Maternal employment and changes in family dynamics: the social context of women's work in rural South India
Desai, S.; Jain, D.
Working Papers Research Division, Population Council 39: 42pp.
1992
DOI: 10.2307/2137632Document Number: 322082
Research on the relationship between maternal non-domestic work and child welfare has identified two mechanisms, a decline in a mother's time with children and an increase in her control over resources, through which maternal work influences child welfare, the first in a negative direction, the second in a positive one. Results from a household survey in rural South India suggest a need for grounding this research in a wider institutional context. The study was conducted in eight villages of Kanakpura Tuluk, approximately 60 km from Bangalore, Karnataka. The sample consists of 92 households with at least one child between ages 0 and 4. When pervasive poverty and lack of access to modern conveniences are taken into account, mothers who do not work in the market in fact devote much time to domestic activities. Regardless of maternal employment, therefore, most children spend several hours per day in the care of older siblings or grandmothers. Thus, the view that maternal employment exposes children to inferior alternative care is incorrect. Similarly, although the literature assumes that women's access to an independent cash income increases their control over family resources and thereby the resources directed to children, the findings presented here show that in a climate of crop failures and seasonal fluctuations in income, many families rely on women's work on the family farm and men's work in wage labour to stabilize family income. In fact, women's work on the family farm not only contributes to family income, but also releases male workers to participate in the cash economy, hence to benefit the family as a whole.