Working Paper June 2011 No. 177 Child labour in global production networks: poverty, vulnerability and ‘adverse incorporation’ in the Delhi garments sector Nicola Phillips Resmi Bhaskaran Dev Nathan C. Upendranadh What is Chronic Poverty? The distinguishing feature of chronic poverty is extended duration in University of Manchester absolute poverty. Manchester M13 0PL Therefore, chronically poor United Kingdom people always, or usually, live below a poverty line, Institute for Human Development (IHD) which is normally defined in terms of a money indicator New Delhi (e.g. consumption, income, India etc.), but could also be defined in terms of wider or subjective aspects of deprivation. This is different from the transitorily poor, who move in and out of poverty, or only occasionally fall below the poverty line. Chronic Poverty Research Centre www.chronicpoverty.org ISBN: 978-1-906433-79-6 Child labour in global production networks: poverty, vulnerability and ‘adverse incorporation’ in the Delhi garments sector Abstract Child labour occurs across many sectors of the Indian economy, including in those which are tightly integrated into global production networks (GPNs). On the basis of an original study of the Delhi garments sector, this paper explores the evolving relationship between the nature and functioning of GPNs, the incidence of highly exploitative social and labour relations (including those associated with child labour), and the production and reproduction of chronic poverty and vulnerability. Two questions frame the discussion: 1) to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances does chronic poverty foster patterns of exploitative employment within GPNs for poor and vulnerable workers, including children? 2) to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances can the incorporation of these workers into GPNs be said to produce or reproduce chronic poverty and vulnerability? Our arguments are rooted theoretically in the concept of „adverse incorporation‟, and developed by combining analysis of how accumulation occurs in contemporary GPNs with an exploration of the social processes in which these forms of accumulation are embedded. Child labour is simultaneously an outcome of these processes of adverse incorporation and itself a key mechanism through which they can be produced and reproduced. Keywords: Child labour, poverty, India, global production networks, garments, adverse incorporation 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‟, led by Nicola Phillips, which was funded by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). The authors gratefully acknowledge the CPRC‟s support, and very helpful input at various stages of the work from Stephanie Barrientos, Sheila Bhalla, Amrita Datta, Sam Hickey, Aasha Kapur Mehta, Uma Kothari, Anand Kumar, Balwant Mehta, Anne Posthuma, Preet Rustagi, Amita Shah, Alakh Sharma, Andrew Shepherd and Atul Sood. As always, errors and shortcomings remain entirely our responsibility. The field team was coordinated by Sunil Kumar and included Shailesh Kumar, Ramanand Jha and Madan Jha. Additional research assistance was ably provided by Stephen Buzdugan. Some of the findings from the project were also presented in Bhaskaran et al. (2010). 2 Child labour in global production networks: poverty, vulnerability and ‘adverse incorporation’ in the Delhi garments sector Nicola Phillips is Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Political Economy Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. She is also an editor of the journal New Political Economy, and she currently holds a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2010–13). Her research focuses on the political economy of development, with specific current interests in labour in global production networks, unfree labour and human trafficking, and migration and development. Her most recent books are Development (with Anthony Payne, Polity, 2010), and, as editor, International Political Economy: Debating the Past, Present and Future (with Catherine Weaver, 2010), and Migration in the Global Political Email: [email protected] Resmi Bhaskaran is an independent development consultant in New Delhi, and worked formerly as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi. Her research interests cover urban livelihood issues, including child labour, migration and microfinance. Email: [email protected] Dev Nathan is a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi, and a Visiting Fellow at Duke University, USA. Besides labour conditions in global production, his research interests include rural development and the development issues of indigenous peoples. Email: [email protected] C. Upendranadh is Asia Governance Coordinator for ActionAid, and worked formerly at the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi, as Senior Fellow. Email: [email protected] This document is an output from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) which is funded by UKaid from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries. The views expressed are not necessarily those of DFID. The CPRC gratefully acknowledges DFID’s support. 3 Child labour in global production networks: poverty, vulnerability and ‘adverse incorporation’ in the Delhi garments sector Contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................5 1.1 Child labour in the Delhi garments sector: methods and premises .............................................7 2 Child labour and the dynamics of adverse incorporation ...........................................13 2.1 Accumulation by exploitation in GPNs ..................................................................................... 14 3 Inequality, marginalisation and ‘social categorisation’ ...............................................22 4 The ‘durability’ of adverse incorporation ......................................................................28 5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................30 4 Child labour in global production networks: poverty, vulnerability and ‘adverse incorporation’ in the Delhi garments sector 1 Introduction The South Asian region retains the highest incidence world-wide of child labour. In India, figures from the 2001 national census indicate that working children account for around 5 per cent of the total population aged between five and 14 years, which ostensibly contrasts favourably with much higher figures of 42 percent for Nepal or 19 percent for Bangladesh (Chakrabarty and Grote, 2009). But in terms of absolute numbers of working children, India accounts by some distance for the highest concentration in the world, with estimates indicating a total of some 12.6 million. Notwithstanding aggressive global and local strategies to address the problem, child labour occurs across many sectors of the Indian economy, including in those parts of it, such as the garments industry, which are tightly integrated into global production networks (GPNs).1 We are thus presented with the key question of how to understand the evolving relationship between the nature and functioning of GPNs and the incidence of highly exploitative social and labour relations, including those associated with child labour. We contend here that an adequate response needs to explore how conditions of chronic poverty and vulnerability both enable and arise from particular modes of integration into GPNs. Many accounts of child labour, including the growing number of media exposés on the subject, tend to offer either top-down depictions of the problem, concentrating on the commercial strategies of large transnational firms, or alternatively „bottom-up‟ perspectives, focusing attention on the household economy. Here, we contend that the issue requires an integrated approach – one that is capable of capturing the interplay between the economic processes of accumulation within GPNs and broader sets of social relations in creating and recreating the patterns of poverty, inequality and vulnerability which are central to understanding child labour. Two questions thus frame our discussion. First, to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances does chronic poverty foster patterns of exploitative employment within GPNs for poor and vulnerable workers, including children? Second, to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances can the incorporation of these workers into GPNs be said to produce or reproduce chronic poverty and vulnerability? Our arguments are rooted in the concept of „adverse incorporation‟ – a term which has lately gained considerable currency in research on chronic poverty. The concept responds to the clear empirical evidence that, contrary to the dominant orthodoxies of poverty reduction, 1 Global value chain (GVC) analysis has focused on the commercial linkages between firms in which dominant buyers play a coordinating role, with insufficient examination of labour or the social and political context in which firms operate. Here we draw on GPN analysis, which places greater emphasis on the complexity of sourcing arrangements, asymmetrical power relations and the social embeddedness of firms. A GPN is defined as „the nexus of interconnected functions and operations through