Research has
been the mainstay of the Centre since its inception. As the following
accounts will amply attest, the Centre continues to be responsive to
contemporary problems and new questions demanding investigation, while
recognising the rigours and challenges of inter-disciplinary scholarship in
the broad field of women’s studies. While the Centre has, for practical
reasons, limited its choice of areas of research drawing on the competences
and interests of the faculty, the Centre’s resources and outreach in terms
of the range of topics addressed have been growing. In the following,
brief narrations of research projects and related activities have been provided.
The following Research projects were underway:
RESEARCH PROJECTS
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User Charges and Public Health
Care Facilities
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read more...
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Mapping the Public Private Mix in Women’s
Health Care
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Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights A Women’s Movement Perspective
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read more...
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Higher Education and Gender
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read more...
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Globalisation and
Women's Work: Dissaggregate analysis of NSSO data
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read more...
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Multiple Vulnerabilities and Marginal Identities: Exploring Violence
in the everyday lives of Women with Disabilities in the City
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read more...
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Gender and Governance in Conflict
Zones
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read more...
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Women in Indian Engineering: A
Preliminary Analysis of Data from the Graduate Level Engineering Education
in Kerala and Rajasthan
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read more...
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Move Towards
Professionalization? A Case Study of Nursing Development in a Globalised
Context from the Southern Indian State of Kerala
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read more...
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Needs Assessment for Creches and
Childcare Services
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read more...
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Indigenous Midwives and their Skills in Contributing
to the Wellbeing of Birthing Women and Newborns (The
JEEVA Project)
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read more...
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The Adverse Child Sex Ration in
North-West India
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The
Social and Political Economy of care in India
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Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi
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Construction and
Recreation of Violence in the Legal System: Gaps between Claims and
Entitlements
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Gender and Democratic Governance
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Study on Women Migrants of Tamil Origin in France
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read more...
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Needs Assessment for
Creches and Childcare Services
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read more...
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User Charges
and Public Health Care Facilities
Researcher: Bijoya Roy
Building on previous year’s research the scope of
the study on user charges has been broadened. Since
the nineties user charges have silently transformed
public health institutions creating differential
categories of patients and services. Predominantly
user fee has been viewed through the economic lens
which precludes understanding of the complex
contractual relationship it establishes with its
patients and the emerging disparities, institutional
restructuring and functioning under the influence of
user fees. Though the HLEG discourse recommends for
abolishing user fee, how it is to be rolled back
remains a pressing concern in a scenario of poor
funding. It is in this context this study explores
the ways through which user charges have
proliferated in public health facilities, its role
in such institutions and how it influences access
and inclusion to healthcare services. The concept
note developed addresses
different dimensions of user fee in public health
care institutions where age, gender, caste, and
class are central.
Mapping
the Public Private Mix in Women’s Health Care
Researcher: Bijoya Roy
Since the
1990s both the public and private sectors have
witnessed tremendous changes in terms of financing
and provisioning of preventive, curative and
promotive care. Some of the significant changes in
recent years have been the expansion of PPP based
health care, private nursing homes catering only to
maternity care and expansion of certain new services
in the public sector in the areas of sexual and
reproductive health. The focus of the study is
twofold : to explore how maternal health care
services have evolved in both the sectors over the
past two decades (1990-2010); and secondly to
analyse the coverage, nature of service provided,
monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, sustainability
and equity Privatisation and expansion of the
private sector in health care has become a reality.
Maternity care has been at the centre of this
expansion and interventions made though despite
these the Maternal Mortality Rate continues to
remain at levels seen as being far from
satisfactory. It is important to examine the role of
public and private healthcare to understand how both
the sectors have addressed maternal health care. The
study identifies how this process has been
increasingly medicalised and promoted as a risky
event.
Another
paper part of this broad study addresses the role of
both the sectors in provisioning of reproductive and
sexual health services. Firstly it explores how -RTI/STI
related services were marginalized from mainstream
healthcare and secondly it delineate how - post
nineties -even after RTI/STI gained visibility and
acts as precautionary tool emphasizing on
behavioural change for preventing and controlling
HIV/AIDs and marginalises endogenous and iatrogenic
RTIs. The study examines both policy documents and
interventions.
Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights A Women’s Movement Perspective
Researchers:
Indu Agnihotri, Indrani Mazumdar and Neetha N
The last year, spanning 2011-12, saw the formal
conclusion of this IDRC supported project initiated
in 2008, with the presentation of its Key Findings
at a National Colloquium on 6th March,
2012. Some of the achievements of this project that
deserve special mention were 1) its outreach across
different parts of the country 2) the vast area
covered by different levels of activity 3) the rich
meso-level data generated by field surveys and 4)
significant methodological interventions in the
debate on macro-data based trends in women’s
employment and migration. In previous years we have
reported on some of the core activities of project
consisting of 7 regional consultations accompanied
by formal and informal consultation; a rich resource
of commissioned papers/presentations; the
undertaking of primary research at the centre of
which was the meso-level field survey on gender and
migration and, the compilation of a rich resource of
migration- related literature, documents and
micro-studies. Initially scheduled to cover a three
year period, the project received a no-cost
extension of six months from IDRC.
Regional Consultations
The involvement of around 500 scholars,
administrators, members of various State and central
Commissions and activists of the women’s movement in
the 7 regional consultations generated a rich
resource of information on regions - the diverse and
specific features of migration patterns, as well as
experiences and perspectives which proved to be a
valuable resource for the project. The consultations
generated interest in the project and helped in
taking its concerns to a wider audience. The focus
on the region, rather than states, also added
interesting dimensions to the discussions allowing
for comparisons between regionally variant
experiences. Two of the consultations were organized
as institutional collaborations � with the Women’s
Studies Research Centre (WSRC) of Calcutta
University for eastern India and with the OKD
Institute of Social Change and Development (a sister
ICSSR institute) for the northeast.
Primary Research Activities
Commencing January 2009, primary surveys with a pair
of detailed structured questionnaires were conducted
across 20 states. A total of 5,007 individual
migrants and 5,558 households were covered by the
Project. In all, 3,073 female migrant workers and
1,934 male migrant workers and their households were
covered by the primary surveys. Of the women
migrants, 1,623 were surveyed in rural areas and
1,450 in urban. Comprehensive village surveys were
conducted in 35 districts across 17 states.
Preliminary censuses covered 16,010 households in 43
village sites, eliciting information on caste,
relative economic status and on the number of
economic migrants. In combination, the village and
sector based migrant workers were accessed across
more than 75 districts, apart from the 7 large
cities. The village surveys covered a total of 673
households without migrants and 2,564 individual
migrants and their households. Of the individual
migrants covered by the village surveys, 1,903 were
males and 661 were females. Occupation/sector based
surveys directed at women migrant workers were
conducted in 20 states in rural as well as urban
areas. The urban areas comprised of 7 large cities
and 10 medium and smaller towns. These covered 2,443
individual migrants and their households.
Key
Findings
The following are some of the key findings that
emerged from the research:
v
The need to focus on paradoxes in the macro-data -
of increasing female migration rates and falling
female work participation rates; the distinctive
trend of major increases in migration for marriage
by women –and the context of employment crisis that
has resulted in an absolute decline in the numbers
of women workers across the quinquennium between
2004-05 to 2009-10.
v
With Regard to marriage migration, case studies of
cross regional marriages indicated that inability to
pay dowry was propelling the sending out of brides
while bridegrooms sought brides from other areas due
to shortage of available brides in some areas but
also sometimes to circumvent escalating marriage
expenses.
v
Dowry appeared as a focal point linking increased
marriage migration to the expanding terrain of
devaluation of women’s work (paid and unpaid in
production) accompanying greater marketization and
demand for cash, reflected in further
marginalization in employment. The meso-level data
showed the steepest increases in dowry marriages
among scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs,
all sections where larger proportions of women were
traditionally in the workforce.
v
There is a need to break with the standard practice
of including unpaid workers (albeit within the
production boundary) in the macro-data based
calculations of the employed since this generally
presents an inflated picture of actual employment
opportunities for women.
v
Analysis of labour migration based on the latest NSS
migration survey (2007-08) - by focusing on only
paid /income earning employment - revealed a high
degree of male bias in migrant employment in
industry and services (relatively less so in
agriculture), indicating that migration patterns are
actually aggravating gender inequalities in the
labour market at an aggregate level.
v
Using a more socially grounded typology of
migration, the meso-level survey indicated a
predominance of the temporary in contemporary labour
migration (including short term, medium term and
circular labour migration) � to a greater extent
than appears in the macro-data. There is need for
greater recognition of different types of temporary
migration in the concepts and definitions adopted.
v
The meso-level survey provided limited evidence of
diversification of women’s employment through
migration, with greater concentration of women in a
relatively narrow band of occupations, with
differentiation moving along the fault lines of
entrenched caste and community hierarchies. More
medium and long term migration among women from
upper caste communities correlated with relatively
greater levels of diversification into various types
of services while migrant women workers from the
scheduled castes and tribes were concentrated in
hard manual labour based short term and particularly
circular migration linked occupations, with little
scope for social advance.
v
In circular migration based brick-making (across the
country) and sugarcane cutting (in western and
southern India), women’s wage work itself was found
to be subsumed in laboring units comprising
male/female pairs or family units, despite serving
segments of capital accumulation -oriented modern
industries, such as sugar mills. Combined with piece
rates, this leaves no scope for independent income,
even as legal quantification of individual women’s
work value becomes difficult. This is compounded by
a cycle of advance and debt based tying of such
laboring units, generally through contractors.
v
A strong and distinctive movement towards a major
concentration of women in paid domestic work, mainly
through urban-wards migration, was found to cut
across all castes/tribes/community lines. Textile
based factory employment also appeared relatively
less characterized by any concentrated caste
features.
v
The macro and meso level findings challenge some
assumptions that have become commonplace in
approaches to women’s work and work based
migration. The low shares of women in labour
migration for industry and diversified services run
counter to the assumption that liberalization and
globalization lead to feminization of labour and
related migration. In fact, the escalated
devaluation of women’s traditional work appears to
be confronted with employment constriction and a
narrow range of options, rather than compensation
for loss of earlier employment through adequate
expansion/diversification in paid employment
opportunities for women.
v
Overall, female labour migration
has had less of an impact on the structure of the
female workforce with a continuing and relatively
greater concentration of women in agriculture and
low employment rates among urban women evident in
the macro-statistics. The meso-level data indicates
that relatively smaller proportions of women migrant
workers in urban areas have been drawn out from the
agricultural workforce, while more (particularly
from the higher castes) appear to make a transition
from non-employment to employment.
v
Nevertheless, a strong urge to change the conditions
of their life was also evident in the meso-data with
a significant presence of autonomous migration by
women and a large proportion of women migrant
workers declaring that the decision to migrate was
theirs.
v
The above findings being for a period of high growth
in India, raise several additional questions.
Characterized by a rapidly declining share of
agriculture in the country’s GDP, accelerated growth
primarily in services and to a lesser extent also
industry, has not generated commensurate demand in
terms of employment, for which women have paid the
main price of reduced employment. Despite the push
towards distress migration induced by the agrarian
crisis, a pullback also appears to be operating
given the predominantly temporary nature of the
developing employment regime, and the widespread
inability of migrants at lower ends of the economy
to sustain social reproduction without periodic
retreat to the village economy, even as the village
economy is not providing sufficient employment.
There is a need to bring into the debate questions
related to structural limitations to the migration
enterprise under the current growth/development path
in effecting a) durable or structural sectoral
/occupational shifts away from agriculture for women
workers, b) escape from or transformation of
degrading semi-feudal social relations based on
caste hierarchies and patriarchy, and c) escape from
the massive employment crisis that women face in
India. Despite a degree of social assertion, the
data suggests persistence of structural constraints
in the highly gendered labour market and entrenched
patriarchies in the macro-process reinforcing
gendered features of migration under
liberalization/neo-liberal driven growth.
v
The censuses of the village sites indicated that 56%
of households reported economic migration by
household members, with higher proportions within
Muslim and Christian households sending migrants in
comparison to households of other religions and
larger proportions of ST, MBC and SC households
sending out migrants in comparison to upper caste
and OBC households while the average income of
households with migrants (including remittances) was
less than the average incomes of households without
migrants.
v
Also a higher proportion of the women migrants (23%)
reported experience of violence in
the course of their
migration in comparison to men.
Higher Education and Gender
Researcher: Mary E. John
During the year, different aspects of higher
education were the subject of research,
consultations and publications. Drawing from the
workshop on Critical Knowledges in Higher Educationd
in March 2011, an issue of the journal Seminar
was guest edited with the title ‘Democratizing
Knowledge: A Symposium on Higher Education� (August
2011). The main concern of this issue of Seminar
was to focus on the current moment of higher
education in the context of state led initiatives to
provide a ‘big push� in this sector with the
Eleventh Plan. Given both the policy vacuum and
knowledge vacuum within which massive changes are
taking place, the twelve essays in the volume looked
at various aspects of the processes underway,
including recent Commission Reports, the new Bills
in Parliament, questions of disciplinarity and
language, student politics, teachers� responses to
the semester system in Delhi University, questions
of governance and regulation, and so on.
A research paper was also prepared which looked at
issues of gender within the current moment of higher
education. Historically speaking, women’s education
occupied a central place from the nineteenth century
to the first decades of India’s independence, but,
curiously, lost prominence with the onset of the
women’s movement and the introduction of women’s
studies in the academy in the 1980s and since then.
Although the participation of women in higher
education shows steady improvement and a narrowing
of the gender gap, the paper examined national-level
data (NSS 2004-05) to reveal the complex and elusive
forms being currently assumed by gender
discrimination. This includes recognising that
disparities among women from different social groups
are greater than those among men of the same groups.
Secondly, many of the contexts where gender gaps
have closed are also characterised by adverse child
sex ratios due to practices of sex selection. Taken
together, the paper argued that the current era of
expansion in higher education demands analysis from
a gendered perspective. This paper is due to appear
as part of a special issue on gender in the journal
Contemporary Education Dialogue in July 2012.
Globalisation and Women's Work: Dissagregate analysis of NSSO data
Researcher:
Neetha N.
This is an ongoing study based on the employment and unemployment
data published by NSSO. The work during the current year was based
on the 66th round data. Structural changes do impact
women’s employment in terms of their opportunity for employment and
sectoral/occupational concentration. The trends and pattern of
female employment at the macro level has not been revitalizing with
considerable fluctuations both in terms of participation as well as
occupational concentration. This puzzle around female employment
took a new turn with the release of the 66th round data
showing a sharp decline in work participation rate in 2009-10. The
decline when analysed was found to be driven by a decline in self
employed in rural areas. Since self employment also includes a large
section of workers who are unpaid, a detailed disaggregation of
self-employed was attempted to capture the proportion of paid
employment and there by the participation rate of women in paid
employment. The analysis revealed the glaring difference between
paid work participation rate and the common measure of workforce
participation rate. The findings open up the debate around women’s
work in terms of both measurements as well as in understanding
changes in women’s employment, gender relations and women’s status.
During the year 2011-12 one presentation was made
based on the findings of the analysis. Further, one
occasional paper and journal article was also
published jointly with Indrani Mazumdar.
Multiple vulnerabilities and
Marginal identities: exploring violence in the
everyday
lives of Women with Disabilities
Researcher: Renu Addlakha
Work continued on writing up the
manuscript, based on the 18 months of qualitative
fieldwork in Delhi for the above project. The
tentative title of the manuscript is ‘Decentring
Disability in India: Violence, Work and Sexuality in
everyday Life�. Drawing upon both primary and
secondary data, the work examines the contemporary
discursive formation of disability in India with a
particular focus on everyday practices in the
lifeworld. As the title indicates, violence, work
and sexuality are overarching themes and their
analysis is embedded in an intersectional framework
of socio-demographic variables in which gender is a
prominent category. In addition to in-depth
interviews, the other data sources which emerge as
field sites in their own right for this study are
the law, media and civil society, particularly the
disability rights movement.
This project would be the first study in India that
engages with disability of women and men in a
lifecycle perspective. Although largely based on an
urban sample of informants in their reproductive and
productive years, it raises issues that bear
relevance to a cross section of the disabled
population in the country. Being a field based
study, it seeks to question dominant stereotypes and
representations of disabled people by focusing on
individual experiences that both contest and
corroborate the above. The study is a unique blend
of both original and applied research with
theoretical insights and policy-related
recommendations.
Gender and Governance in Conflict Zones
Project Co-ordinator and Researcher: Seema Kazi with Regional partners: Amena Mohsin,
Bangladesh; Malathi De Alwis, Sri Lanka and Nazish Brohi, Pakistan
This is an IDRC supported three year regional
project on Gender and Governance co-ordinated by
Seema Kazi from the CWDS-- which focuses on the
nature and extent of integration of gender concerns
in conflict zones with an emphasis on security and
justice issues.
v
The study examines governance in conflict zones in
four South Asian states (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka) from a gender perspective at three
levels to firstly reflect on women’s marginalisation
in politics and governance in conflict zones. Moving
beyond the numbers/quota debate regarding women’s
participation in politics, this study demonstrates
that women’s marginalisation in politics in conflict
zones has much more to do with the institutional
context and practice than with women’s numeric
presence in governance bodies. Using a combination
of evidence-based empirical methods, the study
identifies women’s gender concerns in conflict zones
and highlights the impediments women face in terms
of institutional access, response and redress.
Thirdly, the focus on women’s local activism in the
region shows how women have adopted novel forms of
protest against gendered violence and exclusion in
conflict zones albeit with relatively little
influence on local governance policy. Women’s
mobilisation for institutional accountability in
conflict zones is examined and potential strategies
women could adopt towards influencing governance
policy are foregrounded. The study will flag gender
concerns emerging out of local and regional
workshops to be held during the course of the study
and aims at forging a network of women and feminists
working towards widening the debate on gender and
governance in the South Asian region.
v
This project re-affirms women as key stakeholders in
the relationship between citizens and the state in
conflict zones, In addition to analyzing
country-specific cases, through cross country
comparisons, the project will illustrate/ highlight
broader gender inequalities that are produced,
sustained, and reinforced through armed conflict to
consider how these inequalities occur within public
and private spaces, and how the practice of
governance needs to be responsive and accountable to
women in conflict zones. From a policy point of
view, the empirical knowledge generated in this
study is expected to affirm and endorse the
importance of a bottoms-up practice of
governance. The core motivation of the study is
transformatory change and to this end, it aims to
underscore the limits of a feminist strategy focused
on women’s numerical presence in governance
institutions and emphasises the enhancement of
women’s political capacity in conflict zones or, in
other words, enforcing public accountability for the
protection of women’s rights in South Asia’s
conflict zones.
v
This study is envisaged to have multiple outcomes.
At a macro/general level it provides a regional
overview of governance regimes in the South Asian
region and highlights the generic and specific
challenges women face in terms of ensuring voice and
agency in politics. The use of a feminist and
non-feminist political and historical frame captures
the complexity of conflict that, in turn, has a
direct bearing on women’s participation in politics.
v
The
outreach component of this research includes local
workshops in India, Bangladesh,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka
involving researchers, women’s groups, feminist
activists,
NGOs/CBOs, policy-makers,
researchers, scholars, opinion-makers and
journalists. Local and
regional workshops are to
be held in each of the four research locations to
highlight the
research findings in the
respective country sections and raise awareness
regarding the
importance of integrating
women’s gender concerns in governance practice in
conflict
zones. The workshops aim
to forge a community of activists and researchers in
the South
Asian region working on
issues of gender and conflict, governance, and human
security.
These aim at a policy
colloquium - including researchers, scholars and
policy-makers �
tasked with using the
knowledge generated by the study to influence
policy, and
enhance engagement around
gender concerns in conflict zones. The project
envisages
greater collaboration
among local women’s groups and CSOs working on
gender and
governance, further
research uptake based on research findings and a
consolidation of
alliances between local
women’s and civil society groups.
Women in Indian Engineering: A Preliminary Analysis of Data from the Graduate Level
Engineering Education in Kerala and Rajasthan
Researcher:
Sreelekha R.Nair
Perusal of the
literature available on women and Engineering shows
that there are only a handful of studies on women
engineers, not only in India, but universally. It
is in this context that a study was undertaken of
graduate level engineering education in the states
of Kerala and Rajasthan in India in collaboration
with the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New
Delhi. This was part of a larger collaborative study
on ‘Making of Indian Engineers�, by a group of
researchers led by Dr. Roland Lardinois of the CSH.
Analysis of secondary as well as primary data showed
that though engineering educational institutions in
post-independence India did not officially have a
history of discrimination against women -- unlike
their counterparts in the west-- many informal and
institutional biases existed which worked against
women. The tendency to favour men and boys at a
wider social level has its impact on decision-making
with regard to the education of women and continues
to determine the gender based patterns with respect
to who enters engineering courses. Though the state
of Kerala is much advanced in the enrolment of
women, systemic biases against women continue even
as there is much to be done at the policy level in
the state of Rajasthan. The study points to the need
to undertake systematic research on the subject,
going beyond analyzing the enrolment rates of women
and men.
The study was published as an Occasional Paper,
Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi.
Move Towards Professionalization? A Case Study of Nursing Development in
a Globalised Context from the Southern Indian State of Kerala
Researcher:
Sreelekha R.Nair
Undertaken in collaboration with the School of Nursing, Midwifery and
Physiotherapy at the University of Nottingham, UK,
A proposal to study a spate of on-going strikes by
nurses in the private sector hospitals in Kerala was
initiated during December 2011-February 2012 when it
was noticed that nurses across different districts
had come together to speak in one voice, despite
pressure tactics from hospital authorities. In
Kerala the strikes received widespread media
coverage and public debate about problems and issues
faced by nurses. The context to the study was
provided by the well –known fact that India faces
an acute shortage of nursing staff and an estimated
deficit of 2 million even as the Government has
identified the National Rural Health Mission
(2005-2015), health sector reform and human resource
development as central priorities. Presently, much
investment is directed towards increasing training
capacity for nurses. However, reports point to a
systemic crisis in the nursing sector, demonstrating
that poor working conditions, low pay, exploitative
working conditions (particularly in the private
sector), low status of the profession, and weak
regulation continue to be issues. Significantly,
scholars working on the subject have maintained that
simply increasing the numbers of nurses without
addressing these wider social and professional
issues will not help to achieve the goal of
improving the quality and capability of the nursing
workforce. Keeping these aspects in mind, a project
titled ‘Move towards Professionalization? A Case
Study of Nursing Development in a Globalised Context
from the Southern Indian State of Kerala,� in order
to study the issues emerging from and in course of
ongoing strikes by nurses has been undertaken in
collaboration with Dr. Catrin Evans (Nurse Educator)
and Dr. Stephen Timmons (Sociologist) of the School
of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy of the
University of Nottingham, the United Kingdom. Work
on the Project began in March 2012.
The Manuscript of Moving with the Times Gender,
Status and Migration of Nurses in India,
published by Routledge India, New Delhi in May 2012
was finalized during this period.
Needs Assessment for Creches and Childcare Services
Project Director: Kumud Sharma; Co-ordinator:
Vasanthi Raman;
Research Officer: Pooja Dhawan
A project focusing on Need Assessment of Creches and
Child Care Services was undertaken over this year to
strengthen the research component within the FORCES–CWDS
partnership, with Vasanthi Raman as the Project Co-ordinator
Commissioned as a Project by the Ministry of Women
and Child Development, GOI, during
2011-2012, this
study is aimed at feeding into changes in policy
that were/ are already in the pipeline to
specifically examine the scope, need and viability
of developing a network of anganwadi centres- cum
-crèches.
The focus of this study remains two-fold: to assess
the functioning of ICDS centres and need for crèches
and child care services reaching out to the vast
majority of women and families who could no longer
fulfil child care needs. The study team has
approached the issue from an integrated perspective
to address the needs for care of the young child and
the mother/worker, thus linking both child care
needs as well as the gender dimensions. The outcome
of the project has far reaching implications.
The time frame for the study was one year, with an
extension given for three months. The study has been
completed and the final report is being finalised.
The six state study � covering Assam, Delhi,
Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh-
began with identifying the diverse regions and
socio-economic and cultural niches of the country as
its starting point, thereby laying out the diversity
of the situations of mothers and families, also
specifically that of children as a factor to be
built upon. Special attention was given to factoring
in different occupational categories as an important
criterion while identifying the sample of 3000
households for the questionnaire based survey.
The sample addresses the need of children below the
age of six whose mothers are drawn from seven
selected occupational categories, i.e. agricultural
labourers, home-based artisans and workers, brick
kiln workers, construction workers, domestic
workers, fishing communities and tea plantation
workers. A small sample of Anganwadi Workers also
formed part of the study. Preliminary analysis
reaffirms some of the initial objectives outlined
while selecting the sample: the social profile of
mothers and households shows that the most
marginalised both socially ( i.e. Scheduled Castes,
Scheduled Tribes, minority groups and Other Backward
Classes) and economically backward are covered by
the sample; the vast majority of sampled households
were below the poverty line, with 35% of the sampled
households across six states having an average
annual income of Rs.10,000 to Rs.20,000 while
another 41% having an income of Rs.20,000 to Rs.
40,000.
Other early findings from the survey conducted
establish that of that sample of 3000:
v
A large proportion ( 39 %) do not have any ration
card, while 34% have BPL cards;
v
A significant percentage ( 45%), particularly
agricultural labourers, brick kiln workers and
construction workers get employment for only four
to six months;
v
The
majority of the children of respondents below the
age of six ( 59%) do not use Anganwadi Centres (AWC),
with the percentages for children 0-3 years being
33% and those for children between 3-6 years being
41%.
The AWC is essentially being used for immunisation
and take home rations. The study establishes that
the mother is the sole care giver in the age set of
0-6 months and also the principal caregiver in the
other age categories across all six states and
occupational categories. Creches are almost
non-existent in the areas under study. 98% of the
respondents stated that they would use a crèche
facility if available. Nearly 78% of the respondents
across all occupational categories preferred a full
time crèche.
.
Indigenous Midwives and their Skills in Contributing
to the Wellbeing of Birthing Women and Newborns (The
JEEVA Project)
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Mira Sadgopal
Team of researchers: Mira Sadgopal, Imrana Qadeer,
Janet Chawla, Lindsay Barnes, Leila Caleb Varkey and
Anuradha Singh. Bijoya Roy from CWDS is also part of
this project.
The study of Indigenous Midwives and their
Skills in Contributing to the Wellbeing of Birthing
Women and Newborns, the ‘Jeeva� Project
(2011-14) - is now in its main study phase. Covering
a study population of about 40,000 spread
across four districts in
remote locations in India � Bokaro in Jharkhand,
Bellary in Karnataka, Nandurbar in Maharashtra and
Kangra in Himachal � the
study aims to
strengthen the evidence base on Dais and indigenous
midwifery systems in India, while also providing a
profile of the other birth care providers, birthing
women and families and their perceptions of Dais. It
looks towards
appropriately linking the Dais with the formal
health services under the National Rural Health
Mission (NRHM). It will propose how Dais can support
the health services to enhance the survival and
wellbeing of mothers and newborns.
The current phase of the study focuses qualitatively
on Dais� traditional childbirth knowledge and skills
in normal and difficult or complicated situations;
their utilisation, especially by the poorest; and
their relations with other informal and formal
maternity care providers. Through a 33% survey of
households and of providers, with exhaustive
birth-tracking, it attempts to quantitatively assess
the prevalence and outcomes of key practices so as
to compare women’s experience of support in
childbirth with Dais at home and in ‘institutional�
(hospital) settings.
The research teams are supported by four project
partners at the regional level: Jan Chetna Manch
� Bokaro, Jharkhand, Janarth Adivasi Vikas
Sanstha in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, Society
for Rural Development and Action in Mandi in
Himachal Pradesh, and the Mahila Samakhya
Karnataka team in Bellary.
During the last year the core study team finalised
the research tools and researchers; conducted
trainings for field teams and undertook translation
of research tools into the regional languages. A
training workshop for Orientation of the core
researchers was held in Delhi in November 2011. The
Ethics Review Committee has also met. Meanwhile, the
field teams familiarised themselves with the study
terrain and the people as also the Partners.
They translated from
regional into local languages with help of the local
members. A village profiling and social
mapping has begun alongside updating the listings of
Dais, and checking and finalising the listings of
village households to identify the research sample.
The survey instruments were tested for
communicability, while the survey of one-third
sample of households and survey of providers
started. This will continue through July-August
2012.
These months in the field have been full of
challenges for the four teams who have had to deal
with variations in climate, some rugged terrain and
their own diverse experiences. A review and
orientation workshop, organised in April 2012 at
Delhi, after four months� field work, laid stress on
a methodology of two way
learning. It was rich in local experience and
insights into the reliance of people on the Dais in
the regionally very different contexts that
constitute the study.
With the participation of Dais, other maternity care
providers, women and others in these communities,
the project strives at making childbirth safer by
strengthening community-based birth attendance and
planned back-up by the formal health care system
through realisation of the Dais� potential to
optimise the wellbeing of mothers and newborns.
Bijoya Roy, CWDS, is one of the members of JEEVA
Research Ethics Committee. She was one of the
resource person’s for Inter-regional Orientation
programme for the field researchers and the partner
organization, organized in Delhi (31st Oct.
� 5th Nov., 2011).
The Adverse
Child Sex Ration in North-West India
Researcher: Mary E. John
The collaborative study on the adverse child sex ratio has entered its
final phase, concentrating on matters of dissemination of the study.
During 2009-10 the Report in English was the subject of a special panel
discussion hosted in Jawaharhal Nehru University. It has since
been translated into both Hindi and Punjabi and is being widely
disseminated in both hard copy and electronic copy form.
Work on a separate book has already been initiated
which aims to go into greater depth than the report
in order to provide a site wise analysis of the
research undertaken, as well as providing a fuller
background context for the study.
The team of researchers includes Ravinder Kaur,
Rajni Palriwala and Saraswati Raju, and the final
phase of support comes from the IDRC.
The
Social and Political Economy of care in India
Researcher:
Neetha Narayana
Pillai
The study, conducted at
the initiative of the UNRISD Programme on Gender and
Development, is completed. This is a joint study
with Prof. Rajni Palriwala of Delhi University.
The study
demonstrates how the multi-dimensional nature of
care giving and its quantitative or qualitative
time/labour demands are not recognized.
The findings suggest a stratified familialism in
care practices due to the differences in time
available to family members for care. The
institutional context mediated by the political
economy of livelihoods stratifies families along a
continuum. At the one end are those who have the
possibility to retain familial carers at home and
supplement them with market and other institutional
carers and at the other end of the spectrum are
those who are neither able to retain family members
at home nor fill the care gap through formal
institutions.
Among poor and labouring households, where mothers
are engaged in paid work, in or away from home, and
where other kin are not likely to be present, care
is abbreviated. In contrast to this, an enhancement
in familial time and quality of care is possible at
higher income levels and is also demanded by the
changing ideas of childcare among the elite and
middle classes. The poor migrant, the urban
labouring poor, and households where all members
need to earn are often the ones supplementing
familial care in elite households, with a deficit in
their own. Crèches and pre-schools or
institutional arrangements such as maternity leave
to enable unpaid familial care are neither cheap nor
simple to organise, especially where the economy is
largely informal and carers are workers in
individual households and thereby made invisible.
At the same time, the range of care possibilities
available to the elite and upper middle classes and
local care chains enable women of these strata
apparently to break out of gendered moulds.
The mapping of care practices in India delineates a
labour/care regime in which care is socially and
economically devalued with little shift in state
policy on care, despite collective agitation. There
is a muted and partial recognition of the
imperatives of care needs and an imputation of
‘moral� value to care giving. The study argues that
despite differences between various states and the
central governments in social policy, all tend to
assume familial, gendered, and informal systems of
care. Care has entered public discourse and
government policy inadvertently around issues of
child welfare and ‘human resource development�. The
continuing official denial of the time and skill
requirements of care acts in conjunction with the
non-recognition of women’s multi-layered work to add
to women’s burden. The encouragement of the
informal sector enables women’s presence as unpaid
familial carers and strengthens assumptions
regarding the availability of such care. The
continued assumption is that care and the carer do
not, need not, and cannot become a public
responsibility and concern.
The draft report
submitted to UNRISD in the form of five chapters is
available on their website. Chapters from the study
are being reworked for separate publication, and the
possibility of a book is also being explored.
Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi
Researchers: Neetha
Narayana Pillai and Indrani Mazumdar
The study which was carried out at the initiative of
the Delhi Commission for Women has been completed.
The major objectives of the study were to: 1.
Undertake an in depth analysis of the various
factors that contribute to women workers� specific
vulnerabilities and to discriminatory and
exploitative practices (including sexual
exploitation) in five important segments of the
female workforce. 2. Identify the specific and
practical needs for enhancing protection of women
workers in these segments, particularly in the
private sector. 3. Review and explore the
effectiveness or ineffectiveness of available
mechanisms and practices currently used for
redressal in relation to sexual harassment in the
workplace. 4. Prepare a series of guidelines towards
evolving more effective mechanisms for social
protection and redressal of grievances of women
workers. The report of the study has been submitted
to the Delhi Commission for Women. At the request of
the Commission a formal presentation of the findings
and recommendations of the study was made before its
members.
The chapter wise break-up of the report is as
follows:
1.
Women Workers of Delhi: Overview
2.
Of Women Workers in the Factories of Delhi
3.
At the Cusp of a Boom: Private Sector Office/Service
Workers in Delhi
4.
Trapped between the Public and the Private: Domestic
Workers in Delhi
5.
Conditions in the Education Sector: Teachers and
Students
6.
Reviewing Regulatory Frameworks, Laws Institutions
7.
More than a Decade after Vishakha: Sexual Harassment
Issues before Women Workers in Delhi
8.
Summary of Research Findings and Recommendations
Construction and
Recreation of Violence in the Legal System: Gaps
between Claims and Entitlements
Researcher: Rukmini Sen
The
last year has been taken up with further research on the topic of legal
reforms. A major issue here concerns the gap between the demands made by
the women’s movement since the early 1980s on laws relating to violence
against women and the actual shape that the law reform took. Not only
is there a huge lag from the when the demand was initially made and when
the legal reform takes place, most of the substantive changes that are
asked for by the women’s groups have never conceded to. Two papers
published in EPW and IJGS are a result of this research, one on changes
in rape law (focussing especially on the Law Commission Reports) and the
other on laws relating to domestic violence. Separate research was
initiated on the myth about the misuse of section 498A of the Indian
Penal Code. This research was prompted by the attempts underway to
dilute the procedural aspects of 498A because of the ‘fear� of misuse,
without having any evidence or statistics regarding such ‘misuse�. The
note prepared has also been used in various for a including the Joint
Parliamentary Committee hearings on the issue of changing IPC 498A.
Gender and Democratic Governance
Researcher: Seema Kazi
This study focuses on gender and democratic
governance in the South Asian region, namely, India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal and is
being brought out as an Occasional Paper. Beginning
with a general introduction to the region, the first
section highlights the shared historical and
cultural heritage of South Asia and delineates the
challenges confronting individual states in the
region. The second section explains the differences
between Western/European and South Asian
understandings of democracy and goes on to highlight
the region’s gender deficit with reference to
women’s rights and political participation. The
concepts of democracy, governance and women’s rights
are discussed and the importance of gender equality
as one of the core guiding principles of democratic
governance emphasised. The third section examines
the demand for reserved quotas for women in local
and national governance institutions in all five
contexts. It delineates the historical and political
context against which the demand for reserved quotas
for women in governance bodies emerged and
highlights the role of women’s movements towards
facilitating women’s political participation.
Focusing on women’s movements across South Asia, the
paper discusses the important successes as well as
the challenges of women’s movement activism
vis-a-vis the demand for reserved quotas. In
conclusion, the paper underlines the importance of
bridging class inequality and effecting distributive
justice if women’s demands for political equality
are to be realised.
Study on Women Migrants of Tamil Origin in France
Researcher: Sreelekha Nair
During a period of extraordinary leave at the Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris) during 2008, a study
was initiated on women migrants of Tamil origin in
France. During 2009-10, the study was developed
into two papers focussing on their economic
activities and their active agency in the creation
of a visible Tamil identity in France. Work
participation and other engagements in civil society
are also informed by gender roles and notions of the
‘ideal� cultural practices of the original community
that they left behind. These papers describe how the
difference in their status within the French state
has affected the economic status of women migrants
from Pondicherry and Sri Lanka and their livelihood
options. Such status plays the most important role
in their negotiations with/in the public space, even
when the separation between public and private
spaces is porous. Familial spaces perceived as
private, relations at the community and professional
levels, as well as spaces at the interface between
the community and mainstream French society are the
main areas that have been explored in these papers.
Relations within the community itself are affected
by the political scenario at the place of home.
Global Networks of the Sri Lankan migrants also
inform their identity formation and engagement with
the state.
Needs Assessment for Creches and Childcare Services
Investigators: Kumud Sharma, Vasanthi Raman
CWDS has prepared a proposal in the light of the
critical place occupied by the ICDS scheme as the
state’s flagship programme for the young child and
mothers, with its enormous outlay of public
resources. However the outcome and impact of this
major governmental programme in terms of the health
and educational status of young children are far
from satisfactory. Furthermore, the paucity of
crèches to serve the burgeoning informal sector is
also urgently in need of attention. With a view to
assessing the need for crèches, this study proposes
to examine the needs and responses to child care
services in six selected states. This would be the
first phase of a longer project required to capture
the situation in a representative range of
ecological zones and states in the country. Through
a combination of focussing on existing schemes such
as the ICDS and RGCS and problems in their
implementation, and secondly on communities� needs
for crèches and care services, the study seeks to
throw up the possibility of alternative models such
as the AWC cum Creches, to respond better to the
diversity of needs for different categories of
occupations and in different locations.
This is a one year study scheduled to begin in April
2011, with support received from the MWCD.
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