Modern Sri Lanka Studies

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An assessment of sector specific living wages for Sri Lankan apparel industry workers
(University of Peradeniya, 2013) Kuruppuge, R.H.; Prasanna, R.P.I.R.
The workers in the apparel industry are often recognized as precariously employed workers due to low wage. These low wages eventually push the workers into debt, malnutrition, cause health problems, and make workers and their dependents extremely vulnerable to unemployment, disability and faster deterioration in old age. Thus, this study attempts to assess the living wage specific to apparel industry workers to support the contention that living wage can contribute to enhance workers economic and social status in the industry while analyzing the existing wage problem in the industry. The data for the study was sourced from a Local Area Survey carried out both in- and out-side Free Trade Zones during September 2012. The study adopted the nutritional based living wage estimation method to derive the living wage for industry workers by employing actual expenditure patterns of workers on food and non-food consumption. The result indicated a significantly high gap between the actual wage and the living wage, indicating the precarious situation of low wage women workers. Finally, it was evident that filling this high gap between living and actual wage and implementing living wage in the apparel industry lead to solving many problems related to workers and the industry in the country.