Work is central to current understandings of poverty – and well-being more generally – as well as to prescriptions for poverty reduction. But does work always improve well-being?

Work is especially important for the well-being of the majority of the poor in less developed countries because the poor generally lack other endowments. Gender policies emphasise a greater participation of women in the labour market, while analysts of social exclusion stress employment-based inclusion for vulnerable or excluded groups.

Gender and development (GAD) analysts among others have, however, raised a number of issues related to the work and well-being connection by identifying ways in which work may not necessarily lead to well-being. This research project aimed to look afresh at this issue with a focus on work as an experience in which changing bodily conditions affect the outcomes of well-being.

The research, based on secondary sources and on new analysis of Indian census and National Sample Survey (NSS) data, has examined three key questions:

• Is agricultural labour in India becoming feminised, as claimed, and does greater labour force participation lead to improved female status and well-being, as reflected in indicators of women’s well-being such as sex ratios?
• If labour-intensive poverty reduction approaches are effort intensive too, as in the case of food-for-work and employment guarantee schemes, then what does this mean for well-being outcomes of such projects, seen through a gender lens?
• In effort-intensive informal urban work, such as headloading, can collective action or state interventions lessen the bodily costs and maintain well-being?

The findings of the research suggest that:

• The data on which the feminisation of agricultural labour in India research was based are highly questionable. Also, the association of female agricultural labour participation with sex ratio patterns is more likely due to an association with regional cultures than a direct causal connection.
• Effort intensity of labour in employment guarantee schemes is a significant factor in limiting well-being outcomes of such interventions. It suggests caution in relation to targeting nutritionally vulnerable women, men and children, as well as the need for research focused on intra-household transactions in a life-course perspective.
• Organisations of workers which control to some extent the conditions of physically difficult labour can be effective in states such as Kerala, which accept some responsibility for interventions in labour markets, but they can also create other patterns of exclusion and constraints on economic prosperity.
• While conventional prescriptions emphasise enabling women to participate more in labour markets under more favourable terms and conditions, and facilitating child and other caring to reduce women’s domestic burdens, the findings of this research suggest that these mechanisms may not be sufficient in themselves, and that the cultural bases of gender discrimination might be addressed more directly through education and cultural work.

Source(s):
‘Feminisation of agricultural labour in India: more myths than realities’, draft paper, by R. Palmer-Jones, 2002
‘Embodiment, gender and well-being: the example of public works for development’, under review by World Development, C. Jackson, 2002
‘Kerala’s Informal Labour Market Interventions: From Work to Well-being?’ Vol XXXVI No 26 June 30, by L. Waite, 2001

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 6 October 2003

Further Information:
Cecile Jackson, Richard Palmer-Jones or Louise Waite
School of Development Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TK
UK 

Tel: +44 (0)1603 593379 or 593383 or 456161
Fax: +44 (0)1603 451999
Contact the contributor: cecile.jackson@uea.ac.uk

School of Development Studies, UEA, UK

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'Gender and finance: money is not neutral'

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