Technology, income and organization: communicating change to women
Youssef, N.; Hollnsteiner, M.R.
Assignment Children (63/64): 69-83
1983
ISSN/ISBN: 0004-5128 Document Number: 400872
The paper focuses on poor rural women and the ways in which poverty, technology and the generation of income affect their lives. The first part raises three policy issues centred around the need to: (1) maximize women's productivity and access to cash earnings in both traditional and new areas of economic enterprise through technically efficient and potentially profitable new devices and knowhow; (2) enable women to gain access to information and to acquire and control technology; and (3) achieve a balance between the introduction of new technologies and the displacement of female labour associated with mechanization and automation. The second part of the paper deals with women's participation as users of technology and stresses the identification of needs, the choice of solutions, and the design, development and manufacture of technologies aimed at raising levels of income. These opportunities are enhanced when women are organized into effective groups whose planning, implementation and decision making capacities contribute to their employment.