Jeans Manufacture a Global Case Study

Jeans manufacture – a global case study

Globalisation

Globalisation refers to jobs, people and ideas moving freely and easily around the world. It can also refer to the spreading of ideas, languages, or popular culture between countries. This process is the result of a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural, political and biological factors.
Many manufacturing companies today choose to make their products in countries where the labour costs are low. This means they do not have to pay high wages. The products are then sold worldwide enabling huge profits to be made.
Blue jeans are a good example of a globalisation product. The denim trousers were first manufactured in the late 18th century and were originally noted for their strength and comfort. Since then they have continued to be worn as /
© 2010 Honeyhuyue

work clothing by sailors and miners, but also by the young to identify their generation, and by the fashionable, conscious of the designer label names.

Some thoughts/questions

Have you ever bought an item of clothing such as a pair of jeans, and wondered where it came from and how it is made?
Where was theitem made?
Who made theitem and in what circumstances?

/ Ripe cotton ready for harvesting.
Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Cotton

Cotton is a basic input in many of our clothes and particularly jeans. It needs a subtropical climate with a minimum temperature of 15°Cfor germination, a temperature of more than 30°C in the fruiting period and a minimum annual rainfall of 50cm with between six to eight irrigations during its growing time.

Most of the world’s cotton is grown in the People’s Republic of China, India, United States, Pakistan, Brazil and Australia. Other leading cotton-growing countries are Uzbekistan and Turkey.

Wikipedia has a map of regional cotton production at:

Student fact sheet

Background
Jeans vary in price enormously, from a sale price of less than £10 to designer jeans costing more than £600 …
but before you buy them, the product will probably have already travelled more than 60,000 km from the farmers’ fields to the factory to the high street store.
Read the article at /

Countries and components

The denim and the components may have been made in one of a number of countries and they

will have passed through several more countries on their journey.
For the a factory in Tunisia, the jeans may have used: /

cotton grown in Benin in West Africa
used to manufacture denim in an Italian factory with synthetic indigo dye from Frankfurt in Germany

softer cotton for the pockets,grown in Pakistan or Korea
pumice stone from a Turkish volcano to stonewash the jeans
cotton thread for sewing the jeans,
dyed in Spain but originally grown in Northern Ireland, Hungary or Turkey

polyester thread manufactured in Japan
YKK zips produced in Japan
rivets made with brass from Germany
brass from zinc and copper from Australia and Namibia.

Transportation

Many different forms of transport will have been used for the components and the final product. The finished jeans, for example, will have used a ferry across the Mediterranean from the factory in Tunisia and trains to the French warehouse, before the final journey through the Channel Tunnel to the high street shop. /

The factory in Tunisia

The jeans will cost approximately £5 per pair to make;these low production costs are mainly due to the low labour costs and poor working conditions found in many similar ‘sweatshop’ factories.

At a typical jeans factory in Tunisia, 500 women are employed for nine and a half hours on repetitive tasks, e.g. sewing pockets repeatedly. Trained machinists usually earn approximately £110 a month (58p per hour) with a possible monthly bonus for meeting targets of £15.

Some factories produce around 2,000 pairs of jeans every day!
Transportation costs from Tunisia to France are about 10p per pair. /

Student activities

Put the title ‘Jeans manufacture, a global case study’ in your exercise book.
Using an atlas, label a world map, with the countries which grow cotton.

Using an atlas, label in a different colour the countries which contribute towards the

Draw an input and output diagram of the jeans manufacture process.
In your exercise book, divide your page into two columns, one headed ‘Benefits’ and the other headed ‘Problems’.
In the ‘Benefits’ column, identify who benefits and how. In the ‘Problems’ column, identify the disadvantages and costs both for the workers in these countries and for our planet.

Teaching notes

This resource is adapted from an article originally published in the TES newspaper on 20th September 2002. At the time of writing, a version is available at

Background information providing an excellent history of the denim and blue jeans is available on the website

Cotton production data is available from

Top ten cotton producers: 2011
(480 pound bales)
People’s Republic of China / 33.5 million bales
India / 26.5 million bales
United States / 15.6 million bales
Pakistan / 10.8 million bales
Brazil / 9.3 million bales
Australia / 4.7 million bales
Uzbekistan / 4.2 million bales
Turkey / 3.1 million bales
Turkmenistan / 1.4 million bales
Greece / 1.4 million bales
Argentina / 1.2 million bales
Mexico / 1.2 million bales

Sandblasting jeans in LEDC factories to produce a distressed, already worn look has been condemned recently. This BBC news report details the incurable lung disease associated with the practice.

The website garment workers worldwide and campaigns against exploitation of LEDC workers in sweatshops, etc.