Labour-intensive Garment-based Industrialization with Social Sustainability? The Case of Mauritius
Ternsjö, Linn LU and Hillbom, Ellen LU
(2025)
In Competition & Change
- Abstract
- We address the social sustainability dimension of labor-intensive industrialization (LII) and manufacturing activities and apply it to the analysis of Mauritius, a regional forerunner in textile and garment production. While the country is commonly seen as an African success story, we do not evaluate its trajectory against traditional economic theory on achieving sustained growth. Instead, we analyze the LII component based on garment manufacturing from the early 1970s onwards against criteria of social sustainability. We investigate the specific interplay between the development of social policy and the establishment and transformation of the garment manufacturing sector. Further, we follow changes in workers’ conditions in the... (More)
- We address the social sustainability dimension of labor-intensive industrialization (LII) and manufacturing activities and apply it to the analysis of Mauritius, a regional forerunner in textile and garment production. While the country is commonly seen as an African success story, we do not evaluate its trajectory against traditional economic theory on achieving sustained growth. Instead, we analyze the LII component based on garment manufacturing from the early 1970s onwards against criteria of social sustainability. We investigate the specific interplay between the development of social policy and the establishment and transformation of the garment manufacturing sector. Further, we follow changes in workers’ conditions in the manufacturing sector over time. Based on primary and secondary data and building on new developmentalist research, we examine the fulfilment of basic needs, employment levels, and the quality of jobs applying inclusiveness as a cross-cutting theme. Moreover, we address social policy’s role in tackling problems of inequitable outcomes from industrialization. We contribute a more nuanced understanding of Mauritius’ industrial history by highlighting its mixed outcomes, with some periods working more toward properties and outcomes of social sustainability than others. Finally, we provide some lessons for global South countries currently forming their industrialization strategies pertaining to trade-offs between sectoral change and social sustainability, and we hypothesize about the future of Mauritius’ textile and garment industry. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/955ba8ae-ab25-491e-bd0d-a929ee2faf81
- author
- Ternsjö, Linn
LU
and Hillbom, Ellen
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-03-24
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- keywords
- social sustainability, labour-intensive industrialization, manufacturing, Mauritius
- in
- Competition & Change
- pages
- 24 pages
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105001856391
- ISSN
- 1024-5294
- DOI
- 10.1177/10245294251329144
- project
- Sustainable development in Small Island Developing States
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 955ba8ae-ab25-491e-bd0d-a929ee2faf81
- date added to LUP
- 2025-03-14 14:22:45
- date last changed
- 2025-04-14 04:01:15
@article{955ba8ae-ab25-491e-bd0d-a929ee2faf81,
abstract = {{We address the social sustainability dimension of labor-intensive industrialization (LII) and manufacturing activities and apply it to the analysis of Mauritius, a regional forerunner in textile and garment production. While the country is commonly seen as an African success story, we do not evaluate its trajectory against traditional economic theory on achieving sustained growth. Instead, we analyze the LII component based on garment manufacturing from the early 1970s onwards against criteria of social sustainability. We investigate the specific interplay between the development of social policy and the establishment and transformation of the garment manufacturing sector. Further, we follow changes in workers’ conditions in the manufacturing sector over time. Based on primary and secondary data and building on new developmentalist research, we examine the fulfilment of basic needs, employment levels, and the quality of jobs applying inclusiveness as a cross-cutting theme. Moreover, we address social policy’s role in tackling problems of inequitable outcomes from industrialization. We contribute a more nuanced understanding of Mauritius’ industrial history by highlighting its mixed outcomes, with some periods working more toward properties and outcomes of social sustainability than others. Finally, we provide some lessons for global South countries currently forming their industrialization strategies pertaining to trade-offs between sectoral change and social sustainability, and we hypothesize about the future of Mauritius’ textile and garment industry.}},
author = {{Ternsjö, Linn and Hillbom, Ellen}},
issn = {{1024-5294}},
keywords = {{social sustainability; labour-intensive industrialization; manufacturing; Mauritius}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Competition & Change}},
title = {{Labour-intensive Garment-based Industrialization with Social Sustainability? The Case of Mauritius}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10245294251329144}},
doi = {{10.1177/10245294251329144}},
year = {{2025}},
}