Caste, Kinship, and Life Course: Rethinking Women's Work and Agency in Rural South India

Rao, Nitya ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6318-0147 (2014) Caste, Kinship, and Life Course: Rethinking Women's Work and Agency in Rural South India. Feminist Economics, 20 (3). pp. 78-102. ISSN 1354-5701

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Abstract

This paper reexamines the linkages between women's work, agency, and well-being based on a household survey and in-depth interviews conducted in rural Tamil Nadu in 2009 and questions the prioritization of workforce participation as a path to gender equality. It emphasizes the need to unpack the nature of work performed by and available to women and its social valuation, as well as women's agency, particularly its implications for decision making around financial and nonfinancial household resources in contexts of socioeconomic change. The effects of work participation on agency are mediated by factors like age and stage in the life cycle, reproductive success, and social location – especially of caste – from which women enter the workforce.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: women's work,agency,intrahousehold relations,kinship,life course,india,sdg 5 - gender equality,sdg 10 - reduced inequalities ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/gender_equality
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
University of East Anglia > Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 27 Aug 2014 14:34
Last Modified: 20 Oct 2022 20:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/49994
DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2014.923578

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