Major
Philosophy
Anticipated Graduation Year
2023
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Since the 1980s, the U.S. garment industry has outsourced clothing manufacturing to the global South. Manufacturing is primarily outsourced to the global South because of its weak labor laws and low minimum wage requirements. As a result, customers of U.S. clothing corporations are able to purchase clothes at low costs, but workers in the garment industry in the global South become increasingly impoverished. The influence of celebrities and social media in recent years has encouraged the overconsumption and rapid disposal of clothing, widening the lifestyle gap between consumers in the global North and manufacturers in the global South.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Minwoo Jung, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Fast Fashion in the Age of Global Capitalism
Since the 1980s, the U.S. garment industry has outsourced clothing manufacturing to the global South. Manufacturing is primarily outsourced to the global South because of its weak labor laws and low minimum wage requirements. As a result, customers of U.S. clothing corporations are able to purchase clothes at low costs, but workers in the garment industry in the global South become increasingly impoverished. The influence of celebrities and social media in recent years has encouraged the overconsumption and rapid disposal of clothing, widening the lifestyle gap between consumers in the global North and manufacturers in the global South.