bangladesh. This will give my better insight on how far sweatshop wages will go for these workers. Businesses want workers to only be able to pay for the essentials and not have the luxury of saving any of it. Wages saved means an opportunity to further education, take vacation or seek other employment. If workers are afforded these luxuries they are likely to seek other employment and opportunities and that is bad for business.

Another website that was very helpful was WarOnWant.org. This website details that average wages of workers and the hours of work. By knowing what the average wage of a sweatshop worker I can assess how far their money will go in their country.


                                                    WarOnWant.org

The only missing piece of information I have at this point is what the sweatshop workers could be making if the ‘opportunity’ of a sweatshop didn’t exist. Once I find this piece of information I will have a better idea of why a person would willingly accept these working conditions and I will have a better idea of how businesses are exploiting these workers.