Missing Labour or Consistent DeFeminisation

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Missing Labour or Consistent “De-Feminisation”?
Vinoj Abraham

“Missing labour force in India” – the recent fluctuations in the labour participation of women – is probably due to short-term shifts in activities responding to favourable economic conditions. Such fluctuations need to be placed in the context of a structural change in labour participation wherein the share of women in the labour force as well as labour participation rate of women has been declining for the last quarter of a century. Upward social mobility in Indian patriarchal society in the wake of growing incomes is probably symbolised by women’s withdrawal from paid labour and their confinement to unpaid domestic activities. Even under such adverse conditions employment growth of women is not stagnant. Those who do enter and remain in the labour market are women from the most vulnerable households, as marginalised informal paid labour, thus feminising the most precarious forms of labour in the country.

1 Introduction

Comments received on an earlier draft from Praveena Kodoth, A V Jose, Mridul Eapen, Devika J and Linda Koshy have been extremely beneficial. The comments received during an open seminar at the Centre for Development Studies and from an anonymous referee were useful. I gratefully acknowledge them for their efforts. I alone am responsible for all views expressed. Vinoj Abraham ([email protected]) is at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.
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significant slowdown in the growth rate of labour force in India during the period 2004-05 to 2009-10 has been reported by many scholars (Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2011; Rangarajan et al 2011; Kannan and Reveendran 2012 among others). These studies had identified “Missing female labour” as the single most important component that accounted for the decline in aggregate labour force. While some have portrayed this decline as a positive effect caused mainly due to rising participation in education among young females (Rangarajan et al 2011) others have been pessimistic, claiming that it was crowding-out of female labour in the face of agricultural stagnation and slowdown of economic growth (Kannan and Raveendran 2012). Another alternative viewpoint being put forward is that this decline might be the reversal of an exceptional increase in female labour force caused by agrarian distress during the earlier period 1999-2000 to 2004-05 (Abraham 2009; Himanshu 2011; Klasen and Pieters 2012; Neff et al 2012; Thomas 2012). With a rise in income1 in the later period female labour that was added during the earlier period has probably withdrawn from the labour force. To decipher the meaning of such fluctuations of female labour force participation in India it may be necessary to set these short-term changes in the context of long-term persistent trends. The rural female labour force participation rate (LFPR) usual principal status (UPS) had been declining, by and large continuously, since the first quinquennial survey in 1972-73 from 32% to 18.1% in 2011-12 except for the distress-affected year 2004-05 (Table 2). For urban females the LFPR (UPS) had been stagnant in the low and narrow range of 12.6% to 13.4% for nearly three decades starting from 1983, again, except for the year 2004-05 when it jumped to 14.9%, and since then have returned to levels within its long-term equilibrium range at 13.4%. The usual principal+subsidiary status (UPSS) measure also brings out similar trends. Thus a decline in LFPR for rural and urban females during the period 2004-05 to 2011-12, is in line with the long-term trend path. Withdrawal of females from the labour force in the long term, namely, “de-feminisation” of the labour force, seems to be consistent with the larger structural trend. The occasional spurts in female labour participation may be a response of joint utility maximising households towards subsistence under dire economic conditions. Why does de-feminisation of labour force occur? Why does female LFPR decline, rather than increase, with better economic conditions in India? To answer these questions the process of economic development needs to be contextualised
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within a gender framework. This paper is an attempt to analyse this persistence of de-feminisation of the labour force in India. The reports and unit level records of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on employment and unemployment in India obtained from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) are utilised to do the analysis. Data used from the reports have been collated for the period 1973-74 to 2011-12, while the data used from the unit records are limited to the period 1983 to 2009-10 for which unit records are available currently.2 Interpolated population projections using compound annual growth rates from the Census of India were used to arrive at labour force after estimating them separately for sectoral and sex categories. The paper is organised as follows. After the introduction the second section provides the analytical context. The third section examines the empirical dimensions of de-feminisation of labour force in India. The fourth section analyses the participation of women in unpaid domestic activities and the following section looks into the role of education in women’s labour force participation. The sixth section draws on the implications of this phenomenon by analysing the industrial distribution of women workers, and the last section offers broad conclusions of the study.
2 Analytical Background

The most celebrated theoretical proposition that links women’s labour force participation with economic development, the U-shaped feminisation hypothesis, argues that when subsistence economies transform to developing economies, women withdraw from the labour force and thereafter beyond a minimum threshold the participation rates of women starts rising (Sinha 1967; Durand 1975; Goldin 1995; Mammen and Paxson 2000). The U-shaped curve takes this form owing to the substitution and income effects on women’s choice between domestic unpaid work and paid work. In subsistence economies women contribute labour towards subsistence agricultural production as unpaid family labour along with domestic activities, thus suffering from double burden of work. With the rise of commercialised agriculture, structural transformation, enhancement in household income and gender-based wage differentials, opportunity cost of domestic activities for women increases while that of paid labour of women decreases. Hence they tend to withdraw from the labour force, termed as the “income effect”. With the rise of service sector white-collar jobs, institutionalised-care giving, expansion of education among women and declining wage differentials, the opportunity cost of paid labour for women increases. Thereafter women “substitute” domestic activities for paid work. The influential work of Goldin (1995) provides evidences of such a U-shaped female participation pattern in the US. Yet the above framework assumes away the fundamental gender relations that regulate women’s participation in paid work. Socialist-feminist construct of the development of capitalism exploit gender relations to explain de-feminisation. With the development of capitalist organisation of production
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in a patriarchal social system, female labour progressively undergoes “female marginalisation” (Hartman 1976; Boserup 2008; Mies 1982). The shift from attached labour in the feudal agricultural system to wage labour in capitalist farming realigns the household division of labour among worker households. Wage labour is appropriated by males from the reserve army of labour produced through the process of proletarianisation of peasants, while female labour is directed towards unpaid domestic activities. With sectoral diversification and technological change the emerging skill-biased demand for labour is gender segregated due to gender-biased progress in education. Women are then obligated to either withdraw from the labour force or enter as secondary workers. Further, the shift in location of work away from the homestead also push women out of the labour force (Hartman 1976) making them economically dependent on men. In this process, the economic status of the male worker in the labour market, the main bread winner, attains significance as the most important indicator for social status of the household. On the other hand women’s paid work represents low social status and is stigmatised. Upward social mobility of households is symbolised by labour market participation of males, marginalisation of women in the labour force and domestication of women as shown in studies on Indian households (Kala 1976; Mies 1982). With economic development and rising household income these cultural preferences find expression through withdrawal of women from the labour market and confinement to domestic arena. Social status linked to women’s mobility is ingrained in the caste system as well. Probably rising from the need for sexual purity, women belonging to upper castes in India lived in domestic isolation while lower-caste women typically engaged in livelihood and income generating activities (Boserup 2008). Under such gender norms rising household income may only aggravate the already skewed intra-household income distribution. Women, then, substitute paid labour with “status production” activities such as education of children, healthcare of the members of the family, engaging in rites and rituals, etc, as her survival strategy (Papenak 1979). Status production enhances social status of the household. Women, at the same time, claim their economic security within the household through production of status. Substitution of paid labour with such status production activities is evident among rural Indian women (Eswaran et al 2011). Further, education among women may become a means to enhance the efficiency of status production of women, rather than a route to autonomy. Jeffery and Jeffery (1994) posited that education may be enabling women to internalise patriarchal norms, and thus reproduce status more efficiently. I shall now try to provide empirical evidence to the above argument that rising household income may be enabling women to withdraw from paid labour in conformity to patriarchal norms while giving them relief from the double burden of work. Also, evidence is given to argue that women’s education may be aggravating de-feminisation, probably linked to status production activities.
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it was stagnant at around 13% (Table 2). In fact the process of de-feminisation is visible from 1972-73 itself. The share of 3.1 Trends females in the labour force had declined from 32.6% to 27.9% The process of de-feminisation is marked by two visible trends. during the period 1972-73 to 1983. Parthasarathy and Nirmala First, there is a secular decline in female LFPR during the (1999) also showed that this process of women’s withdrawal period 1983 to 2011-12. Second, a secular decline in the share had started before the 1990s, while Varghese (1993) argued of females in the labour market during the same period is visi- that the process had been in place from the 1950s itself. Kodoth ble. During the period 1983 to 2011-12 the male labour force and Eapen (2005) noticed this phenomenon of de-feminisation increased from 198.5 million to 348 million, while for females of labour force in Kerala, a state that enjoys gender parity in various other social indicators. Table 1: Labour Force (in millions) and Growth Rate (in %) Rural Male Rural Female Urban Male Urban Female Total The declining share of female participaPS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS tion can be divided into two phases. In the Labour force first phase (1983 to 1993-94), the number 1983 150.7 154.8 66.7 90.5 47.8 48.6 10.2 12.6 275.4 306.6 of both male and female members in the 1987-88 161.6 166.8 72.7 94.8 54.5 55.1 11.8 14.9 300.7 331.5 labour force increased but at different rates 1993-94 185.5 189.6 75.3 105.1 66.6 66.7 14.5 18.2 342.0 379.6 1999-2000 198.5 201.2 82.7 106.3 77.9 78.3 16.4 19.1 375.5 404.9 such that the share of females in the labour 2004-05 216.9 220.4 94.0 125.2 93.5 94.3 22.4 26.7 426.6 466.6 force deteriorated from 31% to 29% in rural 2009-10 230.4 233.7 82.8 105.5 104.8 105.3 22.2 25.4 440.2 469.9 areas and from 19.6% to 18% in urban areas 2011-12 236.0 238.8 74.2 103.6 111.8 112.5 25.0 28.8 447.0 483.7 (Table 3). Compound annual growth rate In the second phase (1993-94 to 2011-12) 1983 to 1993-94 2.10 2.05 1.22 1.51 3.37 3.22 3.55 3.70 2.19 2.16 the growth rate of female labour force (LF) 1993-94 to 2009-10 1.09 1.05 0.48 0.02 2.29 2.31 2.15 1.69 1.27 1.07 was almost completely stagnant, at 0.55% 1993-94 to 1999-2000 1.14 0.99 1.58 0.18 2.65 0.81 0.60 0.25 1.57 1.08 per annum (Table 1) while the male LF grew 1999-2000 to 2004-05 1.78 1.85 2.59 3.32 3.71 3.77 6.43 6.94 2.58 2.88 nearly at more than triple the rate at 1.8% 2004-05 to 2009-10 1.22 1.18 -2.50 -3.36 2.31 2.24 -0.11 -1.03 0.63 0.14 1999-2000 to 2009-10 1.50 1.51 0.01 -0.08 3.01 3.00 3.11 2.88 1.60 1.50 per annum The growth rate of rural female 1993-94 to 2011-12 1.34 1.29 -0.08 -0.08 2.91 2.94 3.06 2.57 1.49 1.35 labour force was -0.08% and for urban f emales it was 3.06%,3 compared to 1.34% Source: Estimated from LFPR reported in various NSS reports on employment and unemployment and Census of India, various years. and 2.91%, respectively, for males. This Table 2: Labour Force Participation Rates (in %) resulted in the share of females in the rural labour force Rural Male Rural Female Urban Male Urban Female declining from 28.8% to 23.9%, while in the urban areas it PS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS increased marginally from 18% to 18.3%. Overall the share 1972-73 55.2 32 52.6 14.3 of females declined from 26.6% to 22.2% during this period 1977-78 54.9 55.9 26.2 33.8 53.2 53.7 15 17.8 (Table 3). Noticeably, stagnation in growth of female LF had 1983 54 55.5 25.2 34.2 53.1 54 12.9 15.9 been during when the female population growth was margin1987-88 53.2 54.9 25.4 33.1 52.8 53.4 12.9 16.2 ally higher than males.4 The rural female LFPR declined from 1993-94 54.9 56.1 23.7 33.1 54.2 54.3 13.2 16.5 23.7% to 18.1% and the urban female LFPR remained at 13% 1999-2000 53.3 54 23.5 30.2 53.9 54.2 12.6 14.7 during the period. 2004-05 54.6 55.5 25 33.3 56.6 57.1 14.9 17.8 2009-10 54.8 55.6 20.8 26.5 55.6 55.9 12.8 14.6 The first dimension of de-feminisation, namely, the declin2011-12 54.7 55.3 18.1 25.3 56.0 56.3 13.4 15.5 ing female LFPR indicates that women are withdrawing from Source: NSS Reports on employment and unemployment in India (various rounds). the labour force and entering other activities. The second Table 3: Female Labour Force as a Percentage of Total Labour Force dimension, declining share of women in labour market, Rural Urban Total probably points to women being competed out by male labour. PS PSSS PS PSSS PS PSSS The stagnation in female labour force during the second phase 1972-73 35.48 18.9 32.68 may be viewed as the accentuation of the process of de-feminisa1977-78 31.20 36.48 19.6 22.5 28.94 33.84 tion, marked by the decline in female LFPR and share of 1983 30.68 36.89 17.6 20.6 27.92 33.63 females in the labour force during the first phase. 1987-88 31.03 36.24 17.8 21.3 28.13 33.06
3 De-feminisation of Labour Force
1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009-10 2011-12 28.87 29.41 30.23 26.44 23.92 35.66 34.57 36.23 31.10 30.25 17.9 17.4 19.3 17.5 18.3 21.4 19.6 22.1 19.4 20.4 26.26 26.38 27.26 23.85 22.19 32.48 30.97 32.55 27.85 27.37

3.2 Level of Income and Withdrawal of Female Labour

Source: Same as Table 2.

the increase was from 77 million to 99 million by UPS criteria, reducing the share of females in the labour market from 28% to 22% (Tables 1 and 3). During the same period the LFPR of rural females declined from 25.2% to 18.1%, and for the urban females
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The feminisation-U predicts an inverse relation between household income levels and female LFPR at initial stages of development and a direct relation in the later stage. To look into the relation between income levels and female participation we divide the households into decile classes based on the level of household (HH) monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE), a robust proxy for income level, given that income data is not available from the NSS data. Further, we
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estimate the female labour force participation using the UPS criteria for the period 1983 to 2009-10 for all deciles.
Figure 1: Rural Female LFPR by MPCE Class 1983 to 2009-10
50 40 30 20

Table 4: Ratio of Female Labour Force Participation Rate ( in % by HH-MPCE Class 1983 to 2009 -10)
1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009-10

1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 1983 2004-2005

10 0 0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40

2009-2010
40-50 50-60 HHMPCE Percentiles 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100

Source: Estimated from NSS unit level data, 38th, 43rd, 50th, 55th 61st and 66th, NSSO, Central Statistical Organisation, Government of India.

Rural 5th decile female LFPR 1st/10th decile 1st/5th decile 5th/10th decile Urban 5th decile female LFPR 1st/10th decile 1st/5th decile 5th/10th decile
Source: Same as Figure 1.

41.04 1.24 1.10 1.13 21.77 0.95 1.43 0.67

41.34 1.15 1.11 1.04 23.68 0.89 1.27 0.70

38.57 1.35 1.11 1.22 22.55 0.98 1.30 0.76

23.79 1.37 1.06 1.29 11.6 0.95 1.30 0.73

22.65 2.35 1.63 1.44 13.46 2.12 2.10 1.01

19.04 1.82 1.61 1.13 11.43 1.80 2.03 0.88

Figure 1 pertains to rural areas and shows the following. First, female LFPR in rural areas (Y axis) is negatively related to level of MPCE, as can be seen from the negative slope of all lines in the graph above. Higher the level of income, lower the participation rate and vice versa. This is true across all years. Second, the female participation across almost all income decile groups have also been declining throughout the period 1983 to 2009-10. It can also be noticed that 1993-94 is a break period in the levels of participation. Assuming that the household real income level had increased substantially during this period it can be stated that whether it is a cross-sectional view or inter-temporal view taken the female participation rate seems to be negatively related to household income levels. This is in conjunction with the study by Eapen (2004) showing that voluntary decline in the female work participation is associated with improvement in economic well-being in Kerala. In the urban areas firstly, female LFPR, unlike the rural areas, show a U-shaped curve in its relation with MPCE levels (Figure 2). At low levels of income, female LFPR is high in urban areas as in rural areas and it declines till the middleincome group, thereafter with rise in income, LFPR seems to increase. This U-shaped participation curve seems to be true across all years from 1983 to 2009-10.
Figure 2: Urban Female LFPR by MPCE Class 1983 to 2009-10
40 30 20 10

1987-88 1983 1993-94 2004-2005

flatter, implying that the positive relation between income levels and female LFPR among higher income groups is disappearing and proportion of women entering the labour market among the richer segments of the economy have reduced after 1993-94 compared to the previous periods. The ratio of the LFPR of the 5th decile to the 10th decile increased from 0.67% in 1983 to 0.88% by 2009-10, indicating the reducing gap in LFPR between the median income group and the richest (Table 4). Moreover, the reducing gap between these two groups is converging to a much lower participation rate in 2009-10 compared to 1983. For the median group the LFPR declined from 21.7% to 11.4% during this period. The ratio of the 1st decile to the 10th decile increased from 0.95 to 1.80 during the same period which shows that the participation rate for the poorest group, which was equal to the richest in 1983 had risen much above the richest group by 2009-10. The rise in LFPR for the poorest group was, in fact, much higher compared to the richest group in 2004-05, which as mentioned earlier was a year of agrarian distress. The ratio, since, had declined to the levels in 2009-10. Apparently, the negative linear relation between income levels and female LFPR in rural and the disappearance of the non-linear relation in urban areas, especially after 1993-94, does not follow the predictions of the feminisation-U hypothesis which argued higher LFPR at poorest and richest strata of the economy. We turn to the two other important activities of females, unpaid domestic activities and education to explain the declining LFPR among women.
4 Life Cycle, Social Status and Unpaid Domestic Activities

1999-2000
0 0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 HHMPCE Percentiles 60-70

2009-2010
70-80 80-90 90-100

4.1 Women’s Participation in Unpaid Domestic Activities

Source: Same as Figure 1.

Second, over time female LFPR declines across almost all decile classes, implying that with income rise the labour participation seems to decline in each of these deciles. The largest decline in the LFPR across all income classes was noticed during the period 1993-94 to 1999-2000, thereafter there had been only marginal decline in the LFPR among urban females. Third, even though there exists a U-shaped pattern in urban LFPR, since 1999-2000 the curve is increasingly becoming
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With the decline in the labour force participation the commensurate rise is in their participation in education and unpaid domestic activities. But the prominent activity that largest share of women seem to engage with is in domestic activities (including allied activities). Moreover, its prominence is rising at a very fast pace throughout the period. The unpaid domestic activities accounted for 30% of the women in 1983 and by 2011-12 it increased to 42% among the rural women and for urban women, from 38.5% to 48%. The share of females attending educational institutions increased from 7.6% in 1983 to 25% in 2011-12 for the rural areas and for
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Table 5: Total Female Activity Status Distribution (UPS)
Activity Status Rural 1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009-10 2011-12

Self-employed/ unpaid family work Regular wage work Casual wage work Unemployed Education All Domestic (a+b) (a) Domestic activities only (b) Domestic + allied work Others Total Self-employed/ unpaid family work Regular wage work Casual wage work Unemployed Education All Domestic (a+b) (a) Domestic activities only (b) Domestic and allied work Others Total

21 1.6 18 0.6 7.6 29.8 15.9 13.9 21.4 100 8.3 8.4 7 1.5 18.2 38.5 30.8 7.7 18.1 100

22 2.1 17 1.4 7.2 27.3 15.1 12.2 23.1 100 8.5 9 6 1.9 18.4 38.1 29.5 8.6 17.9 100

18.5 1.3 17 0.5 11.7 34.4 15.7 18.7 16.2 100 7.9 7.8 6 1.8 21.8 40.2 30.5 9.7 14.1 100

11.4 0.9 11 0 18.4 36.3 20.3 16 22.4 100
Urban

13.6 10.2 9.4 1.2 1.1 1.3 9 9 6.8 0.8 0.5 0.5 21.3 23.8 25.1 35.5 39.9 42.2 17.5 22 18.5 18 17.9 23.7 18.4 15.6 14.7 100 100 100 5.4 4.2 4.6 5.7 5.3 6.1 2 2.4 1.8 1.4 0.9 0.9 25.1 25.6 26 45.7 48.2 48 35 39.9 36.4 10.7 8.3 11.6 14.5 13.4 12.6 100 100 100

4.5 4.6 3 0.9 25.1 45.4 38.4 7 16.9 100

had been increasing across all age groups, except 5-15 years age group, where female children attended educational institutions. If child bearing and caring was the explanation, then with declining fertility rate5 in the country we should have expected that the share in domestic activities would be declining over the years. Secondly, if these were age-specific activities then participation in domestic activity would have increased in specific age groups. However, this is not the case. The increase in domestic activity participation and concurrent decline in female LFPR had been occurring across all age groups throughout the period 1983 to 2009-10, except the school-going age. It can therefore be argued that while household division of labour does play an important role in the age structure of labour participation and domestic activity participation, this does not explain the inter-temporal decline in labour participation and increase in domestic activity.
4.2 Level of Income and Domestication of Women

Source: NSS reports on employment and unemployment in India, various years.

Table 6: Female Usual Principal Status Activity Rates by Age Groups (in %)
Age I II Rural III IV V I II Urban III IV V

1983

1993-94

2009-10

5-15 16-20 21-25 26-35 36-65 > 65 5-15 16-20 21-25 26-35 36-65 >65 5-15 16-20 21-25 26-35 36-65 >65

20.1 52.3 54.7 60.9 56.7 14.7 13.1 44.6 48.2 53.2 52.6 16.4 1.8 18.4 26.6 33.1 36.4 9.8

28.9 4.3 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.1 51.2 9.4 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.2 84.5 34.7 4.2 0.1 0.1 0.1

18.1 42.8 44.1 38.5 36.7 18.6 12.7 44.9 50.6 46.3 43.6 29.4 4.6 45.3 68.7 66.2 57.9 33.0

33.0 0.7 0.6 0.6 6.5 66.6 23.1 1.1 0.4 0.4 3.8 53.9 9.1 1.5 0.6 0.5 5.6 57.2

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

7.9 27.8 33.7 39.9 39.5 12.4 5.0 23.3 33.5 36.2 36.6 10.4 0.9 9.1 19.3 20.9 19.5 2.7

61.7 21.7 3.1 0.3 0.1 0.4 77.5 34.5 6.1 0.3 0.2 0.5 91.4 58.5 15.9 0.7 0.1 0.0

12.0 49.7 62.6 59.2 52.6 20.6 7.4 40.8 59.6 63.1 57.8 29.4 2.8 31.2 64.1 77.8 74.0 37.0

18.4 0.8 0.6 0.6 7.9 66.6 10.2 1.4 0.8 0.5 5.5 59.7 5.0 1.2 0.8 0.6 6.5 60.3

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

However, the relation between household income level and women’s participation in domestic activity seems to be more robust. There is a positive relation between level of income and participation in domestic activities as can be noticed from Figures 3 and 4. Greater share of women seem to enter into domestic activities at higher level of income, be it in the rural or urban areas. This progression in domestic participation related with income levels is visible in all years, both for rural and urban areas. Though in the initial years there was a tendency of decline in domestic participation of urban women in the high income groups, this trend has been reversed in the more recent periods.
Figure 3: Rural Female Participation Rate in All Domestic Activities (%)
60

1999-2000
50

2009-10
40

2004-05
30

1983
20

1993-94 1987-88

10 0 0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40 40-50 HHMPCE Centiles 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100

I – labour; II – Education; III- Domestic; IV- Others; V- Total. Source: Same as Figure 1.

Source: Same as Figure 1.

Figure 4: Urban Female Participation Rate in All Domestic Activities (%)
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urban areas it increased from 18.2% to 26% during the same period (Table 5). Table 6 shows the age-specific participation rates in various activities. Across each year, a much larger share of the younger women, below the age of 25, are engaged in either education or domestic activities compared to older women in both rural and urban areas in all years. These patterns do adhere to the argument of women’s life cycle including education, marriage, child bearing and the resultant household division of labour. However, this pattern is questionable when we make inter-temporal comparisons. Firstly, the share of women in domestic activities
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1999-2000
50 40

2009-10

1993-94

1983
30

2004-05 1987-88

20 10 0 0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 HHMPCE Centiles 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100

Source: Same as Figure 1.

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The above analysis suggests that beyond the life-cycle hypothesis, gender relations may throw more light on understanding the declining labour participation and increasing unpaid domestic activity among women. The declining labour participation across all adult age groups, with rising income levels may be a strategy to reduce the “double burden” of paid and unpaid work among women. The historical process in patriarchal societies has attributed gender-specific roles wherein most unpaid domestic activities are assigned as women’s work. Societies incentivise such roles through the social mechanism of valorising domestic activities and stigmatising paid work among women such that social mobility is linked to the gender roles played out. Rising income levels apparently provides women an option between paid and unpaid work. Yet, even after considering the opportunity costs of wages and probability of finding jobs, the household decision may be for women to withdraw from the labour force responding to the incentive of improving social status. Women thus engage in status production for the household more intensely by withdrawing from paid labour and expending more on domestic activities that produce status such as child care, healthcare, religious activities, etc. This enhances status for the household and in turn ensures economic security for women. Disaggregation of the domestic activity provides us with further evidence that could probably link the rise in domestic activity among females with double burden and social stigma. Within the domestic activities, an important feature is that over the period 1983 to 2009-10 there is a tendency for urban female activity to get concentrated in pure domestic activities, than domestic and allied (D&A) activities. Allied activities, as per NSS definition consists of “…engaging in free collection of goods (vegetables, roots, firewood, cattle feed, etc), sewing, tailoring, weaving, etc, for household use”. These allied activities add a third dimension to the burden of women’s work. In the urban areas the share of women with D&A activities had remained between 7% and 11% throughout the period 1983 to 2009-10, while pure domestic activities increased from 31% to 40% (Table 5). The relatively low level of participation in D&A activities among urban women may be due to expanding service delivery and amenities such as cooking gas, tap water, etc, thus availing some relief from the double burden. However the relief from the drudgery of D&A activities in urban areas does not encourage women to redirect their time to the labour market. Rather their participation is focused on pure domestic activity, as shown in the rising participation rate in this category throughout the period. For the rural areas, the D&A activities had been higher than urban areas fluctuating in the range of 12% to 19%, while pure domestic activity remained between 15% and 22%. Though women are withdrawing from work in rural areas too, they do not seem to withdraw from D&A activities but get involved in pure domestic activity and D&A activities in almost equal shares. The low level of monetisation of economic transactions and the need for high levels of social interactions for subsistence may require rural women to engage with the world outside their domestic household frequently. Yet, at higher levels
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of income rural women also seem to withdraw from D&A activities and engage in pure domestic activities (Table 7) instead of entering the labour market. This pattern in the rural areas too is suggestive of strategies to reduce the double burden. But to reduce the double burden why do women choose to withdraw from labour market when withdrawal from domestic activity is also a plausible solution, theoretically? The richest segment of the population, both in the rural and urban areas entering only pure domestic activities and not the labour market probably point towards stigma associated with paid work. With the rise in income level, the stigma imposed by the society seems to be more stringently followed. The receding preference for D&A activities, apart from reduction of double burden and stigma, may also be indicative of another gender norm, invisibility in public spaces. Unlike pure domestic activity, other activities such as D&A activities, unpaid family labour and paid labour require greater interaction with the local world outside the household. It is this type of an engagement with the locale outside their place of residence that is losing preference among urban women and rural women in the higher income groups.6 Such cultural preferences of females to remain with their domestic space rather than engaging with activities outside have been argued much earlier (Kala 1976; Mies 1982).
5 Women’s Education and Women’s Activity Status

Between 1983 and 2009-10 the share of female children of age group 5-15 years attending schools had increased from 29% to 85% in the rural areas and from 62% to 92% in the urban areas (Table 6). Correspondingly child labour and illiteracy had substantially reduced in these age groups during this period.
Table 7: Women Engaged in Only Domestic Activities as Share of Domestic and Other Works
HHMPCE Percentiles 1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 Rural 2004-05 2009-10

0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100 Total 0-10 10-20' 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100 Total

42.4 47.0 51.1 52.1 53.7 53.9 56.9 56.2 58.4 59.3 53.3 76.3 79.2 79.3 80.2 80.5 81.8 81.5 82.3 80.8 77.2 80.0

50.2 50.4 52.5 53.9 54.5 56.3 58.0 58.7 60.1 61.4 55.4 73.9 76.1 79.0 77.9 78.7 76.6 77.9 78.3 78.4 77.3 77.4

43.0 43.6 44.5 44.3 44.1 46.1 47.1 48.0 47.8 47.9 45.6
Urban

50.8 51.8 54.3 55.3 55.4 58.1 56.5 59.4 59.8 65.2 56.5 79.8 80.3 82.2 83.2 84.5 85.9 86.3 86.6 88.1 89.8 84.6

46.3 44.9 47.2 49.2 50.2 50.0 52.4 54.5 52.6 52.2 49.5 72.8 75.4 75.1 74.0 77.2 73.4 78.7 78.8 77.0 80.8 76.6

51.3 52.9 54.9 56.0 57.7 56.1 57.8 53.5 59.5 58.9 55.3 74.3 77.0 79.7 82.5 83.8 85.3 82.9 83.8 85.2 88.5 82.8

69.4 73.0 78.1 76.0 75.9 77.1 75.8 75.8 78.7 80.7 75.9

Source: Same as Figure 1.

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Very important public interventions aimed at improving education among females such as Sarva Shiksha Abiyan, National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level, Kasturbha Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Mahila Samakhya Programme, etc, have been in place, some of these programmes have been running at least since the mid-1980s. These programmes and policies may have been instrumental in increasing the participation of female children in educational activities up to the secondary school level. For the age group 16-20 years also the participation rate in education increased from 4.3% to 34.7% in rural areas and from 21.7% to 58.5% from 1983 to 2009-10.7 With the rise in educational attendance in this age group, interestingly, a large share of young adult females had been successful in postponing their entry into the labour market and domestic activities. The LFPR for this age group declined from 52.3% to 18.4% in rural areas during this period. In urban areas it declined from 27.1% to 9.1%. In the rural areas the participation rate in domestic activities for this age group had only marginally increased from 43% to 45.3% between 1983 and 2009-10. For the urban areas remarkably, this rate had even declined after peaking in 1999-2000 from 49.7% to 31.2% in 2009-10. This decline in domestication had been entirely compensated by increase in attending educational institutions as also argued by Rangarajan et al (2011). Thus attending educational institutions is increasingly becoming the priority, compared to domestic activities or labour market participation among female children and young female adults.
5.1 Participation in Education and Level of Income

income decile group and highest income decile group in all age groups of rural and urban areas had declined and had become more or less uniform. This implies that female education is becoming universal in nature, and independent of their income levels females were engaged in educational pursuits. This, for the young girl children, is probably because of the state-driven policies aimed at school education through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and other programmes. In the upper age group of 16-25 years also we find this type of a convergence, but to a low level of female participation in
Table 9: Level of Education Attainment and LFPR of Women Excluding those Undergoing Education
1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009 -10

Rural Not literate Literate but less than primary Primary Middle Secondary Graduate and above Total Urban Not literate Literate but less than primary Primary Middle Secondary Graduate and above Total
Source: Same as Figure 1.

44.8 44.7 43.0 37.5 50.2 56.7 44.6 29.3 29.3 26.0 22.4 42.8 61.1 30.9

46.5 35.6 45.3 41.8 53.8 63.0 45.7 28.7 27.4 26.9 25.1 40.6 61.6 31.4

43.1 44.0 41.9 36.2 40.3 61.2 42.8 28.1 28.5 27.1 23.8 34.6 57.2 30.6

28.7 28.6 30.8 25.5 26.2 46.2 28.6 15.6 15.0 14.4 13.5 16.8 33.7 16.8

30.8 33.2 33.2 32.2 32.0 41.9 31.7 17.4 19.2 19.6 15.3 15.1 32.3 19.8

25.8 30.0 30.6 28.7 24.9 32.4 27.2 13.8 16.6 17.6 16.0 12.5 26.0 17.3

education. It is converging to the low level of around 22% to 25% across all income groups by 2009-10. This implies In general, as expected the low income groups have lower that educational pursuits for the young adult females above participation while higher income groups have higher partici- 15 years of age did not increase much in the later period. Morepation in education. Moreover, both in the rural areas and over, despite higher-income levels, the share of women in eduTable 8: Female Participation in Education by Age and Income Classes cational pursuits remained at Rural Urban par with that of the middleAge Less than 16 16 to 25 Age Less than 16 16 to 25 income level. In other words, 1983 1993-94 2009-10 1983 1993-94 2009-10 1983 1993-94 2009-10 1983 1993-94 2009-10 there was not much of an incen0-10 9.2 22.0 51.8 7.9 14.4 15.2 28.5 37.8 58.0 17.1 21.7 19.2 tive to follow educational pur10-20' 11.5 27.5 57.2 9.8 16.2 22.4 34.5 46.7 63.7 20.7 25.3 24.0 suits among females in this age 20-30 15.6 31.2 59.9 11.7 17.6 24.3 38.6 52.1 61.4 21.9 27.1 24.4 group. Even in middle-income 30-40 18.2 34.4 60.7 12.3 18.6 25.1 41.3 57.0 62.9 22.5 28.9 25.8 and high-income households 40-50 19.6 38.1 63.2 13.8 19.7 26.7 49.3 59.7 66.5 25.9 30.0 26.9 50-60 23.4 42.9 65.0 14.9 20.9 27.5 49.6 68.0 69.2 25.8 32.6 26.7 women’s education beyond the 60-70 26.5 45.4 64.3 16.1 21.5 26.8 53.8 64.1 68.4 27.5 30.9 26.9 age of 15 years was not encour70-80 30.3 46.4 61.8 16.9 21.5 26.2 56.7 65.5 71.4 28.5 32.9 28.3 aged, whether it was urban ar80-90 32.4 50.8 63.3 17.5 22.5 26.8 61.4 71.6 68.2 29.5 33.4 26.1 eas or rural areas. Only school 90-100 38.3 51.8 63.3 19.0 23.1 24.9 63.7 66.4 66.3 26.7 32.5 26.6 education seems to be considTotal 20.7 35.7 60.4 13.7 19.1 23.8 44.6 55.9 65.6 24.2 29.1 25.6 ered worthwhile but not beyond Decile ratios school, universally. 0-10 /90-100 0.24 0.43 0.82 0.41 0.62 0.61 0.45 0.57 0.87 0.64 0.67 0.72 0-10/40-50 0.47 0.58 0.82 0.57 0.73 0.57 0.58 0.63 0.87 0.66 0.72 0.71 Education is widely regarded 40-50/90/100 0.51 0.74 1.00 0.73 0.85 1.07 0.77 0.90 1.00 0.97 0.92 1.01 as one of the key tools of Source: Same as Figure 1. empowerment of women that urban areas the participation in education has risen consider- enhances their agency and autonomy. The change in preferably during the period 1983 to 2009-10 (Table 8). However, ence among the female children and young adult females towhile education participation seems to increase with income wards education should essentially prepare females for entry levels during 1983, the income-based difference is being into the labour market equipped with more years of education phased out gradually. By 2009-10, the gap between the lowest and skills than preceding generations. Now, to get a clearer
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picture of the role of education on women’s activity status we look at the labour participation patterns by levels of educational attainment (Table 9, p 105). To calculate the LFPR here we exclude those who are undergoing education as they are not potential entrants to the current labour market though they may enter the future labour market. From Table 9 it can be inferred that the incentive for the educated to join the labour force had been declining throughout. During the period 1987 to 2009-10 the LFPR for the highest educated, graduates and above, declined from 63% to 32.4% in the rural areas while it declined to 61.6% to a mere 26% in urban areas. The decline in the LFPR of educated women had been such that currently there is hardly any difference between the less educated and more educated in their LFPR. The only consistent pattern is that across all levels of education, and even among the nonliterates, women are withdrawing from the labour market. The above analysis throws up apparently a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, female education up to school level seems to be valued as expressed through high participation rate in school education, while on the other hand the LFPR trends suggest that higher education seems to incentivise women to withdraw from the labour market. Other regional studies too support this claim. Using Census data, Swaminathan (2008) had shown evidence of the same phenomenon in Tamil Nadu wherein female work participation rate seems to worsen with higher levels of education. Kodoth and Eapen (2004) had shown that the work participation among women was negatively related with educational attainment in Kerala as well. The obverse of the figures in Table 9 also represents participation in domestic activities since women undergoing education are not counted. As is evident from the table, female educational attainment and participation in domestic activities move in the same direction. Whatever the level of education, the share of women engaged in domestic activities seems to have by and large increased throughout the period 1983 to 2009-10. This probably points that education, arguably a liberating process, per se does not guarantee entry to the labour market for the educated. Why is women’s education encouraged if entry to labour market is discouraged? Three lines of argument support this trend. First, studies do point out that education among women does not necessarily increase their “autonomy” in substantive ways, rather it may only lead to modernisation and internalisation of patriarchal norms. Jeffery and Jeffery (1994: 166) conclude thus: “Education for girls, for example, seems to be about the inculcation of manners and middle class morality, of newer forms of respectable behaviour. They may have the effect of subduing women even further.” Basu (2002) too argues that schooling seems to inculcate discipline, self-restraint, patience, routine and obedience to authority among girls. Thus modernising through education that is designed to perpetrate patriarchal values may only subordinate women rather than empower. Kodoth and Eapen (2005) too argue on similar lines that education seems to be calibrated towards the demands of domesticity in Kerala.
106

Second, the withdrawal of women from the labour market across all levels of education, especially the most conspicuous withdrawal of women with educational attainment of graduation and above probably point towards discouraged worker effect owing to various forms of discriminations within the labour market including occupational segregation, wage discrimination and social stigma towards women’s work. Third, it may also be due to the gendered patterns of parental investment in education. Women are encouraged to enter general arts and science education, which have much lower labour demand, compared to technical and professional education. But technical and professional education also incurs substantial costs compared to general arts and science education and therefore maybe preferentially allocated to males in the society. Moreover, education for women in patriarchal societies may be aimed at enhancing the women’s status reproduction capacity and hence may not require technical and professional education. In effect, be it modernisation of patriarchal norms through education, discouraged worker effect or gendered educational patterns, the gender norms in India’s patriarchal society seem to provide the ground rules for women’s withdrawal from the labour force.
6 Casualisation and Marginalisation at the Lower Spectrum

Against this backdrop of withdrawal of women from the labour market with rising income and education, the residual that lie within the labour market do so, under various conditions of duress. About 75% of total rural women who were working engage largely in the agricultural sector in 2011-12. During the period 1983 to 2011-12 the relative pace of shift from agriculture to non-agriculture had been very slow for females wherein females experienced a 10 percentage point decline (Table 10) while males experienced 18 percentage point during the same period (NSSO 2011-12). It is probably the
Table 10: Industrial Classification of Women Workers (UPS) as Percentage Share
Industry Agriculture Mining Manufac- Electricity, Constr- Trade , Transport Other Total and turing Gas and uction Hotel and Storage Services Quarrying Water Restaurant and Communication

Rural 1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009-10 2011-12 Urban 1983 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000 2004-05 2009-10 2011-12

86.2 82.5 84.7 84.1 81.4 78.9 74.5 25.5 21.8 19.3 14.6 14.7 11.8 8.7

0.4 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.8 0.9 0.7 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.3

6.5 7.5 7.5 7.7 8.7 7.6 9.5 26 26.9 23.6 23.2 25.4 25.8 26.6

– – – – 0 0 1 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 1.1

0.9 3.2 1.1 1.2 1.7 4.2 5.1 3.7 4.3 4.9 5.5 4.5 5.1 4.3

2.2 2.4 2.2 2.3 2.8 3.1 3.6 9.9 10.9 10.7 16.4 13.1 12.4 13.0

0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.1 1.7 1.2 1.5 2 1.6 1.5 2.7

3.4 100 3.7 4 4.3 4.6 5.7 5.9 31.4 33.6 38.8 37.8 40.2 42.7 43.3 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Source: Same as Figure 1.

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case that women from households that suffer from multiple and overlapping modes of marginalisation through caste, class, physical disabilities and other forms of exclusion enter the workforce in non-traditional sectors and occupations as low-paid vulnerable workers in sectors such as “construction” and “other services” of which paid domestic help is one of the most important components, in search of eking out a living. However, the share of manufacturing sector employment has also been rising in the recent period. The process of entry of this vulnerable segment of women into the labour market is by and large through the transition from feudal agrarian economies to capitalist agricultural practices. The share of households with no land for cultivation or marginal landholding had been increasing since 1982-83 from 51% to 66.5% in 2008-09 while the share of all larger classes had been declining (GOI 2011). Along with the rise in the number of the landless and of marginalised landholdings there had been a widening of inequality in rural landholdings (Rawal 2008). With consolidation of landholdings by the capitalist farmers on the one hand, land alienation and land fragmentation on the other, peasant households enter into monetised labour relations. The peasant households now alienated from land search for other livelihood options.
Table 11: Distribution of Estimated Female Population, Labour Participation Rates, Type of Work and Land Size (in %)
Landless <.4 Hectares .4 to 1 1 to 2 2 to 4 > 4 Hectares Total

in landed households, especially larger households, the number actually participating in labour would be shrinking. And given that nearly 80% of the women who remain in the labour market among the landless and nearly 60% among the marginal land cultivators are wage workers, essentially casual wage workers, these trends show the rising monetisation of women’s work among poor vulnerable agricultural households. The rise in landlessness and marginal farms made it necessary for females to move out of their households, leave their traditional status as unpaid family labour in search of casual employment. Though the share of women in labour force is declining, those who enter or remain in the labour market are increasingly women who do paid labour, rather than the conventional unpaid family labour.
7 Conclusions

Distribution of estimated female population 1983 29.7 15.2 18.0 1987-88 30.1 34.2 21.0 1993-94 33.5 34.1 20.4 1999-2000 35.6 38.5 16.9 2004-05 37.3 17.4 20.5 2009-10 40.4 19.0 19.3 LFPR of females 1983 43.4 38.6 40.8 1987-88 42.1 40.9 40.4 1993-94 39.3 37.1 35.8 1999-2000 23.4 21.6 25 2004-05 23.3 19 21.7 2009-10 20.1 16.3 21.6 Share of wage labour in all employment 1983 80 64 42 1987-88 77 47 26 1993-94 81 49 24 1999-2000 79 49 20 2004-05 75 59 48 2009-10 78 52 36
Source: Same as Figure 1.

15.8 8.8 7.7 5.8 12.8 10.8

11.9 4.2 3.1 2.4 7.8 7.3

9.4 1.7 1.2 0.8 4.2 3.3 40.5 39.3 33 20.3 27.2 22.9 4 5 2 1 12 5

100 100 100 100 100 100 40.7 41 37.3 23 24.2 20.2 47 47 50 50 43 50

38.1 39.8 39.4 42.1 35 35.4 23.8 23.1 24 24.2 23.3 22.2 23 13 8 5 40 19 12 9 3 3 27 6

The dominant trend is that both among the landed and the landless there is an increasing tendency to withdraw female labour power with the passage of time (Table 11). Between 1983 and 2009-10 the participation rate of women declined from 40.7% to 20.2%. But the share of women in the population of the landless increased from 29.7% to 40.4% during the same period. This would mean that even if the female LFPR of the landless households declined substantially, the number of women actually participating in the labour market among the landless may not have reduced substantially, while for women
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There had been a steady de-feminisation of labour force such that the share of females in the labour force had been declining and the female LFPR had been very low and yet declining in India, at least since 1972-73. The declining labour participation with rising income levels posits several hypotheses related to patriarchal norms that should be validated with further in-depth analysis. It seems to be a strategy to reduce the “double burden” of work among women in the context of stigmatisation of paid work for women. The quest for social status and social mobility, with rising incomes, seems to be associated with domestication of women and discouragement of women’s participation in the labour market. The traditional caste-based stigma on women’s participation in gendered public spaces also may be gaining strength with rising well-being in India’s patriarchal society. In turn, women are probably refocusing on domestic activities towards status production for the household, which secures her economic position in the household. There is little evidence to support the argument that rising participation in education is empowering women to enter the labour market. Education, it seems, does not necessarily empower and enhance women’s autonomy in India, but may be helping in modernising and internalising patriarchal norms. The patterns and trends in education participation are suggestive of aiming at efficient status production rather than skill enhancement for labour market participation. Feminisation of work needs to be contextualised within this frame. Segments of the female population that suffer multiple vulnerabilities of class and caste hierarchy, that are excluded from the benefits of economic growth may remain within the labour force, relegated to informalised jobs in the subsistence fringe. Preliminary evidence shows that landlessness and land marginalisation encourages women’s entry in the labour market as casual labour and women’s work among poor vulnerable agricultural households is increasingly being transacted through the labour market, than as unpaid family labour. This segment of the female labouring class forms a reserve army of labour probably being tapped through various flexible accumulation strategies such as putting-out systems and homebased production.
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Notes
1 Improvement in economic conditions during 2004-05 to 2009-10 can be attributed to various reasons such as better agricultural growth performance (Chand and Parappurathu 2012), livelihood diversification, public employment programmes and rising wage rates (Himanshu 2011; Kannan and Reveendran 2012; and Thomas 2012). At the time of completion of this paper, the unit records for the year 2011-12 were still not being shared by the CSO. However, given that the patterns in 2011-12 closely follow the regular pattern of other normal years, we may expect that the patterns that emerge from the unit records will not be different from the preceding years. This high growth rate in urban female LF at 2.15% per annum was caused by a spurt in growth during 1999-2000 to 2004-05, at 6.94% per annum, as described above, a period of economic hardships. The periods before and after this experienced complete stagnation. Between 1993-94 and 1999-2000 the growth rate was 0.60% and during 2004-05 to 2009-10 it was at -0.11%. Estimated population growth for females was 2.01% and 1.68% per annum respectively during 1991-2001 and 2001-11 respectively compared to that of 1.94% and 1.6% per annum for males for the same period (calculated from the Census of India, 2012) The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) had declined from 4.4 per woman in the early 1980s to 2.5 in 2010 (downloaded from http://censusindia. gov.in/2011-Common/srs.html on 25-2-2013) Boserup (2008: 36) had related this to the practice of veiling. She identified such social practices of women hiding from the public gaze as a symbol of social status in other cultures as well. Yet it needs to be noted that education beyond school age is still unapproachable to nearly 80% of females in the age group of 16 years to 25 years in rural areas and 65% in urban areas even in 2009-10.

2

3

4

5

6

7

Women in Rural India”, Discussion Paper 11-12, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Goldin, C (1995): “The U-Shaped Female Labour Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History” in T P Schultz (ed.), Investment in Women’s Human Capital and Economic Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 61-90. Hartman, H (1976): “Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex”, Signs, 1(3), 137-69. Himanshu (2011): “Employment Trends in India: A Re-examination”, Economic & Political Weekly, 46(37), 43-59. Jeffery, P and R Jeffery (1994): “Killing My Heart’s Desire: Education and Female Autonomy in Rural North India” in Nita Kumar (ed.), Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories (New Delhi: Stree and Book Review Literary Trust). Kala, C V (1976): “Female Participation in Farm Work in Kerala”, Sociological Bulletin, 25(2). Kannan, K P and G Reveendran (2012): “Counting and Profiling the Missing Labour Force”, Economic & Political Weekly, 47(6). Klasen, Sand and J Pieters (2012): “Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labour Force Participation during India’s Economic Boom”, IZA Discussion Papers 6395 , Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA). Kodoth, P and M Eapen (2005): “Looking Beyond Gender Parities, Gender Inequities of Some Dimensions of Well Being in Kerala”, Economic & Political Weekly, 40(30). Mammen, K and C Paxson (2000): “Women’s Work and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(4), 141-64. Mies, M (1982): “The Dynamics of the Sexual Division of Labour and Integration of Rural Women into the World Market” in L Beneria (ed.), Women and Development: The Sexual Division of Labour in Rural Societies (USA: ILO, Praeger Scientific). Neff, D, K Sen and V Kling (2012): “The Puzzling Decline in Rural Women’s Labour Force

Participation in India: A Rexamination”, Working Paper No: 196, German Institute of Global and Area Studies. NSSO (2011): Employment and Unemployment Situation in India 2009-10, NSS Report No 537(66/10/1), NSS 66th ROUND, National Sample Survey Office, MOSPI, New Delhi. Papenak, H (1979): “Family Status Production: The “Work” and “Non-Work” of Women”, Signs, 4(4), 775-81. Parthasarathy, G and K Annie Nirmala (1999): “Marginalisation Hypothesis and Post Green Revolution Period in Gender and Employment in India”, edited by T S Papola and Alakh N Sharma, ISLE (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Ltd). Rangarajan, C, P I Kaul and Seema (2011): “Where Is the Missing Labour Force?”, Economic & Political Weekly, 46(39). Rawal, Vikas (2008), “Ownership Holdings of Land in Rural India: Putting the Record Straight”, Economic & Political Weekly, 8 March, Vol 43, No 10. Sinha, J N (1967): “Dynamics of Female Participation in Economic Activity in a Developing Economy” in United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Proceedings of the World Population Conference, Belgrade, 30 August10 September 1965, Vol IV (New York: UN Publications). Swaminathan, P (2008): “Exclusions From and Inclusions in ‘Development’: Implications for ‘Engendering Development”, Economic & Political Weekly, 43(43). Thomas, J J (2012): “India’s Labour Market during the 2000s: Surveying the Changes”, Economic & Political Weekly, 47(51). Varghese, N V (1993): “Women and Work: An Examination of the ‘Female Marginalisation Thesis’” in A N Sharma and S Singh (ed.), Indian Context in Women and Work: Changing Scenario in India (Delhi: ISLE, B R Publishing Corporation).

Reference
Abraham, Vinoj (2009): “Rural Employment Growth in India: Distress Driven?”, Economic & Political Weekly, 44(16). Basu, A M (2002): “Why Does Education Lead to Lower Fertility? A Critical Review of Some of the Possibilities”, World Development, 30(10). Boserup (2008): Women’s Role In Economic Development (London: South Asian Edition Earthscan). Census of India (1981 to 2011): Primary Census Abstracts (New Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner). Chand, R and S Parappurathu (2012): “Temporal and Spatial Variations In Agricultural Growth and Its Determinants”, Economic & Political Weekly, 47 (26 and 27). Chandrasekhar, C P and J Ghosh (2011): “Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO”, The Hindu Business Line, 12 July. Durand, J D (1975): The Labour Force in Economic Development: A Comparison of International Census Data, 1946-66 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Eapen, M (2004): “Women and Work Mobility: Some Disquieting Evidences from the Indian Data”, Working Paper 358, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. Eswaran, M B Ramaswami and W Wadhwa (2011): “Status, Caste, and the Time Allocation of

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