3.1. What is Women’s Work?

Women were the major producer of food, textiles and handicrafts throughout human history and continue to provide a major labour input where production is still in the small scale subsistence sector.

Defining the exact nature, scope and magnitude of women’s work remains a problem area because a good deal of women’s work is either invisible or is only partially accounted for in the data on workforce participation.

Components of women’s work include housework, paid and unpaid work related to home- based craft activities, family enterprise or business and paid work outside home. You must have observed differential work participation of men, women and children within the family both in quantitative and qualitative terms. The kind of work women do is determined by women’s position in the society and family’s location in the social hierarchy.

The basic elements of women’s work within the home are related to the division of labour between men and women. Activities included under ‘housework’ broadly differ according to age, gender, income, occupational group, location (rural/urban), size and structure of the family.