The Global Value Chain (GVC) has become a mainstream analytical framework to map the unequal distribution of value-addition and surplus-capturing power across the global supply-chain economy. Gender and development scholars find that gender inequality in and beyond the GVC constitutes unequal distribution of economic surplus in the GVC. Meanwhile, the GVC discussion also generates a normative development prescription for Global South actors, upgrading their positions in the GVC through strategic accumulation of technology, innovation, and human capital. While gender has been integral to the scholarly analysis of the GVC distributional problem, it is largely absent from scholars’ evaluations of the GVC solution of valuechain upgrading. Especially considering that one key element in value-chain upgrading strategies—human capital accumulation—inevitably relies on social institutions that are highly gendered, it is worth questioning the presumption that the costs and gains of value-chain upgrading agenda are “gender neutral.”
Gender, Value-Chain Upgrading, and The Costs of Human Capital: The Case of a Garment Supply Chain in China (Vol. 57, Fall 2024)
10 Mar 2025