GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: Current Issues

This book interrogates current issues on gender and development in India. A number of issues relating to livelihood and social security that impinge on women’s lives that have come to fore in context of globalization and liberalization of the Indian economy are discussed. At the same time, the discourse on women’s empowerment has proliferated both in the state and in the civil society, albeit with multiple meanings and approaches to it. Some of the chapters engage with issues of women’s employment and livelihood using both macro statistical data and micro-level studies. The impact of ICTs on women in the informal sector is also analysed. Climate change is foreseen to increase women’s vulnerabilities on account of livelihood and food insecurities. Arguing that rights-based development has come to the fore in the context of globalization and neo-liberalism, some of the chapters discuss ways of evolving multiple securities, including social security, for women in the informal sector. An inclusive approach that involves women in participatory development and decentralized democratic governance will strengthen women’s empowerment as evident from their roles in the panchayats. Certain insights and strategies are also suggested for grassroots women’s activism.

U. Kalpagam is Professor at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. She is both an economist and an anthropologist and has worked for long on gender issues. Among her publications are: Labour and Gender: Survival in Urban India, Women in India: Contemporary Concerns (edited), Ethics, Health and Medicine: Anthropological Perspectives (edited, forthcoming), Development and Empowerment (co-edited), Rural Women in South Asia (co-edited), Rural Women in India: Issues and Challenges (co-edited), Labour and Poverty: Studies on Uttar Pradesh (co-edited). Apart from these, she has published widely in national and international journals on women’s issues, labour in the informal sector and on the anthropology of colonialism among others.