Community, Seclusion And Female Labor-Force Participation In Madras, India

The argument in this paper is that explanations of female labour force participation operating exclusively at the level of the structure of the economy and/or the household fail to see the impact on labour force participation of the intermediate social context in which households are embedded, that is the wider kingroup and community. In the context of two low-income settlements in Madras, whether women and girls work and under what conditions is explained in terms of the articulation of household composition with economic and ideological factors as they are, or are expected to be, interpreted by kin and community.(1)