Women,Work and the

Economy
Topic: Feminization of work
Date of presentation:
Group Members: 09/EC/15
09/EC/63
09/EC/55
09/EC/72
09/EC/22
 WOMEN AND WORK- AN INTRODUCTION

The global economy has created a flexible labour market and the myth of ‘feminization
of work’, in reality; it has led to unemployment and underemployment of women in
India. One study puts female unemployment at six to seven times that of men.

In recent years, ‘feminization of work’ has earned an important role in various studies
such as Economics and Development studies. This project takes India as a specific case
and highlights the growing importance of women and their role in various industries of
the country.

Female underemployment is increasing at a faster rate than for men. India has 397
million workers out of which 123.9 million are women. 106 million of these workers are
in the rural areas and the remaining 18 million work in urban areas. Only 7% of India’s
huge labour force is in the organized sector, which includes workers on regular salaries,
in registered companies and firms. The rest of the workers – 93% work in the
unorganized or informal sector. The figures for women workers in India are even more
dismal – almost 96% of the women workers are in the unorganized sector. The female
work participation rate (WPR) has increased overall from 19.7% in 1981 to 25.7% in
2001. In the rural areas it has increased from 23.1 to 31% and in the urban areas it has
risen from 8.3 to 11.6%. ‘Participation’, however, has been largely distress induced and
has compelled women to take up jobs which offer very poor wages and no social security.

There has been a significant increase in women employed in petty retail trade, hotels and
restaurants in the last decade as part of survival strategy of poor urban households. These
are typically low paying jobs where women work for long hours without any benefits and
face sexual harassment.

The 9 sectors where 90% Indian women work are agriculture, live stock, textiles and
textile products, beverage and tobacco, food products, construction, petty retail trade,
education and research and domestic services.
SECTOR WISE EMPLOYMENT:
1993-94 1999-2000
Sector Number Per cent Number Per cent
1. Agriculture 8,10,13,000 66.6 7,91,30,000 64.3
2. Live stock 1,18,55,000 9.7 1,10,74,000 9.0
3. Textiles & textile products 36,24,000 3.0 34,79,000 2.8
4. Beverage &Tobacco 30.19,000 2.5 36,76,000 3.0
5. Food products 13,53,000 1.1 13,17,000 1.1
6. Construction 16,48,000 1.4 20,57,000 1.7
7. (Petty) Retailtrade 31,22,000 2.6 42,28,000 3.4
8. Education &Research 23,22,000 1.9 32,90,000 2.7
9. Personal services(domestic) 44,22,000 3.6 39,25,000 3.2

In the urban areas a majority of women work in the informal sector, which include
household industries, building construction, petty trade or in domestic services. There has
been a significant increase in the casualization or informalization of the workforce both
male and female since the late 1970s. In 1983, casual workers accounted for 31.5% of the
workers, in comparison, 7.5% were salaried and 61% were self-employed. The latest
round of the national sample survey records an increase of casual workers to 37.3% in
1999-2000. While salaried workers have fallen to 6.7% of the total, the self-employed
category has fallen from 61% to 56%. The National Sample Survey shows that during
1999-2000 the self employed accounted for 55% of male employment and 57% of female
employment. About 36% of employed males and 40% of employed women were casual
labourers. Only 9% of employed men and 3% of employed women were regular
employees.

The handloom industry which has been the largest employer of women after agriculture
and live stock suffered serious setbacks in the 1990s and is slowly being replaced by the
beedi industry as the largest employer. Women are the main work force of both the
handloom and powerloom sectors.

Tirupur, a small town in Tamil Nadu is the largest export center for knit wear production
in India accounting for 20% of direct exports and 50% of all exports if re-exported sales
to the big cities in India are included. Production facilities moved to Tirupur from
Calcutta after a series of strikes. This period witnessed the decline of the local handloom
industry leaving many women workers unemployed or underemployed and they started to
get involved in the production process as helpers to the male workers in cutting,
arranging and folding jobs. From 1985 onwards with massive expansion of exports from
Tirupur there has been accelerated subcontracting and informalization of labour. There
has been feminization of the work force with women now constituting 60% of the total
work force. The women between the ages of 15 and 30 work for very poor wages with
daily incomes just above half the minimum wages in the area. Activities like tailoring
which is considered to be of a higher skill are still the preserve of men.

Thus the feminization of employment is to provide the cheapest possible production for
international suppliers to ensure maximum profits.

Continuing the discussion on the textile industry, the conditions of women workers in the
garment industry in the Peenya industrial estate in Bangalore are once again deplorable.
The garment industry in Bangalore employs about 1.5 lakh workers of which more than
80% are women. Several international name brands are manufactured here. The Rs 4,000
crore industry is export oriented. The average work day for the women in the industry is
10-12 hours. In many factories that employ more than 500 women there are no more than
4 or 5 toilets. The factories have neither a rest room nor a crechè. The salary range is
1500-2000 rupees per month which is far below that stipulated by the government.
Annual leave, benefits, bonus are all very rarely given. Many of the employers are
provident fund defaulters. This industry classically exemplifies the exploitation of
workers in the export processing zones set up in the country aimed at promoting export
and growth

Women workers in domestic services in 1999-2000 constituted 3.2% of the workforce

and this comprised of 39,25,000 workers. The services provided include cooking,
cleaning utensils, washing, babysitting amongst other responsibilities. In the ‘global
economy’ there has been an emergence of a new professional class of workers that
includes well educated women. With this there has been a need for domestic servants to
help the professional women in their daily chores. However, even in this sector, there has
been a decline in the number of women employed from 1993-94 to 1999-2000. The
percentage has fallen from 3.6 to 3.2 and the actual numbers have declined from
44,22,000 to 39,25,000.

The IT industry has been touted as the panacea for all the problems in India. It is
considered to open up avenues in favour of women. However, there is data to show that
women professionals are still a minority in this sector with a clear trend towards
clustering at the lower ends of the job leading to feminization of service centers. In the
years 2000, 5,22,250 people were employed. 79% of the software professionals were men
and 21% were women.

Education and healthcare are increasingly being privatized. These sectors employ large
numbers of women for low wages with no social security. Moolchand hospital, a large
private hospital in New Delhi, intimidated women workers and forced many of them to
sign a contract that denied them the right to engage in any trade union activities and to
accept consolidated pay. Those who refused to sign and went on strike were dismissed on
framed up charges. The challenges for women workers in these sectors are multifold and
any resistance is met with force by the employers in complicity with the police and the
state. Established trade unions do not often give priority to the problems of women
workers. For example in the case of sexual harassment of a nurse in the Lala Ram
Swarup TB hospital of New Delhi, the employees’ union was not prepared to take up the
case. It was only after that nurse went on a hunger strike and womens’ organizations
intervened that the union had to take a stand.
The industries majority of the women work force are engaged in and their
conditions:

Working Women and the problems they face in India:

It is an open truth that working women have to face problems just by virtue of their being
women. Working women here are referred to those who are in paid employment. Social
attitude to the role of women lags much behind the law. This attitude which considers
women fit for certain jobs and not others colors those who recruit employees. Thus
women find employment easily as nurses, doctors, teachers the caring and nurturing
sectors, secretaries or in assembling jobs-the routine submissive sectors. But even if well
qualified women engineers or managers or geologists are available, preference will be
given to a male of equal qualification. A gender bias creates an obstacle at the
recruitment stage itself. When it comes to remuneration the law proclaims equality but it
is seldom put into practice. The inbuilt conviction that women are capable of less work
than men or less efficient than men governs this injustice of unequal salaries and wages
for the same job.

Te following are 5 industries where the majority of the workers are women, the analysis
focuses on the plight of these employed women and how gender difference always
hinders their advancements.

Women as domestic help:

Domestic help in India is considered to be one of the most denigrating and humiliating
jobs without any social security or decent wages. Today, almost every household in India
has domestic help for cleaning, washing or cooking. These people have usually travelled
from rural areas in search of jobs to the towns and cities. Most are women and young
teenagers who are trafficked into this kind of employment. This sector is totally
unorganized with few or no laws regulating their employment conditions.

Majority of these women toil away with no fixed working hours and manage their large
families as well. we forget that they are also human beings and they have a right to their
basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter and along with it have a right to equal
protection by the laws of our land
Shonali, a 20 year old from Sundarbans , West Bengal , joined work at the age of 17. She
was brought by her uncle to the city to work and send back the money every month. She
gets a small corner in the kitchen to sleep in. Has no clothes except the ones brought with
her from her village. She cleans cooks and serves the 8 person, 7 bedroom two floored
house on a monthly sum of six hundred rupees. If she falls ill, she is given no respite
from work till she recovers.
There are many like her, many younger than her working in houses ten times bigger ,
mistreated frequently, criticised and forced to work for over 15 hours in a day. Many are
part time but a large number reside in the house in which they are employed as most of
them have left their villages in search of work. Most of these people have huge families
to support back in their village and send back almost all their earnings. For them life is a
struggle and constant pressure to take care of their loved ones with no time to live for
themselves.
These women are part of the growing informal sector that has no fixed hours of work or
fixed wages. There is no security of tenure as a worker may come back from her holiday
only to find that someone else has taken her place. She often does not get a weekly off or
any paid holiday. The threat of sexual harassment is an ever-present one.
90% domestic workers in India are women, girls or children ranging from ages 12 to 75
and it is estimated that 25% are below the age of 14. Domestic workers take on the job
due to unsteady domestic circumstances at their own households, e.g male and rural
employment, sole breadwinner of the family, abusive or alcoholic husbands, etc. The
overall claim to the reason of work is the adverse conditions of poverty and the failure of
the government to eradicate or make the situation better.
Many of these young girls and women, are trafficked to cities from states like West
Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand. The source districts are some of the poorest in the country,
inhabited by minorities, mainly scheduled tribes. Many of these girls and women are
lured by agents in the villages with incentives of a good pay and life.

Women in the teaching profession:

Whenever we think of a teacher we always think of her to be a woman. This is a common

misconception, the reason being that we believe, especially in our country, that a woman
is not capable of handling jobs which are more strenuous because of their so called poor
emotional intelligence. Also it is assumed that women are more nurturing and caring and
are more capable of handling children with care, and it is believed that teaching is
something which does not take a high level of effort. This is completely incorrect when
we see how in the educational process which involves curriculum and evaluation,
syllabus and textbooks, the teacher's role is supreme. The teacher occupies a vital
position in the entire system of education. Even the best system of education may fail to
achieve the desired ends in the hands of an incompetent teacher who cannot deliver the
goods.
It has been said - Of all the different factors which influence the quality of education and
its contribution to the national development, the quality, competence and character of
teachers are undoubtedly the most significant.
In India, The men often believe that when the women of their house work as teachers,
there are not as hardworking as the men and expect them to handle all the housework and
children on their own, not realizing that despite teaching in most cases not being a full
day’s work includes a lot of effort and hard work on the part of a teacher who is expected
to handle a variety of students.
Despite the work they put in, they still manage to balance their household chores as well,
taking care of the children, husbands, in laws and house. Something which most men
can’t even remotely think of doing.

Women in the Beedi rolling industry:

Beedi rolling is one of the major informal sector activities in India, which employs a
large number of women. The Government of India estimates that there are about 4.4
million workers in this industry. Of these, the majority are home-based women workers
who live under the poverty line.
Beedi rolling is an entirely manual process. Laborers must painstakingly place tobacco inside a
small tendu leaf, tightly roll the leaf and secure the product with a thread. This process is largely
home-based and is dominated by women and children. An average roller can achieve a daily
output of about 1000 beedis per day. An already vulnerable sector of society, women and children
engaged in beedi rolling face abuse, financial enslavement, and a number of health problems
Women and the problems they face rolling beedis :

• Women make the largest proportion of labor in the beedi industry. Published
literature estimate women make up 76% of total beedi employment.The All India
Beedi, Cigar, and Tobacco Workers Federation estimates women comprise 90 –
95% of total employment in beedi manufacture.
• Women are primarily beedi rollers. Workers typically operate from their homes.
Other members of the family actively assist in the beedi rolling, especially
children.
• Middlemen are known to supply female laborers with low quality tendu leaves.
They also reject beedis deemed poor quality, but eventually take them without
paying.
• Minimum wages are fixed by the state governments and revised from time to
time. However, International Labor Organization findings indicate that such
provisions had scarcely any impact on home-based workers.8 Fixed wages for
rolling 1000 bidis varies from Rs. 29.0 in Tripura to Rs. 64.8 in Gujarat.
• The process releases large amounts of coarse particles and dust into the work
environment (typically the home).
• Rollers do no wear protective clothing, gloves or masks, and are exposed to
tobacco dust through their skin and by inhaling the harmful particles.
• The Factory Advisory Services and Labor Institute in Bombay, a unit of the Labor
Ministry of India, found the incidence of bronchial asthma and tuberculosis to
higher among beedi workers than any other group in the general population.
• Further health effects include pain and cramping in the shoulders, neck, back,
lower abdomen, anemia and eye problems.
• Female beedi rollers report physical and verbal abuse based on gender and caste
differences.

Women and the agricultural sector in India:

Rural Indian women are extensively involved in agricultural activities. However the
nature and extent of their involvement differs with the variations in agroproduction
systems. The mode of female participation in agricultural production varies with the
landowning status of farm households. Their roles range from managers to landless
labourers. In over all farm production, women average contribution is estimated at 55%
to 66% of the total labour with percentages, much higher in certain regions. In the Indian
Himalayas a pair of bullocks works 1064 hours, a man 1212 hours and a woman 3485
hours in a year on a once hectare farm, a figure that illustrates women significant
contribution to agricultural production.

• As globalization shifts agriculture to capital intensive, chemical intensive

systems, women bear disproportionate cots of both displacement and health
hazards.
• Women carry the heavier work burden in food production, and because of gender
discrimination get lower returns for their work. When WTO destroys rural
livelihoods, it is women who loose the most. When WTO rules allow dumping
which leads to decline in prices of farm products, it is women - already low
incomes, which go down further.
• Their position is also more vulnerable because as the livelihoods and incomes of
farmers in general, and women agriculturists in particular are eroded, they are
displaced from productive roles, women in agriculture and their status is further
devalued, while the patriarchal power of those who control assets and benefit
from asset transfer due to globalisation is increased, other social processes are
triggered which result in increased violence against women.
• The violence associated with displacement, devaluation and disempowerment
takes the form of intensive violence, increasing incidences of rape, the epidemic
of female foeticide, and growth in trafficking of women. Women also bear the
ultimate burden of farm suicides, since they are left to look after their households
without assets but with the burden of indebtness.

A woman’s life in an Export Processing Zone (EPZ):

THE women call it 'the Boundary'. The barbed-wire fence which encloses them for up to
12 hours a day lies hidden behind a facade of manicured lawns and smart-looking
buildings of the Noida Export Processing Zone (NEPZ), 24 km from Delhi.

Inside, it is hot, dirty and dangerous. Security is tight - humiliating body-searches are
routine - and trade union activity is forbidden. But for the nearly 4,000 women - many
landless, illiterate and unskilled - who work in the zone, the choices are stark: work under
these appalling conditions or starve.

'She was six months pregnant. Her baby died in her stomach. It was blue, we learnt later.
She was like any other worker who stood for eight or more hours,' an employee says
about another

'I lied about my marital status at the time of recruitment,' adds another. 'We had to send
our three-month-old baby to my parents' home as we cannot afford a private creche.'
Established in 1985, NEPZ is one of six such zones in the country. Women make up 40%
of its workforce. Like export processing zones (EPZs) across Asia, factories here like to
hire women - preferably single - believing them to be more docile and productive than
men. Between 1994 and 1996, the number of women workers here tripled while that of
men doubled as India pursued an aggressive growth strategy.

NEPZ has posted record profits - the value of exports increased from Rs720 million
(US$16.8 million) in 1990-1991 to Rs6.04 billion (US$141 million) in 1997-1998.
But this growth has brought little cheer to the lives of workers, especially women.
Wages in the zone are lower than outside and workers have to cope with harsh working
and pitiful living conditions - overcrowded slums that lack sanitation, clean water and
access to government schools and health services.

Maternity benefits are unknown and minimum wages unenforced, particularly in the case
of women workers. And employers often avoid making provident fund and gratuity
contributions and bonus payments.

Dhiraj Singh, a manager at Garmex India, whose export-ready garments are stitched by
600 women and 100 men, is remarkably frank about hiring practices.
'There are so many benefits with women employees,- he says. 'Administratively, it is easy
to control women. We do not need to have too much security. We prefer the age group 18
to 30 years, preferably single.' Singh goes on to explain that only married women will ask
for maternity leave.
Savitri (not her real name), a female supervisor in Garmex, confirms the discriminatory
practices. Women workers who marry are thrown out, she says. At the time of
recruitment, women have to take a compulsory pregnancy test. Those found pregnant are
refused work. Overtime is compulsory for most but women are paid lower rates than
men.

Dismal:

Women who work there do get pregnant, however, and the health outcomes for them and
their infants are often dismal. Miscarriages, premature births and deaths among new-born
babies may largely be due to maternal anaemia and poor nutritional status, according to
health workers.
Dr Pratibha Sharma, who has run a clinic for the last 10 years in a shantytown near
NEPZ, says the level of exploitation is 'unimaginable'.
She says women workers have frequent abortions - often unsafe - for fear of losing their
jobs. Respiratory problems, pelvic inflammatory disease and severe cases of dehydration
are common. Anaemia is chronic and severe.
Sharma says miscarriages are very common and believes they are due to forced overtime,
coupled with women's double burden of having to do housework as well.
Quacks proliferate in EPZ slums, providing abortion for a fee. They are sought out by
desperate women unwilling to face hostile health workers at government hospitals. 'I see
many horror cases,' Sharma says. 'There was a five-month-pregnant woman whose
rectum and vagina were perforated due to a faulty abortion.'

Daily struggle:

But horrors lie outside the clinic as well, in the daily lives of women. One such woman is
Sita, a Nepalese migrant worker in a surgical gloves factory who heads a household of
two daughters ' one of them married with an infant.
'We thought life would be easier for us here but it is a struggle. My daughters have to
work as my income alone cannot sustain the family,' she says. Home is a tiny room. And
seven families share one toilet. The married daughter sends her child to a creche where
she pays Rs500 every month out of a meagre salary of Rs1, 800 .
For Sita and her daughters, the day starts before dawn and ends at midnight. 'All the work
that has been left in the morning has to be done in the evening,' she says, adding that her
son-in-law 'just sits and orders us around'. Even under these conditions, many women
workers are expected to produce sons demanded of them by husbands and parents-in-law.

Such are the horrific and pitiable conditions of women in 5 industries where they form
majority of the work force.
‘What is to be done?’ – A Conclusion: Organizing the Unorganized

The existing legislation does not protect the vast majority of the women workers in the
country. The Factories Act, 1948 covers working conditions, health and safety, basic
amenities like toilets, creches, working hours etc but does not apply to work places with
fewer than 10 workers using power driven machinery or less than 20 workers without
such machinery. Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 providing for sickness, accident
and maternity benefits at the ground level does not apply to the vast majority of women
workers. The Employers by sub contracting production and dividing the establishment
into small units are able to evade all the existing laws. The Contract Labour Act, 1971
has been flouted by not just the private enterprises but the Government itself by the
employment of contract labour for work of perennial nature. The Industrial Disputes Act
of 1947 prevents arbitrary closure of industrial establishments and provides redress for
workers dismissed for participation in trade union activities. This act does not apply to
workers in the informal sector. Without the protection that this act provides (at least in
theory) workers in the informal sector can be victimized or dismissed for participating in
union activities. There are many obstacles to organizing women in the informal sector.
Women with the dual burden of working long hours in poor working conditions on the
one hand and raising children and the domestic chores on the other find it hard to come to
meetings.

One example is that of the Hong Kong union which regularly visited janitors (domestic
workers) working in housing complexes. Every visit was made by 2 activists because one
had to do the work in place of the worker who was being informed about her rights. This
reduced the work burden of the cleaner in addition to paving the way for confidence
building. It was also discussed that centers needed to be set up close to the workplaces.
The proximity will help union members to actively get involved with the women and
share their interests and concerns. It was felt that it is important to provide services like
child care to help lessen the burden of the workers.The struggles have to start with wages
and job security and then move beyond those issues to raising the class consciousness of
the workers. These struggles have to gradually move from the factories to the streets. The
conditions for women workers can ultimately improve only through their participation in
the revolutionary movement and only the victory of the working class can bring their
emancipation.

Despite the pitiable conditions of most women workers, there has been feminization of
work in many fields. Earlier women weren’t allowed in many fields, they were
encouraged to work in more docile industries, but now we have women in all parts of the
world including India as pilots, astronauts, scientists, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers,
authors, actors, sportspersons and a variety of other occupations which were once
completely out of bounds to them. Yes, they are still marginalized, being minorities in
these once forbidden industries but are fast overcoming barriers and are competing with
men for higher posts and better rewards. Soon there will be a day when the slowly but
surely advancing women will take over these industries as leaders as well.