This paper examines the determinants of female labor force participation in India, against the backdrop of India having one of the lowest participation rates for women among peer countries. Using extensive Indian household survey data, we model the labor force participation choices of women, conditional on demographic characteristics and education, as well as looking at the influence of state-level labor market flexibility and other state policies. Our main finding is that a number of policy initiatives can help boost female economic participation in the states of India, including increased labor market flexibility, investment in infrastructure, and enhanced social spending.

This volume examines the role of women workers who are joining the workforce in urban India. Employment opportunities have opened up and are constantly expanding for women, but this book interrogates whether their working status is breaking gender stereotypes or reaffirming them. It argues that whether women are working in offices or from home, contributing to the IT sector or labouring as petty producers, they are unable to break out of the gendered codes that place them at the lower rungs of the occupational ladder. More importantly, the hierarchical social order, comprising caste, class and ethnic identities, seems to echo in the gendered structure of the labour market as well. This volume studies the intertwining of work with embedded patriarchal notions of women's places in designated spheres, and the overt and covert processes of resistance that women offer in defining new roles and old ones anew.

Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. Dr Sen demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The book provides insight into the lives of poor urban women who were often perceived as prostitutes or social pariahs. Even trade unions refused to address their problems and they remained on the margins of organized political protest. The study will make a signficant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction.

Contents: Gender Dimension in Economic Reform Programmes, Gender Related Issues of Urban Informal Labour Market, Gender Discrimination and Poverty, Women s Participation in Rural Non-Farm Employment, Factors Influencing the Participation of Females in RNFE, Women in Farm and Non-Farm Employment in Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, Employment of Women in the Farm and Non-farm Sector in Goa, Women Enterprises in the Informal Sector in Punjab, Globalisation and Empowerment of Women, Need for Empowerment of Tribal Women, Endowment, Entitlement and Empowerment, Information Economy and Empowerment of Women, Views and Perceptions of DWCRA Beneficiaries, Empowerment of Women Through DWCRA Programme, Empowerment of Women, Welfare and Empowerment of Women in India, Conditions of Scheduled Caste Women in Social Sector, Strategies for Empowerment of Women in India, Problems of Girl Child Labour in India, Women Empowerment.

The last available census estimated around 10 per cent of total urban working women in India are concentrated in the low paid domestic services such as cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children and the elderly. This is found to be much higher in certain parts of India, emerging as the single most important avenue for urban females, surpassing males in the service since the 1980s. By applying an imaginative and refreshing mix of disciplinary approaches ranging from economic models of the household, empirical analysis and literary conventions, this book analyses the changing labour economy in post-partition West Bengal. It explains how and why women and girl children have replaced this traditionally male bias in the gender segregated domestic service industry since the late 1940s, and addresses the question of whether this increase in vulnerable individuals working in domestic service, the growth of the urban professional middle class in the post liberalization period, and the increasing incidences of reported abuses of domestics, in urban middleclass homes in the recent years, are related. Covering five decades of the history of gender and labour in India, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of gender and labour relations, development studies, economics, history, and women and gender studies.

Unorganised Women Labour in India , contains eleven contributions of eminent writers including one contribution of the editor. This book examines the entire gamut of issues relating to women labourers, covering problems, development perspectives and policies. The book presents a dispassionate analysis of the various issues at stake, their implications, particularly in the context of Indian economy. The book will be immensely useful to the labour administrators, planners, researchers and policymakers.

Chapter 1 Social Exclusion of Women in India, Chapter 2 Inclusive Strategies for Women Development, Chapter 3 Media Depiction and Gender Inclusiveness in Gender-Based Social Violence, Chapter 4 Inclusive Society: Vision of Women’s Studies, Chapter 5 Health Hazards of Women-Economic Empowerment: Some Issues, Chapter 6 Employment Oriented Programs for Women in Rural Nagpur— Exclusion in Inclusive Policy, Chapter 7 Including the Excluded Through Aftercare: The Odishan Experiment and Experience with The Aging out Orphan Girls from the Care Homes, Chapter 8 Violence Against Women: A Denial of Human Rights and Dignity, Chapter 9 Impact of Gender on Family Planning Decisions, Chapter 10 Battle Against Oppression: Feminist Response of Bapsi Sidhwa, Chapter 11 An Extensive Analysis on Women’s Education and Women’s Education for Future Prosperity in India, Chapter 12 Performative Gender and Technology: Rearticulating The Digital Argument for Women Empowerment, Chapter 13 The Effect of Social Exclusion of Women from Development in India, Chapter 14 Disaster and Development Communication Among Self Help Group Women, Chapter 15 Trends In Crime Against Women in India, Chapter 16 Strategizing Alternative Communication for Overcoming Social Discrimination of Women: A Study of the Enabling Practices to Eradicate Witch Hunting in Assam, Chapter 17 ‘Is Employment Really Empowering?’—A Study on The Plight of Working Women, Chapter 18 Social Exclusion of Transgender Women in India, Chapter 19 Strategies for Promoting Gender Mainstreaming, Chapter 20 E-Learning: the Tool for Women Empowerment.

This book explores Indian women's economic contribution through paid and unpaid work in different sectors of the economy and society in extremely diverse life situations and geographical locations. It highlights gender implications of interlinkages between local, national, regional and global dimensions of women's paid and unpaid work in India. It encompasses a vast canvas of life worlds of working women in the metropolitan, urban, peri-urban, rural, tribal areas in manufacturing, agricultural, fisheries, sericulture, plantation and service sectors of the Indian economy. It provides nuanced insights into intersectional marginalities of caste, class, ethnicity, religion and gender. The chapters are based on primary data collection and triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. It presents the multiple marginalities of Indian women in the globalized political economy of the 21st century. It not only focuses on emerging issues but also suggests evidence-based policy imperatives. This book is an essential read for researchers, scholars, policymakers, practitioners and students of women/gender studies.