Division of labour in rural Bangladesh
Barkat e Khuda
Bangladesh Development Studies 8(4): 107-120
1980
ISSN/ISBN: 0304-095X DOI: 10.2307/40794305Document Number: 375031
The paper examines the division of labour by sex and broad age groups in a Bangladesh village, Barkait. Section II describes the sources of data; III discusses the nature and extent of such division of labour; IV summarizes the main findings. It is shown that the sexual division of labour is basically dependent on the culturally prescribed division of labour between males and females in rural Bangladesh. Women basically work inside the household (bari), and men outside. The type of activity carried out is also dependent on age, with the young and old generally carrying out activities which are relatively light and less skilful. Women and children (and also adult men) contribute a substantial amount of their time to daily household maintenance activities (HHMA). If the broader definition of work, including not only directly productive activities (DPA) but also HHMA, is used, the number of hours worked by women and girls were considerably higher than those by men and boys.