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The Examination Of Female Factory Workers And Economic Growth

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The examination of female factory workers and economic growth involves crossing dimensions of economy, labour and women. It is necessary to firstly have a critical review of the previous literature embracing these different dimensions. This will be divided into three parts. First, the relationship between labour and economic growth will be presented. Second, the concept of “shadow price of labour” will be introduced and reviewed for furthering the connotation of labour. Third, women in industrialisation will be reviewed for offering a global context of women and paid work. 1. Economic growth and labour Economic growth is conventionally measured by the increase of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Khan, 2014; Pritzker, 2014; IMF, 2012). It is closely related to the increase of aggregated output (Broadberry, 2011, Hausmann and Hidalgo, 2011). Many scholars have interest in economic growth because it has potential both for reducing poverty (Ravallion, 2001; Goudie and Ladd, 1999), and raising people’s living standard (Dupont, 2015; Jackson, 2008). Economic growth is a complicated economic process which may be influenced by many possible elements and factors. But during the century-long developing history of growth theories, labour has been proven to be a vital factor for driving economic growth. The founder of the classical growth theory Adam Smith identified labour, rather than others, as the cause for increase in national wealth (Todd, 1999, p.15). His

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