Abstract
New technologies have the potential to change how products are made, services are provided and supply chains organized and managed. A good deal of attention has been devoted to studying the impacts of technological upgrading and automation on employment. Many acknowledge that these outcomes are uneven, varying across regions of the world, economic sectors, as well as amongst groups of workers, including women and men. Yet there is little evidence on the processes behind these outcomes and, in particular, why they seem to further reinforce rather than alleviate gender inequalities. The main goal of this paper is to review the state of the apparel and footwear industry as it relates to automation, employment and gender issues in context of the ILO-EU project “Building Partnerships on the Future of Work” project. The paper highlights the importance of the sector for women’s employment and the gendered nature of the industry; summarizes the literature on the effects of industrial automation and digitization on employment in the apparel and footwear industry, in particular their gender dimensions; and presents a brief overview of the apparel and footwear sector in the project countries, namely Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Romania and Spain.