This article examines data from a study on garment-factory workers in Bangladesh to explore the implications of work for the early socialization of young women. For the first time, large numbers of young Bangladeshi women are being given an alternative to lives in which they move directly from childhood to adulthood through early marriage and childbearing. Employment creates a period of transition in contrast to the abrupt assumption of adult roles at very young ages that marriage and childbearing mandate. This longer transition creates a period of adolescence for young women working in the garment sector that is shown to have strong implications for the women's long-term reproductive health.

This paper examines the effects of migration and entry into garment work on marriage for young women in Bangladesh. The data comes from a study of female garment workers and their non-working peers conducted in 1996±97 in Bangladesh. In a country where women traditionally do not work in formal employment, and enter arranged marriages soon after puberty, the rapidly expanding garment industry offers scope for social change. The industry employs mainly young women migrating from rural areas. Previous research in Bangladesh and other countries suggests that female migrants maintain ®nancial ties with their families in rural areas for reasons of economic and emotional security. This paper shows that many workers contribute ®nancially to their natal families in order to maintain social networks and maximise security in marriage. Concerns regarding security lead workers to express traditional aspirations for marriage. However, weak social networks and changes in living arrangements and household structure associated with migration often dictate that migrants adopt non-traditional and less secure marriage arrangements.

The rapidly expanding sector of garment manufacturing for export is unusual for Bangladesh in that it employs young, unmarried women in large numbers. This paper examines data from a study on garment workers in Bangladesh to explore the implications of work for the early socialization of young women. For the first time young women are given an alternative to lives where they move directly from childhood into adulthood through early marriage and childbearing. Work creates a period of transition as contrasted with the abrupt assumption of adult roles at very young ages that marriage and childbearing mandate. It is argued that this longer transition creates a period of adolescence for young women working in the garment sector and that some aspects of adolescence have strong implications for the long-term reproductive health of these young women.

This article examines issues surrounding survey methodology and the research process from the experience of a study of female garment workers in Bangladesh carried out during 1996-1997 by the Population Council and the University of Southampton. The process of sampling the population of interest and then the interview process will be examined in detail. In addition, some more general issues about survey research in developing countries and in Bangladesh, in particular, such as the timing of the research and the importance of the cultural context, will be discussed.