Human Geography in Our Grandparents\'

Human Geography

In our grandparents' era, clothing was often produced domestically. In recent decades, however, the globalization of trade has shifted industries such as textiles and clothing overseas. In some cases, this brings production closer to the source of the raw materials. In many cases, however, this shift is simply to take advantage of lower wages for the labor-intensive clothing manufacturing industry. Indeed, it is rare today for a person in North America or Western Europe to own mass-produced clothing from their own country. All clothing manufacturing, except for some high-end items, is conducted overseas. We have even seen a shift in the sources of overseas production. Some traditional clothing manufacturing centers have already begun to price their labor at levels too high for clothing marketers, who have found lower-cost production centers in other countries as a result.

This paper will explore the geography of clothing in greater detail. The wardrobe of any person will illustrate the impacts of globalization on our daily lives. The paper will first outline the methodology used in the study. Then, the results will be tabulated and mapped. The results will then be interpreted and some conclusions drawn with respect to the geography of garment production.

In order to study the geography of clothing production, I have taken an inventory of my own clothing. The study included a total of 44 items. This includes all types of clothing, from shirts to shoes to hats, pants, shirt and underwear. These items were purchased in various countries around the world, with the bulk being purchased in North America. Each item was recorded for the country of origin with these countries subsequently being mapped to illustrate the sources of the different clothing items, and the number of items from each country. The map is as follows:

The deep red countries had ten or more items from the 44 produced there. The cherry red countries had between five and ten items produced. The dark grey countries had between one and five items produced and the remainder of the countries had zero items produced. The chart showing the full results is included as an Appendix.

On this map, the leading country is China, with 12 items. This is more than double the next most significant producer, which is a tie between Canada and India at 5 garments. Thailand had 4 garments, Indonesia 3. Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Honduras and Mexico each had two garments while Peru, El Salvador, Turkey, Cambodia, Vietnam and Nicaragua each had one.

The data revealed multiple regional groupings. Broadly, North America and Asia were by far the most represented. Within these categories, there was a cluster in Central America and two Asian clusters -- one in Southeast Asia and one in South Asia. Beyond these three major clusters were only a couple of outliers -- Peru and Turkey.

Moving across the map, it is worth noting some of the areas of the map that are entirely not filled in. Europe is completely empty and while that may serve as an indictment of my taste in shoes it is otherwise an indication that the entire continent has very little in the way of garment production, especially for export. Africa is also devoid of garment production. Despite its status as a low wage area, there are clearly reasons that have to this point inhibited the development of a viable garment industry anywhere on that continent. South Asia is the first major center of garment production on the map. India is the main center, with some spillover into Bangladesh, but not other neighboring countries. Southeast Asia represents the next cluster. There are no major producers in the region. The industry in SE Asia appears to be widespread, however, with four countries contributing. Northeast Asia is dominated geographically by China, and on this map as well. Only neighboring Hong Kong is also represented, but China is an elephant in the closet, dominating the wardrobe with 27% of total production. The next cluster is in North America. Canada, perhaps surprisingly, is a major producer of clothing still. Although there was no qualitative element to this study, Canada's production tended to be in the high end segment. The North American cluster extends down into Latin America, where many countries contributed items of clothing, making the region a mini-cluster.

The only two exceptions on the map were Peru and Turkey. These countries only produced a single garment each. Peru perhaps could be viewed as an extension of the Latin American cluster save for its position on the other side of the equator. Turkey is a true outlier, with no other representation either from Europe or from the Middle East, despite centuries of advanced clothing production in both areas.

There are two main factors that influence these patterns. The first is the availability of cheap labor. Garment production is a labor intensive process, such that labor is the major cost driver of clothing. This has in turn convinced companies to offshore their production. The clusters tend to be in areas where wages are low -- Central America, China, India, and Southeast Asia. Canada is an anomaly here, as the only other First World economies noted were the United States and Hong Kong, both minor players.

The second main factor is trade agreements. Garments are frequently subject to tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers. This has opened up the opportunity for a number of clusters. If China, or India, is subject to restrictions and consistently bumps up on their quota, then clothing marketers may seek to hedge their risks by sourcing from other countries. Thus we see the emergence of clusters in South East Asia and in Latin America, where firms can source clothing from multiple small countries and hedge against running out of quota space.

These garments were sourced mainly in North America. The channel by which they arrived to me was likely fairly similar in most cases. The fabric was supplied to the country of production. The garment was produced for a North American marketer. From there, it was shipped by sea to a Pacific Coast port. At that point it made its way to the warehouse and ultimately the store.

The stores for the most part were chain stores. Each chain store sources its products from a variety of regions. Some chains may prefer to utilize specific regions, in particular if they have relationship with specific suppliers that produce multiple clothing types. For some types of clothing, for example, there does appear to be specialization. The shoes all came from China -- clearly China has a cluster of shoe factories that are able to meet Western demand. Outdoor clothing mainly came from Canada. This indicates a specialization on the part of that country in the production of specialized clothing. Labor cost is higher in Canada, but high end outerwear companies are more concerned with performance. Their prices more than make up for the higher production costs, and it is performance that drives sales.