Labor, social sustainability and the underlying vulnerabilities of work in Southeast Asia's seafood value chains

The seafood industry, comprised of capture fisheries, aquaculture and their supporting value chains, plays a major role in the economy and society of Southeast Asia. Fish is the most important source of animal protein in many countries in the region (Belton and Thilsted 2014) and plays a central role in cuisine and culture in both inland and coastal areas. Expansion of the region’s seafood sector has seen sustained increases in capture fisheries output and, more recently, the meteoric rise of aquaculture, with reported growth in the two sub-sectors averaging 2.9 percent and 9.7 percent per annum, respectively since 1990 (Figure 25.1). Fish make vital contributions to livelihoods and nutrition in vulnerable rural and coastal communities, but are also important to the urban middle class, whose growth – to include a projected 66 percent of the region’s population by 2030 (Kharas 2010) – is likely to result in even higher levels of demand for seafood products (Hall et al. 2011). The reg...