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by Praveen Kumar, Sandeep Kandikuppa and Spencer Sandberg

• Air pollution is a serious public health concern in Bangladesh. Traditional brick kilns are among the most important sources of air pollution.
• The overall objective of this study is to understand the social and economic wellbeing of brick kiln workers in the wake of the recent push to transition to improved brick kiln technologies in Bangladesh. Findings from this case-control study show that there has been a steady shift from traditional Fixed Chimney Kilns (FCKs) towards improved and low-smoke options like Zig-Zag Kilns (ZZKs) and Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBKs).
• Workers in improved brick kilns have better quality of life, living conditions, and working conditions than their counterparts in traditional fixed chimney kilns.
• Across both types of kilns, workers report long hours – an average of eleven hours per day – and most days involve early morning or late night work. Most workers report that women and men are not paid the same amount, and our findings confirm that women in our sample are paid less on average.
• In general, workers in brick kilns, regardless of the type of kiln, live in precarious conditions, marked by unsteady income and poor living conditions relative to the conditions they might enjoy in their home villages.

Air Pollution in Dhaka

Bangladesh has one of the highest levels of outdoor Ambient Particulate Matter (PM 2.5) of any country worldwide, ranking first among 134 countries and territories in the 2023 World Air Quality Report with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 79.9 µg/m³ (IQAir, 2023). In Dhaka, estimates suggest around half of all ambient air pollution is caused by brick kilns (Begum et al., 2018; Begum et al., 2019; Rahman et al., 2019). But these kilns are critical to meet the construction demands associated with a country experiencing rapid population growth and urbanization. More than 7,000 documented brick kilns, and scores of undocumented ones across the country employ about a million people and churn out approximately 23 million bricks a year (Lee et al., 2021). Due to the environmental, health, and social costs of brick manufacturing, the Bangladesh government is pushing to phase out pollution-intensive technologies like Fixed Chimney Kilns (FCKs) in favor of improved technologies like Zig-Zag Kilns (ZZKs) and Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBKs).

While these improved brick kilns are expected to improve the air quality, their impact on the socioeconomic wellbeing of the largely non-literate brick workers remains under-explored. For a ‘Just Transition’ to occur and be successful, the benefits and costs of transitioning to a green economy must be equitable (Pai et al., 2020). This policy brief informed by our exploratory study provides a preliminary look at the labor conditions, health, and financial well-being of brick laborers in the greater Dhaka region. We assess differential outcomes between laborers employed at traditional, more pollution-intensive FCKs and laborers employed at improved ZZKs.

Methodology

Our study employs a cross-sectional, case-control design to examine differential outcomes for laborers at traditional and improved brick kilns. In doing so, we present systematic evidence for the need to shift the brick industry of Bangladesh towards improved, low-emissions technologies. At the same time, our study also surfaces the problems inherent to the brick industry itself, which preclude the realization of a truly just transition. These problems are rooted in the socioeconomic realities of Bangladesh and failure to address them threatens the viability of climate adaptation strategies of the country. Our study sample comprises individuals who work at improved kilns (ZZK), and controls are individuals who work at traditional kilns (FCK). Data was collected at a single point in time using in-person interviews, allowing for comparisons between the two groups. In doing so, we partnered with ARCED Foundation, a well-known research agency in Bangladesh. In all, we studied 25 randomly selected brick kilns (16 ZZKs and 9 FCKs). We ensured a proportional representation of the kilns in terms of geographical location in the Greater Dhaka region included in the study. We randomly selected 20 workers from each participating kiln leading to a total sample size of 512 study respondents.

Key Findings

• Our study found that the quality of life was significantly associated with kiln type, with ZZK workers scoring higher than FCK workers. ZZK workers also scored higher for the combined overall quality of life measure. ZZK workers on average worked more hours per day than those from FCKs.
• The workers in ZZKs had marginally higher incomes, higher pay per day, and reported fewer days when they had to pull early morning or late-night work-shifts. Workers in ZZKs also reported significantly lower odds of suffering from work-place injuries.
• Across the board, for most workers, improved brick kilns or not, the environmental quality of life was low. Most participants (57.6%) stated that their physical environment is “not at all” healthy and nearly 40% state they do “not at all” feel safe in their daily life. This combined with the high rates of slum housing and the very high rates of housing material deprivation indicates that brick laborers often live in precarious circumstances.
• Given our sample consists almost entirely of migrant laborers, who moved to Dhaka from various villages, (97%), it is helpful to view these in relation to the conditions prevailing in their home villages. In our sample, migrants report on average that their water and sanitation facilities were better off in Dhaka than in their previous residence, and that they were less vulnerable to natural disasters.
• The majority (77%) of migrants strongly or somewhat agree that their health was better before moving to Dhaka, most (69%) strongly agree that their social status was better, and amongst all participants, the average score for how much they enjoy life is low, with 34% responding “not at all”.
• In general, ZZK workers reported higher physical quality of life, indicating better health and mobility, and less pain or reliance on medical treatments for daily functioning. They also had higher overall quality of life when observing all dimensions together.
• More ZZK workers had housing, and while the entire sample from both kiln types categorized their housing as ‘slum’, ZZK workers were less likely to live in materially deprived housing.
• At the kilns, ZZK workers make more money per hour and are more likely to have received a wage increase over the past 3 seasons. Despite working more hours overall, ZZK workers are less likely to work early morning hours or late at night. Furthermore, ZZK workers see less injuries at their kilns.
• Our data strongly suggests that differences in working conditions – better wages, fewer irregular hours, and fewer injuries – are directly tied to the characteristics of improved brick kiln operations. The intensive hours involved also suggest that the quality of life for brick workers would be largely shaped by their experiences at the kiln.
• Future research is needed to verify this, but one interpretation of our results is that a just transition is being achieved to some degree: improved technology zig-zag kilns provide workers better pay, safer conditions, and better housing, which results in improved quality of life compared with traditional fixed-chimney kilns.