6 - The Rana Plaza Disaster and Its Aftermath

Summary

This chapter investigates the impact of anti-sweatshop activism on garment industry employment and the number of firms in Bangladesh following the 2013 Rana Plaza factory disaster. The disaster led to activism that created two major brand-enforced factory fire and safety agreements. The chapter uses a synthetic control methodology to investigate the trade-offs associated with the reaction to the disaster and finds that they led to 33.3 percent fewer garment factories in Bangladesh by 2016 and 28.3 percent fewer people employed in Bangladesh’s garment industry by 2017. Given the importance of the garment industry in Bangladesh’s development in providing a pathway out of extreme property, this finding raises important questions about the efficacy of anti-sweatshop activism.