The July uprising of 2024 paved the way for reimagining Bangladesh’s economic future. There is a powerful opportunity to reshape the country’s industrial policy to make it more inclusive, strategic, and forward-looking and it means putting women, the half of the population, in front and centre. Despite achieving significant progress, Bangladesh still lacks policies that fully support women across diverse industries and promote their inclusion in the labour force.
Gender integration should no longer be treated as a social obligation, it must be seen as an economic strategy. Gendered industrial policy, particularly in the ready-made garments (RMG) sector, is not just desirable but essential for a just and sustainable economic transition post-July 2024.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. Since the late 1980s, women have been integral to the industrial development of Bangladesh, especially in the export-orientated RMG sector. This feminisation of labour was not accidental; it was incentivised by both state policies and the global demand for cheap labour. Women were seen as “docile,” willing to accept lower wages, and less likely to unionise. This strategy paid off in GDP terms: by 2022, the RMG sector alone accounted for over 80 percent of Bangladesh’s export earnings, with women making up approximately 60 percent of its workforce (UNDP, 2023).
However, this economic success came with gendered costs. Despite their contribution, women workers were largely excluded from policy dialogues, workplace protections, and leadership roles within the industry. The very policies that enabled industrial growth often treated women’s labour as a means to an end, not as a subject of development.
Most current gender-related policies in Bangladesh are welfare-orientated: they focus on microcredit schemes, skills development, or social safety nets. While these are important, they are not successful in integrating women into the core of economic planning. The concept of “gender mainstreaming” has often been reduced to tokenistic inclusivity, rather than a subject of development.
What is needed is a shift from welfare to strategy. A truly gendered industrial policy must ask how economic policies can work for women, not merely with them. This requires a rethinking of how incentives, trade policies, labour laws, and technological advancements impact female workers across sectors.
Feminist economists such as Gita Sen and Naila Kabeer have long emphasised that markets are not gender-neutral, and overlooking this fact leads to flawed economic outcomes. Even 2024 reports by the IMF and World Bank support this statement, where they showed that closing gender gaps in the labour market could raise the GDP of Bangladesh by up to 40 percent. This makes gender equity not only a moral responsibility but also a macroeconomic opportunity.
The RMG sector is the clearest example of gendered exclusion in economic policy. Despite their majority in numbers, female workers have little control over their working conditions. Labour rights violations, wage theft, sexual harassment, and lack of maternity support continue to plague the industry.
Moreover, automation and shifting global trade patterns now threaten the jobs of thousands of female RMG workers. Without policy intervention, the transition to higher-value manufacturing will likely displace women first. In this context, gender-responsive industrial upgrading becomes essential. Policies should prioritise retraining female workers, subsidising their entry into new sectors like electronics or agro-processing, and promoting female entrepreneurship through access to finance and market linkages. The World Bank adds that increasing female participation in manufacturing alone could boost the output of the sector by 21 percent. These figures show the strategic value of expanding women’s roles as Bangladesh moves up the industrial ladder.
For example, the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC) can expand its mandate beyond compliance to include gender equity metrics. The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) and the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) can actively incentivise firms that adopt gender-inclusive workplace practices. While the 2022 Industrial Policy briefly mentions women’s participation, future policies must firmly integrate gender targets into their core framework.
Several countries offer useful lessons. Tunisia has integrated gender goals into its industrial upgrading programmes, leading to a more balanced distribution of skilled jobs. The country is also promoting female entrepreneurship in rural areas through small-scale renewable energy technologies, which include training programmes and support for income-generating activities to enhance women’s economic empowerment.
The gender-inclusive policies of Seychelles aim to expand employment opportunities for women beyond traditional sectors. It emphasises capacity-building to enable women to take on more diverse roles in manufacturing and other industries. The government of Chile offers financial incentives such as bonuses on grants for female-led firms. Gender equality is integrated into industrial development through national strategic plans and training programmes of the Chilean economic development agency, CORFO. The industrial parks in Ethiopia include mandatory daycare centres and female-friendly infrastructure, improving female labour force retention. Vietnam’s textile industry invests heavily in technical education for women, ensuring they are not left behind in the shift to automation.
Bangladesh can learn from these models by adapting them to local contexts without just being a mere copycat. When gender is seen as a productivity issue rather than just a social one, policy innovation is bound to happen.
To move forward, Bangladesh must integrate gender at every level of industrial policy. The government can offer tax benefits or subsidies to firms that show evident progress in gender equity. This includes narrowing the gender wage gap, promoting women to leadership roles, and ensuring access to safe transport and child care. Technical training centres should prioritise women in emerging sectors like IT, electronics, green energy, and logistics by reserving seats and providing stipends. The recommendations by the IMF also align with them, which is to include women in climate-adaptive sectors and green industry, essential for sustainable growth.
Key ministries such as the Ministry of Industries, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Labour and Employment need to establish gender audit systems. Authorities must also mandate female representation in industry associations. According to the World Bank, female labour participation has stagnated at 37 percent in recent years despite proven economic benefits. The IMF identifies unpaid care burdens and limited property rights as major obstacles to unlocking the full economic potential of the female workforce. So, the labour laws should be updated to improve maternity benefits, enforce anti-harassment measures, and guarantee equal pay for equal work. These are not radical demands, they are pragmatic steps toward building an inclusive economy.
The July uprising has opened a rare political window for structural reform. To achieve economic justice, policymakers must place gender justice at the heart of industrial strategy. A gendered industrial policy does not undermine efficiency or growth; it redefines them. As Bangladesh prepares for a new economic future, it must recognise that industrialisation without women is neither just nor sustainable.
Rassiq Aziz Kabir and Mohammad Iftekharul Islam are policy analysts. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected] , respectively.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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