essay on women's participation in paid work in contemporary times
Answers
Different aspects of female labour, which form a significant part of the total labour force are yet to be analysed although women’s studies had long been identified as a major thrust area of research. It is very important to know the dynamics of female labour force in a restructuring agrarian economy, more so in the case of India having sharp regional differences.
We focus the neutrality of technology and gender. Female agricultural labour and female family labour are the two categories on which the impact of technology is explored under different agro-climatic conditions within Andhra Pradesh. The time allocation of women in agriculture, however, shows that the line between the waged and unwaged activities of a woman often becomes blurred.
Most of the unwaged activity is of expenditure saving type, such as collection of wood, fetching water, child care, and dairying and allied activities. Class, caste and gender in concrete situations have been analysed providing a potential for better understanding of the problem.
The study spans almost the whole of Andhra Pradesh and, perhaps this breadth of analysis somewhat hinders the depth of analysis. Yet, the study gives several insights for further investigations. Researchers interested in gender studies will find the book helpful.
The main thrust of work has been to examine the effect of the seed-fertilizer package on various aspects of women’s labour, waged or unwaged. We have also examined the level of development of a region, its cropping pattern, labour absorption; labour organisation wage payments and other related aspects because she feels that the levels of development of the three regions of the State of Andhra Pradesh she chose for the study are not the same.
However while discussing the differential outcomes in different regions, in several cases, the probable source of difference has not been analysed adequately. A mere mention of a series of differential outcomes without an effort at linking them with the socio-economic development of the regions makes the argument analytically poor.
The common variable in the villages studied comprises availability of the green revolution technology. An attempt has been made to compare the villages grouped as irrigated (command area) with un-irrigated areas (non-command area).
A micro-level analysis of work pattern, employment and unemployment levels of female agricultural workers has been attempted. Rural households undertaken for the study have been classified as agricultural labour households and cultivating households. The total sample size was 182.
The village-wise split-up was done depending on the size of the village. Though almost in all the cases caste factors as well as class factors have been referred to with equal importance, the author mentions that the caste-wise collection of data has not been given importance while deciding the sample; only the class factor has been considered. This is alright as long as there is a high correlation between the two variables, class and caste.
However, in some cases her analysis leaves room to question the existence of this correlation. And in these cases at least the caste factor should have been considered at the time of sample selection. We did not consider the households as the units of analysis because different crucial economic variables affect the members of the households in a different manner. Therefore, we have taken female workers as the unit of analysis.
It is found that close associations exist among caste, literacy and work performed by female agricultural workers. Agricultural workers usually belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward castes. Looking at the literacy rates, it was again found to be the lowest among the above-mentioned castes. Among the forward castes, as educational status improves, women would not work as agricultural workers.
