Themes > Current Issues
17.05.2008
The
Crisis of Home-based Work
Jayati
Ghosh
The
economic dynamism in India over the past decade has brought about all
sorts of changes in labour markets, especially in urban areas. But these
changes have often been quite different from what we would have expected.
Thus, wage employment (both regular and casual) accounts for a smaller
share of workers than before, as self-employment has increased for both
men and women. Among urban women workers, there has been an increase in
regular employment, but most of that is accounted for by domestic service
(as cooks, housemaids, etc.) rather than the export-oriented activities
such as garments and IT-enabled services that are the stuff of so much
hyperbole.
In fact, the data on manufacturing employment provides some surprises, especially with respect to women's work. The share of women workers in manufacturing as their primary activity has fluctuated sharply between 23 and 27 per cent for the past twenty years, and there is no evidence of a clear trend. However, the share of women working in manufacturing in a subsidiary capacity has been increasing continuously since 1987-88. It now accounts for 11 per cent of all women employed in manufacturing, which is not a small proportion.
One important reason for this is the increase in "putting out" home-based or other work as part of a subcontracting system for export and domestic manufacturing. Such work does not get incorporated in the employment statistics which are based on employers' records, and this may explain the paradox that even while women's share of recorded employment in manufacturing has not increased much, the dependence of the sector on the productive contribution of women may well have increased. So home-based subcontracting activities, or work in very small units that do not even constitute manufactories, often on piece rate basis and usually very poorly paid and without any known non-wage benefits, have probably substituted to some extent for the more standard form of regular employment on a regular wage or salary basis. Very recent evidence suggests that as export-based industries such as garments are facing growing competitive pressure, they pass this pressure on to home-based women workers by reducing the effective rates for piece-rate work.
Both the general pressure of industrial capitalist production and the particular external pressures faced by exporting industries which have to respond to international competition, operate to increase this tendency rather than to increase a more regular and secure form of women's involvement in manufacturing work.
This is confirmed by other data emerging from the NSSO Survey for 2004-05. This suggested that there were just under 15 million women workers in the unorganised sector, and more than half of them were women involved in home-based work for different types of industry, dominantly on a piece-rate basis. This included zari, charkha, or other handloom work, bindi sticking, stitching labels, food processing, and also potentially hazardous work involving acids and chemicals.
This suggests that the marginal utilisation of women workers in manufacturing industry is at the lowest and poorest paid parts of the production chain. Such women workers are therefore effectively deprived of all the benefits that may accrue from outside employment except for the meagre nominal returns that they receive from piece-rate work.
What is even more alarming is that the conditions of such work appear to have deterioriated rather than improved during the recent economic "boom". A convention held in Delhi in mid-April on the rights of home-based workers, which was attended by large numbers of women workers from different parts of Delhi such as Mongolpuri, Dakshinpuri, Ambedkar Nagar, Okhla and Rangpuri, provided graphic evidence of deterioriating conditions of home-based work.
The most striking point that emerged was just how abysmally low the piece rate wages for work are. And in some cases they even appear to have fallen in nominal terms, not to mention when deflated by the cost of living! Consider some examples.
Women doing fancy embroidery work on cloth cut pieces in Dakshinpuri are paid at rates which bring them only between Rs. 20 and Rs. 25 for more than 10 hours of work. Woman workers who stuff cotton into quilts in Kusumpur Pahari get around Rs. 20 for an eight-hour working day.
In Mongolpuri, making a 60 inch long bead necklace with around 700 beads fetches only one rupee per necklace. Since each necklace takes about an hour to make, the maximum possible earnings for a woman in one ten-hour working day from this tedious activity is only ten rupees!
In the old walled city of Delhi, women are making string rakhis at the unbelievable piece rate of 25 paise for 140 pieces, bringing in wages of only Rs. 4 or 5 per day. Women who stick bindis into packets in Karol Bagh are paid Rs. 3 for 140 packets of 10-25 bindis. Even when a woman works all day and the children of the household are also put to work in this activity in the evenings, it is difficult to earn more than six rupees in a day.
In Bawana, the difficult and unpleasant job of making and filling little packets of chuna to be supplied to paanwalas is rewarded at the rate of Rs. 1.50 to Rs. 2 per kilo of chuna, which means around 1200 packets. No more than 10 kilos can be done in a day, implying a maximal wage of Rs. 20 for work that causes wounds on the hands as the chuna burns the fingers. In Sonia Vihar, the difficult and potentially dangerous work of sorting of circular glass beads, which constantly causes cuts on the fingers, is effectively paid less than ten rupees per ten-hour day. Even fairly complex and difficult "machine work" such as making elements for ironing presses by hand gets only Rs. 5 for 100 pieces, and a full day's work generates not more than 150 pieces, making the remuneration not more than Rs. 7.50 per day.
No woman talked of receiving a wage higher than Rs. 25 per day, and many mentioned that conditions have deteriorated. In a very stark example, women who make coasters designed with small embedded beads revealed that the piece rate for these has fallen from Rs. 5 per coaster five years ago to only one rupee per coaster today.
A common problem is delayed payment even for these pathetic piece-rate wages – many women complained that they receive wages after a lag of several months, and sometimes only twice a year around the festivals of Holi and Diwali. Several of them had left such work in disgust and because of health problems such as eye strain, back pressure and adverse chemical effects, only to take it up again after some time because of the shortage of household income.
Recent increases in the prices of necessities have made matters much worse for home-based workers. They are increasingly forced to endure shockingly low wages and terrible work conditions because of the absence of other income opportunities and the need to find additional money income just to meet basic needs of their families.
All this is happening in the capital city of Delhi and in the National Capital Region, supposedly the richest and most economically dynamic metropolis of India. This is the situation after a decade of unprecedented economic boom in the country as a whole and in this metro in particular. It is seldom recognised that the recent economic expansion has come about because of the contribution of the mass of Indian workers rather than a few high-profile corporate magnates. Yet this huge contribution remains not only unsung, but unrewarded even in monetary terms.
In fact, the data on manufacturing employment provides some surprises, especially with respect to women's work. The share of women workers in manufacturing as their primary activity has fluctuated sharply between 23 and 27 per cent for the past twenty years, and there is no evidence of a clear trend. However, the share of women working in manufacturing in a subsidiary capacity has been increasing continuously since 1987-88. It now accounts for 11 per cent of all women employed in manufacturing, which is not a small proportion.
One important reason for this is the increase in "putting out" home-based or other work as part of a subcontracting system for export and domestic manufacturing. Such work does not get incorporated in the employment statistics which are based on employers' records, and this may explain the paradox that even while women's share of recorded employment in manufacturing has not increased much, the dependence of the sector on the productive contribution of women may well have increased. So home-based subcontracting activities, or work in very small units that do not even constitute manufactories, often on piece rate basis and usually very poorly paid and without any known non-wage benefits, have probably substituted to some extent for the more standard form of regular employment on a regular wage or salary basis. Very recent evidence suggests that as export-based industries such as garments are facing growing competitive pressure, they pass this pressure on to home-based women workers by reducing the effective rates for piece-rate work.
Both the general pressure of industrial capitalist production and the particular external pressures faced by exporting industries which have to respond to international competition, operate to increase this tendency rather than to increase a more regular and secure form of women's involvement in manufacturing work.
This is confirmed by other data emerging from the NSSO Survey for 2004-05. This suggested that there were just under 15 million women workers in the unorganised sector, and more than half of them were women involved in home-based work for different types of industry, dominantly on a piece-rate basis. This included zari, charkha, or other handloom work, bindi sticking, stitching labels, food processing, and also potentially hazardous work involving acids and chemicals.
This suggests that the marginal utilisation of women workers in manufacturing industry is at the lowest and poorest paid parts of the production chain. Such women workers are therefore effectively deprived of all the benefits that may accrue from outside employment except for the meagre nominal returns that they receive from piece-rate work.
What is even more alarming is that the conditions of such work appear to have deterioriated rather than improved during the recent economic "boom". A convention held in Delhi in mid-April on the rights of home-based workers, which was attended by large numbers of women workers from different parts of Delhi such as Mongolpuri, Dakshinpuri, Ambedkar Nagar, Okhla and Rangpuri, provided graphic evidence of deterioriating conditions of home-based work.
The most striking point that emerged was just how abysmally low the piece rate wages for work are. And in some cases they even appear to have fallen in nominal terms, not to mention when deflated by the cost of living! Consider some examples.
Women doing fancy embroidery work on cloth cut pieces in Dakshinpuri are paid at rates which bring them only between Rs. 20 and Rs. 25 for more than 10 hours of work. Woman workers who stuff cotton into quilts in Kusumpur Pahari get around Rs. 20 for an eight-hour working day.
In Mongolpuri, making a 60 inch long bead necklace with around 700 beads fetches only one rupee per necklace. Since each necklace takes about an hour to make, the maximum possible earnings for a woman in one ten-hour working day from this tedious activity is only ten rupees!
In the old walled city of Delhi, women are making string rakhis at the unbelievable piece rate of 25 paise for 140 pieces, bringing in wages of only Rs. 4 or 5 per day. Women who stick bindis into packets in Karol Bagh are paid Rs. 3 for 140 packets of 10-25 bindis. Even when a woman works all day and the children of the household are also put to work in this activity in the evenings, it is difficult to earn more than six rupees in a day.
In Bawana, the difficult and unpleasant job of making and filling little packets of chuna to be supplied to paanwalas is rewarded at the rate of Rs. 1.50 to Rs. 2 per kilo of chuna, which means around 1200 packets. No more than 10 kilos can be done in a day, implying a maximal wage of Rs. 20 for work that causes wounds on the hands as the chuna burns the fingers. In Sonia Vihar, the difficult and potentially dangerous work of sorting of circular glass beads, which constantly causes cuts on the fingers, is effectively paid less than ten rupees per ten-hour day. Even fairly complex and difficult "machine work" such as making elements for ironing presses by hand gets only Rs. 5 for 100 pieces, and a full day's work generates not more than 150 pieces, making the remuneration not more than Rs. 7.50 per day.
No woman talked of receiving a wage higher than Rs. 25 per day, and many mentioned that conditions have deteriorated. In a very stark example, women who make coasters designed with small embedded beads revealed that the piece rate for these has fallen from Rs. 5 per coaster five years ago to only one rupee per coaster today.
A common problem is delayed payment even for these pathetic piece-rate wages – many women complained that they receive wages after a lag of several months, and sometimes only twice a year around the festivals of Holi and Diwali. Several of them had left such work in disgust and because of health problems such as eye strain, back pressure and adverse chemical effects, only to take it up again after some time because of the shortage of household income.
Recent increases in the prices of necessities have made matters much worse for home-based workers. They are increasingly forced to endure shockingly low wages and terrible work conditions because of the absence of other income opportunities and the need to find additional money income just to meet basic needs of their families.
All this is happening in the capital city of Delhi and in the National Capital Region, supposedly the richest and most economically dynamic metropolis of India. This is the situation after a decade of unprecedented economic boom in the country as a whole and in this metro in particular. It is seldom recognised that the recent economic expansion has come about because of the contribution of the mass of Indian workers rather than a few high-profile corporate magnates. Yet this huge contribution remains not only unsung, but unrewarded even in monetary terms.
© MACROSCAN
2008