Lamia N. Karim

My research is on the post-industrial worker in the global apparel industry in Bangladesh. I use the term post-industrial worker to refer to those workers who have been laid off from work due to ageism. The garment industry in Bangladesh is only three decades old. It has grown on a steady supply of young rural workers who are paid the lowest wages in the world for apparel production. The workforce is four million plus of which eighty percent is female. These female workers enter the industry around the average age of fifteen years and age out by thirty-five years. Once these workers exit out of factories due to ageism, no data is kept on their life circumstances by labor organizations. They disappear either into the urban informal economy or they return to their villages due to lack of work. My research follows these workers’ life trajectories, and examines how they manage their lives after work. My research makes a critical intervention on the anthropology of aged-out female workers.