Why do Bangladeshi garment workers feel compelled to work in hazardous factories? People have been asking this since the factory collapse last month that crushed more than 1,100 people to death near Dhaka.
The answer lies in where these young people are within the global economy. At work, they are at the bottom of the global garments value chain. At home, they face a steeply rising cost of living stemming from unpredictable global food and commodity prices.
Halima, a 33-year-old garment industry worker and mother of three, told researchers in 2012: "There is no guarantee for our job stability. What will happen tomorrow, only God knows. We cannot make any plans to save.
"I need nutritious food for my health, but because there is not enough nutritious food in my diet, my working capability is decreasing day by day."
People like Halima are being squeezed by their place in the global economy, and this is why they "choose" to work in death-trap factories.
In 2012, when the fear of price spikes was ever-present following the US drought, our researchers spoke to people in 23 communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia as part of an Oxfam Institute of Development Studies report called "Squeezed: Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility".
The sense of a squeeze on family life, social cohesion and employment was widespread.
Food, fuel and other costs of living have risen since 2007, in some cases by double or treble, or more.
How well people eat is the single best indicator of their wellbeing, and people on low incomes, like Halima, are not satisfied: Few nutritious foods, no protein to speak of, possibly contaminated fish or vegetables, and cheap additives are all a worry, and that is for people who do at least eat regularly. The worst off eat small portions or sometimes not at all. Famine-type behaviours - for example, gathering wild vegetables, eating livestock feed - are common.
The pursuit of cash is also pushing out other priorities. People take on high-risk jobs, such as in garment factories notorious for poor safety records, or in mines. More women are out trying to earn cash to add to the family budget than before, even in cultures where women traditionally stay at home, such as in Pakistan.
This is resulting in important but often overlooked social costs that further squeeze the lives of people living in or near poverty.
The unpaid care work necessary for wellbeing at home is turning into a juggling act, with grandparents and older children drafted in to help with cooking and childcare, where possible. Food shopping has become a marital battle zone: hard work does not guarantee a decent meal, and men that fail to meet their families' most basic needs feel emasculated. And people can afford to help each other less, depending more on earning a daily wage.
Some might argue that wages are now rising across many developing countries. Yet progress is illusory: in real terms, people feel their wages are not keeping pace with five years of food price rises and they are in fact worse off.
Many worry they can no longer save or plan for the future. Farming has become so uncertain that neither parents nor young people themselves see a future in it. Most avoid it as risky, unrewarding, hard and dirty work.
Policymakers are unlikely to worry that women are juggling paid and unpaid work, or that men are feeling like failures. But they will want to pay attention to what these changes add up to.
Unchecked food price rises are pushing out all other priorities. The importance once paid to the invaluable work of caring for families and the social cohesion built through socialising and helping neighbours are being replaced with calculations about daily incomes and the cost of living.
This is social change by stealth, with people being dragged into the ever-tighter coils of the global economy.
These hidden costs of food price rises on individuals and communities will worsen with time. Governments cannot indefinitely rely on the resilience of individuals or the ability of families to absorb extra unpaid care responsibilities. The assumption that communities will take care of each other in times of stress will no longer hold.
Poor people expect their governments to stabilise food prices and listen to their concerns about the cost of living. Yet their worries about food price rises affect the things that matter in everyday life _ how they care for and live alongside each other _ are not heard in global food policy debates.
Until they are, the pressures of life in a time of food price volatility mean we are likely to see far more tragic cases of workers risking their lives in dangerous factories.
Naomi Hossain is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies UK, and co-author of 'Squeezed: Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility, Year 1 Results.