The children of garment workers are trapped in the 'gig economy'

"Last month, when she said she was going to pawn her wedding chain for my semester fees, I decided enough was enough."

A downward spiral of poverty and debt is leading the children of garment workers to seek work in India's punishing gig economy.

"I didn’t want a job like my mother’s," says Pavan, his voice heavy with fatigue at 11:30pm on a Saturday night. The 20-year-old works as a food delivery driver in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, hoping to pay for his college tuition fees, something his mother, Muthulakshmi, cannot afford. 

For over two decades, Muthulakshmi, 43, has stitched garments for the global fashion brands that line the racks of fast-fashion stores on the high streets of London and New York. She started work at 21, believing her nine-hour shifts in the local garment factory would secure a better future for her children. 

Instead, years of physically demanding labour left her trapped in debt and battling chronic health issues – musculoskeletal pain, recurring haemorrhoids, and respiratory problems. Medical expenses have drained her savings, forcing her son Pavan to work rather than study. The exhaustion of doing late-night deliveries after half-day college classes, means he is on the verge of dropping out of college.

Similar stories are unfolding across the neighbouring districts. After twelve years in garment factories and spinning mills, single mother Kavitha still dreams of building a one-room brick house for her family. Her factory wages barely allow her to save ₹500 (£4.50) a month and only then if her children or elderly parents don't fall sick. 

Kavitha’s daughter Anjali, 17, and son, 19, work in a nearby brick kiln. “For many in our village, the garment industry no longer holds much appeal, with the gruelling 10-12 hour shifts, long commutes, stagnant wages, and rampant workplace harassment,” Anjali says.

While their parents held formal manufacturing jobs, the next generation - the children of today's garment workers - are increasingly moving into informal work, characterised by precarious incomes, a lack of social security benefits, and the absence of health insurance.

A recent Cividep India report, The Home and the World of Work, interviewed 184 women garment workers in Bengaluru and Mysore, and found that 90% of garment workers’ children are earning less than ₹15,000 (£135) per month. This is barely sufficient to meet the rising cost of living, particularly in cities like Bengaluru.

Unable to afford to send their children to private schools or tutors, to help them compete in the job market, garment workers are seeing their children trapped in public schools and downward rather than upward mobility. 

The Gig Economy

“The youth today are trapped between bad choices,” says Thivyarakini, state president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), an independent women-led trade union. "They leave garment work hoping for better wages, but often find themselves in even more precarious situations."

Murugan’s story in Tiruppur illustrates this trap. The son of garment worker parents, Murugan was lured by the promise of earning up to ₹1,500 a day as a delivery driver for an app-based food delivery company. “During the training, they told me I could make ₹1,500 (£13.50) daily. I thought, if I worked 25 days a month, I’d earn around ₹37,000 (£334). But after I started, I realised that to earn that much, I couldn’t take breaks, eat proper meals, or stop driving for 10–12 hours straight,” he explains. 

The toll of these gruelling hours became painfully clear after a recent bike accident left Murugan with a broken arm. To cover medical costs, he was forced to borrow ₹20,000 (£180) from a moneylender at 10% monthly interest. With no accident coverage or insurance from the platform company, and an outstanding bike loan of ₹60,000 (£540), his 55-year-old mother was compelled to return to work. Despite her deteriorating health, she now stitches garments at piece rate, rather than a salary, at a home-based unit to help shoulder the growing financial burden.

Addiction

Kumar, a 25-year-old from Erode who shifted from garment work to a series of odd jobs, including construction, agricultural work, and catering, appreciates the flexibility but admits the challenges are relentless. “I’m always hunting for the next job. The uncertainty is exhausting,” he says. His drinking habit, which began as a way to fall asleep after irregular work shifts, has now turned into an expensive coping mechanism. “I know I spend too much on alcohol, but how else do you quiet a mind that’s always worried about tomorrow’s work?”

The lure of quick money extends beyond gig work into even more dangerous territory. Navamani, an organiser with TTCU, has observed a rise in online gambling among garment workers' children. "Many young people, especially those in gig work or construction with irregular incomes, are getting hooked on online rummy apps," she explains. "They see it as a way to supplement their earnings."

She recounts a devastating case from her neighbourhood where the son of garment workers lost so much money playing online rummy that his parents were forced to sell their house. “He started small, playing between delivery runs. The apps make it seem so easy to win. By the time his parents discovered the addiction, the debt had spiralled beyond control.”

This growing combination of precarious work, the rise of addictive online gambling apps, excessive drinking, and even substance abuse in some cases, she notes, is creating a perfect storm of financial vulnerability for a generation already grappling with unstable incomes.

What Can Be Done - Wages and Reparations

The generational shift away from garment work to the gig economy underscores the broader consequences of wage suppression in an industry that often labels women as “secondary breadwinners.” Yet, for millions of families, women are in fact the primary earners. By denying them living wages, stable employment, and a work-life balance, the fashion industry has triggered a devastating ripple effect — pushing their children into even more precarious forms of work and deepening intergenerational cycles of poverty.

India is the world’s sixth-largest textile and apparel manufacturer and exporter, employing around 1.2 million workers in garment factories. For decades, garment jobs have been promoted as pathways to empowerment, especially for women, with the promise of lifting families and communities out of poverty. Yet, four decades later, these promises have fallen flat.

This failure is not accidental — it is the direct result of structural decisions made by global fashion brands and retailers. Brands have relentlessly driven down prices in pursuit of profit, creating supply chains built on poverty wages and insecure contracts. Factories, squeezed by brands' demands for ever-cheaper garments and punishing turnaround times, pass this pressure directly onto workers through wage theft, forced overtime, and the erosion of workplace rights.

During the pandemic, these fault lines became undeniable. Many brands cancelled orders, slashed prices on goods already produced, and delayed payments to suppliers. These decisions devastated small manufacturers and left workers unpaid for months, deepening household debts from which families have yet to recover.

Moving forward requires far more than piecemeal interventions. What is needed is a fundamental restructuring of global supply chains — one that centres workers' rights, not corporate profits.

Brands must pay living wages across their supply chains. This is non-negotiable. For decades, brands have hidden behind the excuse of local wage laws and supplier contracts, arguing that wages are a "local issue." But it is their purchasing practices — relentless cost-cutting and impossible production deadlines — that have kept wages at starvation levels. A living wage is not charity; it is the bare minimum required for workers to survive and for their children to avoid being pushed into precarious, low-paid work.

Given the scale of the harm brands must also pay reparations for the decades of suppressed wages and wage theft, particularly during the pandemic. These reparations should compensate individual workers and rebuild social protection systems that have been hollowed out by corporate pressure.

Trade Justice

For too long, brands have hidden behind subcontracting to evade responsibility for factory-level abuses. Embedding joint employer liability into labour laws would enable workers to hold brands accountable in courts within their own countries, rather than placing all the blame and pressure on supplier factories, closing a major loophole in labour law. Further legal reform is needed to dramatically strengthen the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) - a directive that is supposed to foster responsible corporate behaviour. In its current form, the directive is dangerously weak, shaped more by corporate lobbying than by the realities faced by workers like Muthulakshmi and Kavitha.

To ultimately protect garment workers and their children, a new system of supply chain governance is needed. This means supporting worker-led monitoring, where risks are identified & rectified with workers; enabling freedom of association and ending the pervasive anti-union tactics deployed by brands and suppliers; and embedding binding agreements with trade unions on wages, working conditions, and safety. Tariffs and trade rules that penalise garment-producing countries in the Global South are deepening the current race to the bottom, squeezing workers and undermining local industries. Without trade justice, labour rights cannot truly exist.

The bottom line is clear: the working class women of the Global South cannot remain the sacrificial backbone of global supply chains.

Lost Dreams

For Karthi, a 20-year-old from Erode, these systemic failures are a lived reality. "My mother still doesn't know I've quit college," he admits softly. Watching his mother take on overtime at the factory every day, all while masking her arthritis pain to avoid missing work, became unbearable for Karthi. "Last month, when she said she was going to pawn her wedding chain — the last piece of gold she had left — for my semester fees, I decided enough was enough."

Now working odd jobs as a driver, agricultural worker, and catering staff far from home, Karthi has deliberately kept his decision a secret from his mother. “I told her I was working part-time and didn't need her help any more," he says. “How could I watch her struggle so much and not do something? But even those who studied with me aren't finding jobs. So, I quit college and started working full-time."

He pauses, then adds quietly. “The worst part isn't giving up my dreams — it’s knowing that my mother is still sitting at that sewing machine, believing her sacrifice is securing my future."

• The names of the workers mentioned in this article have been changed to protect their identities.

• Nandita Shivakumar is a researcher specialising in gender justice and sustainability in global fashion supply chains. She works with multiple garment workers’ unions to develop their campaigns and communication strategies.
• Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the organizations they are affiliated with.
• Edited by Tansy E. Hoskins

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