The Hypocrisy of Barbie’s Feminism – Labor Conditions of Working Class Women in a Mattel Factory in China, 18 October 2024

In the backdrop of Mattel’s success, China Labor Watch went undercover in 2024 to investigate. We focused our efforts on investigating Chang’an Mattel, a toy manufacturer in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, which is directly owned by Mattel. At the time of investigation, the Chang’an factory was producing Barbie dolls. Posing as regular workers at the factory floor, we conducted worker interviews to understand the day-to-day working environment in the factory.

We found workplace conditions that violate local labor laws as well as 5 out of 8 commitments listed in Mattel’s Responsible Supply Chain Commitment (RSCC). More specifically, we found:

1. an overall culture of sexual harassment,
2. absence of workplace accommodations for reproductive health needs,
3. gender segregation in the workplace and under-representation of women in leadership positions,
4. safety concerns with the living environment,
5. excessive overtime and suspected forced overtime,
6. low wages,
7. workplace bullying,
8. workplace health and safety issues,
9. inadequate training provisions,
10. unmet social security requirements,
11. lack of workers’ representation, and
12. discriminatory hiring practices.

[...] little changes have been made in the factory, following our earlier investigation into two Mattel factories in 2020, where we found that women who work in the assembly line were subjected to sexual harassment, and overall working conditions for all workers contravened local labor laws.

[...] our findings demonstrate that Mattel has not made systemic improvements to better the working conditions for workers in the factory, despite our previous findings highlighting how the working conditions in their factories violate Chinese labor laws.