The social foundations of global production networks: towards a global political economy of child labour

Abstract

The resilience of the problem of child labour in the global economy has been amply documented, but, we suggest, the reasons for this situation have not yet been fully captured in the associated debates. Our aim is to advance a way of thinking about those forms of child labour which occur in the context of global production networks (gpns), and to contend that greater attention must be paid to the organisation and functioning of gpns, and the social foundations on which they rest, if we are to grasp more fully the conditions and processes which facilitate the persistence and evolution of child labour. The way of thinking we propose is rooted in the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’ in the global economy, which we develop by drawing together currents in gpn analysis and poverty research to explore the commercial and social dynamics in gpns which give rise to these forms of labour exploitation. We illustrate our arguments with reference to the garments industry in New Delhi, India.

Keywords:

• global production networks
• adverse incorporation
• child labour
• garments, India

Acknowledgements

This paper emerges from a research project on ‘Vulnerable Workers in Global Production Networks: Case Studies of Trafficked and Forced Labour in Brazil and India’, generously funded by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (cprc). Nicola Phillips is also grateful for a Major Research Fellowship from The Leverhulme Trust, during which the final version of the paper was completed. We gratefully acknowledge valuable input at various stages from Stephanie Barrientos, Sheila Bhalla, Amrita Datta, Geert de Neve, Sam Hickey, Aasha Kapur Mehta, Uma Kothari, Anand Kumar, Balwant Mehta, David Mosse, Anne Posthuma, Preet Rustagi, Amita Shah, Alakh Sharma, Andrew Shepherd and Atul Sood. The field team was coordinated by Sunil Kumar and included Shailesh Kumar, Ramanand Jha and Madan Jha. Stephen Buzdugan provided additional research assistance. As usual, all errors or shortcomings remain entirely our responsibility.

Notes

1. White, “Globalization”; Bachman, “A New Economics of Child Labour”; Weston, Child Labor and Human Rights; US Department of Labor, List of Goods; and ilo, Tackling Child Labour.

2. For example, Leiten, “Child Labour in India”; Kabeer et al., Needs Versus Rights?, and Degraff and Levison, “Children’s Work.”

3. Pegler and Knorringa, “Integrating Labour Issues”; Barrientos et al., “Economic and Social Upgrading”; and Selwyn, “Beyond Firm-centrism.” A gpn is defined here as ‘the nexus of interconnected functions and operations through which goods and services are produced, distributed and consumed’. Henderson et al., “Global Production Networks,” 445.

4. Wood, Concepts and Themes; Wood, “Staying Secure”; Murray, Livelihoods Research; Bracking, The Political Economy of Chronic Poverty; Hickey and du Toit, Adverse Incorporation; Ponte, “Developing a ‘Vertical’ Dimension”; Phillips, “Informality”; and Phillips, “Unfree Labour.”

5. Dugan, “Gap Launches Inquiry”; and McDougall, “Child Sweatshop Shame.”

6. For example, White, “Globalization”; Leiten, “Child Labour”; and Burra, “Crusading for Children.”

7. Hickey and du Toit, Adverse Incorporation.

8. World Bank, World Development Report; and World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty.

9. Byrne, Social Exclusion.

10. Dugan, “Gap Launches Inquiry”; and McDougall, “Child Sweatshop Shame.”

11. Kaplinsky, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality; Ponte, “Developing a ‘Vertical’ Dimension”; Barrientos et al., “Economic and Social Upgrading”; Posthuma and Nathan, Labour in Global Production Networks; Milberg and Winkler, Outsourcing Economics; and Phillips, “Unfree Labour.”

12. Barrientos et al., “Dynamics of Unfree Labour.”

13. Wood, Concepts and Themes.

14. Bernstein, The Food Question; Tilly, Durable Inequality; Green and Hulme, “From Correlates and Characteristics”; Kaplinsky, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality; and Mosse, “A Relational Approach.”

15. Henderson et al., “Global Production Networks”; and Hess, “Spatial Relationships?”

16. Mosse, “A Relational Approach,” 1157.

17. Tilly, Durable Inequality.

18. Tilly, Durable Inequality; and Mosse, “A Relational Approach.”

19. Gereffi, “The Organization of Buyer-driven Commodity Chains”; Gereffi et al., “The Governance of Global Value Chains”; Gibbon and Ponte, Trading Down; Nathan and Kalpana, Issues in the Analysis; and Milberg and Winkler, Outsourcing Economics.

20. Mosley, Multinational Production, 30–33.

21. Milberg and Winkler, Outsourcing Economics.

22. See also Singh and Sapra, “Liberalization in Trade and Finance”; Mezzadri, “The Rise of Neo-liberal Globalization”; ncaer, Assessing the Prospects; Ramaswamy, “Global Market Opportunities”; and Unni and Scaria, “Governance Structure.”

23. Mosley, Multinational Production, 29.

24. Singh and Sapra, “Liberalization in Trade and Finance”; Mehta and Sherry, “Wages and Productivity”; Breman, Outcast Labour in Asia; and ituc, Internationally Recognised Core Labour Standards.

25. Clause 3 of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 prohibits the employment of children in certain occupations and processes with the proviso that ‘nothing in this section shall apply to any workshop wherein any process is carried on by the occupier with the aid of his family’. The amendment to this Act proposed in late 2012 banned child labour for all under the age of 14, but did not cover home-based work. As of December 2013 the amendment had not yet passed into law.

26. Deyo, “The Social Construction of Developmental Labour Systems”; Taylor, Global Economy Contested; and Phillips, “Informality.”

27. Harriss-White and Gooptu, “Mapping India’s World,” 90; and Barrientos et al., “Decent Work,” 130.

28. Kohli, “Politics of Economic Growth,” 1363; and Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development, 126–127.

29. Ramaswamy, “Global Market Opportunities.”

30. aidwa, Report on the Condition, 4. See also Chen et al., “Counting the Invisible Workforce”; and Carr et al., “Globalization and Home-based Workers.”

31. Deshingkar, Extending Labour Inspections, 10–11; Breman, Outcast Labour in Asia; and Phillips, “Informality.”

32. Breman, Outcast Labour in Asia, 24.

33. Barrientos, “‘Labour Chains’.”

34. Lerche, “From ‘Rural Labour’,” 73.

35. Breman, Outcast Labour in Asia, 4.

36. Nathan and Kalpana, Issues in the Analysis, 3.

37. Ibid., 3.

38. Ibid., 10.

39. Mehta and Sherry, “Wages and Productivity,” 3.

40. Burra, “Crusading for Children,” 5203–5204; and Mehta and Sherry, “Wages and Productivity,” 666–667.

41. Tilly, Durable Inequality. See also Mosse, “A Relational Approach.”

42. Tilly, Durable Inequality, 7–8.

43. Hickey and du Toit, Adverse Incorporation.

44. aidwa, Report on the Condition, 5.

45. Basu and Van, “The Economics of Child Labor”; and Degraff and Levison, “Children’s Work.”

46. For example, Leiten and Rustagi, “The Nowhere Children”; and Degraff and Levison, “Children’s Work.”

47. Degraff and Levison, “Children’s Work.”

48. Chant, “The ‘Feminization of Poverty’.”

49. Unni and Scaria, “Governance Structure,” 645.

50. Ibid., 646.

51. Nathan and Kalpana, Issues in the Analysis.

52. See also Unni and Scaria, “Governance Structure.”

53. Tilly, Durable Inequality, 9.

54. Mosse, “A Relational Approach,” 1163.

55. Tilly, Durable Inequality, 14.

56. Bhaskaran et al., “Vulnerable Workers.”

57. Mehta and Sherry, “Wages and Productivity,” 651.

58. Bachman, “A New Economics”; and Degraff and Levison, “Children’s Work.”

59. De Neve, The Everyday Politics of Labour.

60. Ibid; and Breman, Outcast Labour in Asia.