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8 Women in the Economy (MWG-011)
eliminate or reduce differences among workers, it would tend to eliminate or reduce
differences by sex.
• A less radical policy would involve equal opportunity and affirmative action plans that take
the structure of production and the labor hierarchy as given, but would make each job equally
accessible to men and women.
The role played by the state as care provider will determine the load of care assigned to family,
volunteer labor, and/or the market. If no public policies are in place to regulate the care economy and
its distribution, the family is disproportionately burdened (particularly in the case of women who
must pull double or triple work shifts) and the possibilities of social advancement for low-income
women are limited.
Logically, if an activity can be performed by someone else, then it is theoretically possible to pay them
for it. That is, there is a potential market for that good or service. For instance, it makes little sense to
pay someone to watch TV for you because you will not receive the benefit. However, it is possible to
pay someone to prepare food for you, or more controversially, to have sex with you. Thus, these
services are at least potentially marketable. This ‘third person’ criteria has been adopted as standard
in most studies which seeks to value non-market production.
The importance of employment guarantee programs in our context is that, if well designed, they can
reduce unpaid work while redistributing the cost of reproduction by creating jobs for both women and
men instead of reinforcing the existing gender-based division of unpaid labor. If such projects are not
gender-informed, the danger is that they may create a typical ‘double’ day effect for women.
While at the other extreme are the workers such as the self-employed, the informal sector workers and
casual laborers accounting for 92 to 93 percent of the total labor force. There exists only a minimal
social security provisions for this lot. It is this 93% of the work force where the concentration of
women workers is the maximum and those who are outside the gambit of labor laws and social
security. In between these two categories are the regular wage employees of the public sector and the
organized private sector, which account for about 6 to 7 percent of the labor force. The bulk of the
government legislation for labor market and social insurance schemes concerns this particular group.
The major thrust of the state activities basically hover around the minimum wage legislation and
various promotional measures for employment generation, which is unlikely to be effective in view of
implementation problems.
The Work Participation Rate (WPR) is defined as the percentage of workers to the total population,
which is 39.3 per cent as per the 2001 Census. The WPR in 1991 Census was 37.5 percent. Table no 1,
given below show the Work Participation Rates (WPR) according to Census of India, 2001. The most
significant improvement is seen in case of rural marginal workers, which improved from 0.7 percent
in 1991 to 7.9 percent in 2001 for males and from 8.1 percent to 14.2 percent in case of females during
the corresponding period.

Q2. Discuss women and work within traditional and contemporary feminist discourses.
Ans. Refer to Chapter-1, Q.No.-3 & 4

Q3. What is understood by mobilisation from a gender perspective? Discuss resistance
and mobilisation in its historical and theoretical perspectives.
Ans. Refer to Chapter-1, Q.No.-5 & 6

Q4. Explain meaning and classification of occupation. Discuss causes and effects of
occupational segregation on women workers.
Ans. Refer to Chapter-1, Q.No.-6 & 7

Q5. Explain women and work scenario in post liberalisation phase of Indian economy.
Critically analyse the causes of fall in employment of women in the last decade.
Ans. Refer to Chapter-2, Q.No.-10

Q6. Discuss feminisation of poverty and work force with the help of suitable examples.
Ans. Refer to Chapter-6, Q.No.-4 & 5

Q7. Write a short note on any five of the following:
(a) Economics of gender
Ans. Refer to Chapter-2, Q.No.-1
(b) Immigration and emigration
Ans. Refer to Chapter-4, Q.No.-1