CHAPTERS
CONCLUSIONS
Since the inception of the women's decade in the 1970s there has been a lot oflay and
academic interest in women's issues, especially on the changing roles and status of
women.
Such changes have received rightful attention from demographic studies.
However, the focus of these studies has been mainly on the interrelations between
fertility, mortality and the changing status of women. The role of female migration in this
respect has been relatively neglected.
Such neglect is regrettable because female
migration has important implications for the changing role and status of women. Ruralurban female migration in developing countries is important because it has the potential
to change the lives of female migrants.
This study on employment oriented female migration - the case of female migrant
service workers in the informal sector of Delhi- began with a question on the popular
belief in migration literature that women migrants are passive and associational. The fact
-~.~
~---
that women may migrate to work and improve their conditions has not been adequately
recognised in migration literature.
While there are some fragmentary evidences of
women migrating for work in India, there is no study which analyses types, reasons and
consequences of female migration to show that female migration is not always passive
and that such migration may lead to a change in their position or status. Further the few
studies in this area have not probed into the different reasons for female migration; such
studies are either only socio-economic or anecdotal in nature. We tried to address the
issue that female migration is not always passive with reference to the migrant female
service workers in the informal sector of Delhi by examining the types and reasons of
female migration and the consequent effects on the women migrants.
propositions that we have attempted to deal with are,
a) Women migrants are not always passive and associational; and
b) The consequences of migration on women.
220
The major
We have also discussed the types and characteristics of female migration in this context.
In addition we have attempted to identify the factors leading to rural-urban female
migration.
OVERVIEW OF FINDINGS
A field study was conducted in Delhi on the female migrant service workers in the
informal sector of Delhi to demonstrate the above propositions.
One slum and one
middle- income group residential area were selected for the purpose. There were two
groups of such female migrant workers- one who migrated with family and the other
where women migrated without family or by themselves.
detailed interview with the women migrants.
Data collection included
We studied different aspects of their
migration, their different characteristics, work experiences and the effect of migration on
the migrants.
We also noted the comparable attributes of the nonworking female
migrants in the slum for comparison with the working migrants.
Before coming to the findings of the survey we analysed the migration, urbanisation
and employment situation in India and Delhi in Chapter 3. This analysis is based on
secondary data. It is revealed from the analysis that women are more mobile than men in '
India. It has also been found that the share of women exceeds in all the migration
streams. Women are also migrating more for longer distances and their share in the
longer durations has increased over the decades. According to the Census, around 5 per
---
cent of the women moved in search of employment during 1991. The reasons differed by
distance. Among the urban migrants, with the increase in distance, movement because of
marriage decreased while movement owing to employment and movement with the
---
family increased. N.S.S. data reveal that little more than 40 per cent of the employed
female migrants in urban India migrated because of employment related reasons.
Considering the nine-fold industrial classification of migrant workers we find that more
1
than half(54.1%) of the internal female migrant workers in urban India were engaged in
'other services' as compared to little less than one-third (29.1 %) of the male migrant
1 See Census oflndia, 1991 Series 1-India, Part VB-D Series, Migration Tables for the classification of
migrant workers by industrial category.
221
workers in 1991. At the all India level, 73 per cent of the urban female migrants who
were working before migration were also working after migration, a majority of whom
are regularly employed.
Further, it is found that more than half of those who were
'seeking work before', were working after migration and that a large percentage (42.0) of
female migrants in urban areas were in other services which includes public
administration, education and research, medical and health and personal services such as
domestic service, laundry and hair dressing.
It is also found that the percentage of
migrants migrating for employment related reasons is more for unmarried, widowed
/divorced migrant females than for the married ones. Further it is found that a sizeable
proportion of the illiterate and less educated women migrants who were working before
or were looking for work are migrating for employment. The rate of unemployment by
usual status, weekly status and daily status declined more for females than for males
during 1977-93. The composition of the workforce showed that the share of regularly
employed women increased while the share of self-employed women decreased. On the
other hand, male casual workers have increased while the share of regularly employed
men decreased. Thus data on migration and employment at the all India level indicate
that women who are less educated, labourers or are looking for work are migrating to
urban areas.
Another important finding is that among the urban migrants, with the
increase in distance, movement owing to marriage decreased while movement because of
employment and movement with the family increased. The data on employment also
show increase of female workers in low paid regular jobs. This has created an impression
that women are either getting subcontracting work or getting absorbed in the low
productive service sector in the urban areas.
Most of Delhi's migrants are interstate migrants and a large proportion of them come
from rural areas. A majority of these migrants come from U.P. Coming to female
migration to Delhi we find that in general female migration to Delhi and particularly from
rural areas of other states of India to Delhi has increased over the decades. These female
migrants are mostly in the working age group and about two-fifths of them are illiterate.
Though the reasons for migration suggested that most of the female migrants have
migrated because of marriage or have migrated with family, possibly some of these
222
migrated for employment. It is also found that the female work participation rate is
increasing in Delhi and more of Delhi's women workers are regular employees.
Industrial distribution of the workers in 1991 finds that around two-thirds of the women
workers in Delhi were in 'other services' which includes public administration, education
and research, medical and health and personal services such as domestic service, laundry
and hair dressing. Narrowing down on the migrant female workers from rural areas we
find that little more than one fifth of the rural-urban women migrant workers were
engaged as 'service workers' in Delhi in 1991. As these female migrants are mostly
illiterate, they get work only in the informal sector. The finding from all-India level data
that women who are less educated, looking for work are migrating to urban areas seems
to be true for Delhi as well. All these data about migrant women and women workers in
urban areas is very meaningful for the analysis of migrant female workers in informal
services and calls for a review of the notion that women in India are passive migrants.
We analysed the primary data in the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. In chapter 4 we
identified the types and characteristics of the female migrants.
Most of these who
migrated with family were married while most of the migrants who migrated alone were
unmarried, widowed or deserted. It was found that the female migrants 2 migrated for
employment from long distances, which proved wrong the notion that women migrants
are short distance migrants. Around one-third (33.5%) of the migrants came from the
distant states of Bihar and Jharkhand. Orissa and Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh sent
about fourteen per cent of the migrants. Another fourteen per cent of the migrants came
from West Bengal. Thus a total of sixty two per cent migrants were from far flung states.
The percentage becomes higher if the migrants from east and south U.P. are considered
long distance ones. Rajasthan (6.8), Haryana (5.0) and U.P. (26.1) were the other major
contributors. Though Rajasthan and Haryana are adjacent to Delhi, all of U.P. is not.
Thus a majority of the women migrants have covered long distances to come to Delhi. It
must be noted that a majority of the migrants came from the economically backward
states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, U.P., Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. On the
2 Here female migrants will mean the working female migrants who migrated for employment as has been
done throughout the thesis. It will be mentioned if the migrants are non-working ones.
223
basis of a composite index of level of economic development constructed by the Census
of India, in 1991 it was found that the maximum number of districts with the lowest
index was in Bihar (37) followed by U.P. (32), Madhya Pradesh (20) and Rajasthan (15). 3
Thus it is not surprising that poor rural migrants from these states migrated to Delhi to
make a living. The finding of this study also gets support from secondary data, which
showed that women had moved a longer distance for employment than for other reasons
(see chapter 3). The distance covered also varied by the types of migrants. All the
migrants who migrated alone were from far-off states. Another important feature of these
migrants is that a majority of the migrants who migrated without family came from tribal
dominated states.
Married migrants who migrated with family stayed for long durations because they
are not affected by any pull to go back or to go back early. There were also unmarried,
deserted and widowed migrants who stayed for long durations. But there were some
unmarried migrants who wanted to stay for a short period who migrated for the financing
of some heavy expenditure of their native families. But in general most of the female
migrants stayed or wanted to stay for long durations, some of them wanted to finance
their current family expenditures whereas others were also financing the expenditure of
their native family along with their current expenditure. Thus the notion that women
migrants are long-duration migrants finds support from our findings but our female
migrants wanted to stay for long durations for working and not just for staying with the
family they migrated with. Most importantly all the migrants migrated for employment
from rural to urban areas.
Female migrants are generally found to be young. The average age at which the
migrants in the study migrated was 21.5 years. The age of migration of those who
migrated with family was little less (21.2 years) than that (22.4 years) of those who
migrated alone. It is also found that the age of migration was lowest for the unmarried
migrants (17.5 years) followed by those who were married (21.4 years), widowed (28.5
years) or deserted (30.5 years) migrants. Thus it is the presence of widowed and deserted
3 See Census Atlas, National Volume-1, Census oflndia, 1991.
224
migrants in the group of those who migrated alone that caused a rise in the age of
migration of this group.
Rural-urban female migrants are mostly uneducated, unskilled and work in informal
services. It is found that an overwhelming majority of the migrants is illiterate. They
were discouraged from going to school in their childhood days. They either did not go to
school or discontinued their studies because they were needed for household work or
because their family did not see any need for a girl child to be educated. Women's
education is not given much value in these families. Thus it is mostly the attitude of the
parents which is responsible for the lack of education of the migrants. In effect the
migrants could only get jobs which required no education.
Women are found to migrate from families where women work and from societies
which do not frown upon women migrants. Ethnic differences are quite important for a
vast country like India, it is more so for this study because most of the respondents of this
study belong to either the scheduled castes or the scheduled tribes. Eighty three percent
of the migrants in this study belonged to the scheduled caste and about sixteen percent
belonged to scheduled tribes community. Both scheduled tribes and scheduled castes are
known to have higher work participation rates compared to that of the total population
(see chapter 3). This study found that the scheduled caste women in the slum under study
had a work participation rate of 72 which is far higher than that of the women in the
general population of Delhi who had a work participation rate of only 7.57 in 1991 (see
chapter 3). Our finding regarding this aspect is in complete agreement with other micro
studies in Delhi (Singh, 1978; Kasturi, 1990) and studies conducted in other metropolitan
cities (Pandey, 1998). Tribals too are found migrating to Delhi for work and have a high
work participation rate (Indian Social Institute, 1993).
Thus one finds that migrant
women from some ethnic backgrounds have high work participation rates.
It was found that the pre-migration families of the migrants were large in size and were
mostly engaged in agriculture as an occupation. Most of them either did not have any
land or had marginal size of holdings. The pre-migration family of the migrants who
came alone had more land than those of the migrants who carne with family. Most of the
225
male workers of the original family worked as casual labourers or small cultivators. A
large number of families had food deficit in the family. About one-fifth of the families
had to raise loan. The parents or parents-in-law had little education. Elderly women
were mostly illiterate but in majority of the cases they had worked outside the family at
some point of time or the other. Most of the families had at least one woman member left
at the village to take care of the household chores.
The average size of the migrant's present family was around four and therefore smaller
than the original family of more than six. The average household income is around
Rs.1200/- per month. In most of the cases, husbands were found to be casual earners
(95%). In fifty one per cent of the cases the women migrants earned more than their
husbands. In a majority of the cases, the adult male member in the household did not
have any steady income which might have been the main underlying reason for the
migrant female worker to migrate and work.
Thus the women migrants had a poor
economic background, were uneducated and migrated from long distances, from rural
areas of other states to urban Delhi, in search of a living, some with family and others
alone.
After analysing the types and characteristics of the female migrants in chapter 4 we
came to the central point of our thesis in chapter 5 and examined how passive these
female migrants were. We used some indicators to prove the point. We said a migrant
would be considered active if she met one or more of the following conditions,
i)
If she has taken part in the decision to migrate,
ii)
If one reason for her migration is employment,
iii)
If she has taken less than 30 days to get a job,
iv)
If she had prior knowledge of the labour market in the city at the destination,
v)
If the migrant's current income is more than 45 per cent of the current
household income
We found that all the migrants fulfilled more than one criterion. An overwhelming
proportion of the working migrants (96%) took part in the decision to migrate and this
justified that they were not passive migrants. Secondly, all the migrants reported that
226
they had migrated for employment. Thirdly, the fact that the migrants found jobs within a
short time after getting to Delhi and none of them had to wait for job longer than a month
justified the employment objective of the migrants. Fourthly, the migrants' employment
objective was supported by their knowledge of the labour market.
This is further
strengthened by the substantial financial contribution of the woman migrant to the family.
It is found from the survey that ninety-four per cent of the migrants' current income was
more than forty five per cent of the current households' total income. We said in the
beginning that a migrant would be an active one if one or more of the criteria put forth by
us holds good. By logical deduction we found that one or more conditions hold true for
all the migrants, which means all the migrants in the survey were active migrants.
Next in chapter 5 we analysed the proximate and not so proximate reasons that were
the causes for migration.
These are the reasons which the migrants could feel and
articulate. We found that while economic reasons predominated among the reasons for
migration there were also infrastructural and socio-cultural reasons intertwined with
these. The second important thing that emerged is that the economic reasons advanced by
the migrants were gender related. In terms of push and pull factors it was found that push
factors were much higher than pull factors in the first answers given by our migrants.
Most of them gave multiple answers, which we can say are a very important part of
women's reasons for migration. Only twenty two per cent of the migrants gave single
answers and all of them were related to economic reasons such as poverty, lack of
employment opportunity for women, low earning while the majority (78 %) of the
migrants showed multiple reasons. Another notable point is that 58 per cent of the
migrants showed only economic reasons while 42 per cent showed economic reasons
combined with other reasons. There are two important points here. The first is that a
majority of the migrants cited only economic reasons. Secondly there was a considerable
proportion of migrants who showed combined reasons. It must be remembered that
women's economic activities are very limited in both rural and urban areas. Women in
cultivation do not do every kind of work nor are they paid at par with men for what they
do. Some of them were not able to get any work because there was not enough work for
women.
Others were not being paid well while yet others found that they had lost their
227
traditional occupations. So the economic reasons cited by women migrants are related to
women's work and as such are gender related. Regarding the second feature, it can be
said that, there are a variety of social and cultural reasons found in women's migration.
This is the point where it differs from men's migration where the reasons for migration
usually refer to different kind of economic factors, the social factors found in men's
migration are different from those of women.
Apart from economic reasons, women
may migrate because of oppression at the level of the family or society. Men do not have
any social reasons combined with economic reasons because of the fact that there is no
social constraint on men's activities and movements as there are on women's in most
societies. Thus it is not only that women's economic reasons are also gender related
because women are not accepted in all kinds of work, but also because in many cases the
economic reasons are combined with social and infrastructural reasons.
It can be pointed out here that a majority of the respondents came from a premigration background of poverty, indebtedness and landlessness. Ninety five per cent of
the pre-migration households had food deficit and twenty six percent had incurred loans.
Eighty four per cent of the pre-migration households either did not have any land or had
only marginal landholdings. Thus lack of economic resources marked their background.
Moreover the average size of the pre-migration family was high at more than six. Thus
the women in question were looking for work for supplementing the household income,
which they could not get in the villages. Inadequate opportunities for work for women in
the villages are some of the main causes of women's migration from rural areas. It must
be noted here that the reasons shown under these factors relate to women specifically.
Women's jobs are very limited in rural as well as in urban areas. They work in sowing,
weeding and harvesting in agriculture and the rates are lower than those of men. Even
that work was not available for them in the villages. In some places the reason for nonavailability of work was lack of good cultivable land, in others it was drought while in yet
others it was commercialisation and mechanisation of agriculture. A total of forty two
per cent reasons were accounted for in this category. Our survey found that employment
opportunity for women in the villages was low.
Other non-agricultural works can often
absorb women workers if there is no work in agriculture. We found that the development
228
level of the villages was also low. Ninety five per cent of the respondents reported that
their villages at origin were low or moderately developed and there was hardly any
developmental work that had happened. None of the villages was developed enough to
absorb the women workers. All this culminated into such situations in the villages where
women did not get adequate work.
It has already been noted in chapter 4 that on the basis of a composite index of level of
economic development, the Census of India, 1991 found that the maximum number of
districts with the lowest index was in Bihar (37) followed by U.P. (32), Madhya Pradesh
(20) and Rajasthan (15). A major part of the respondents in our study hailed from these
states.
It has also been noted by authors that states in India with poor economic
development have higher female mobility compared to some of the prosperous states
(Lingam, 1998). Thus it is not surprising that poor rural migrants from these states
migrated to make a living in Delhi.
Considering the fact that our respondents are
interstate migrants and therefore are long distance migrants, the finding of the study that
the women moved for economic reasons also gets support from macro-level secondary
data, which showed that women had moved for a longer distance for employment than for
other reasons (see chapter 3). Coming to the second group of factors within the economic
factors, in our survey, women explained that the demand for traditional work of women
has dropped owing to commercialisation, to some extent because of mechanisation and
the operation of rice mills. Traditionally, women used to do some work in the production
process of agriculture and they used to make some products out of paddy and rice which
has virtually stopped or the demand for which has become very little. Around ten per
cent of the migrants said that they used to work in paddy fields which has stopped owing
to mechanisation. Then the women explained that traditionally they used to make some
products out of rice the demand for which has fallen. They reasoned that the decrease in
demand was because of the introduction of the substitutes like bread. They also said that
there were too many people making the same thing because of which the products were
not selling as they used to. The demand of some other jobs, which used to be practised by
different lower caste women, has also dwindled with the transformation of traditional
societies.
Traditional activities and handicrafts have lost their markets.
229
Modem
consumer goods have penetrated the rural market and changed the consumption pattern of
rural people who find it gives them a higher status if they use those goods.
Other
available studies have not explored the loss of traditional occupations of women as the
causes of migration. The deprivation and deterioration in occupations in the traditional
sector definitely causes rural-urban migration. The industrial policy followed in the Five
Year Plans of India from the Second Five Year Plan onwards had a big role to play in the
deterioration of the traditional sector (see Policy later in the chapter) in which rural
women used to be engaged.
In chapter 5 we also analysed the factors at level of family and society those affected
the migrants. While the women migrants were struggling with lack of employment, low
wage rate, mechanisation of agriculture and lack of demand for their traditional skills at
the village, the women came to know of the availability of jobs in the cities from fellow
villagers, relatives and friends who have already migrated to Delhi. The women came to
know from them that work opportunity was available in Delhi where they could find jobs
as housemaids and earn a good income. Thus a total of twenty five per cent of the
reasons were related to better work opportunity and higher pay in Delhi. Our sample data
revealed that the migrants had prior information about the potential labour market as well
as about the city from their friends or relatives. More than ninety eight per cent of the
migrants got the information from fellow villagers or relatives from the same village or
nearby ones. These people supplied the information when they visited the villages. It is
not only the channels of information, but the type and quality of the information that are
also important for migrating. If the migrants possess information about the nature of the
job and pay they will get at the destination then their aim of search becomes more defined
and specific and they can get the job without having to wait for a long time. More than
seventy per cent migrants had information about the kind of work and the wage rate they
could get in the city. Another twenty five per cent knew about both the city and the
labour market they were going to enter. Thus ninety six per cent of the migrants had prior
knowledge of the potential labour market. A higher percentage of the migrants who
migrated without family had information only about the labour market. To some extent it
shows their urgent need of employment as they explained that they were migrating for
230
employment and as they had contacts in Delhi they thought they would get help from
them. However, around thirty per cent of the migrants had knowledge of the city also;
some of these migrants were attracted by the glittering stories of the city while others
wanted to know where would they stay after migrating.
Thus we find that the
respondents were well informed about the labour market for them in Delhi. This finds
further support in the time taken to get the job in Delhi.
All the migrants got work
within a month of arriving in Delhi. It is even more noteworthy that half of the migrants
got work within seven days of reaching the city. It shows that their information about the
labour market was convincingly accurate and specific. Apart from this information, the
people who furnish it to them are of immense importance to a rural-urban female migrant.
These people, usually friends, relatives or fellow villagers who have already migrated
are a vital link for the migrants. The migrants also generally stayed with them on first
arrival in the city. More than ninety per cent of the migrants stay with friends and
relatives on first arriving in the city. A few of them came with jobs and thus stayed with
the employer when they arrived in the city. Friends and relatives furnished specific job
opportunities and also acted as referrals. Employers always like to employ maidservants
on the recommendation of somebody they know. Thus the friends and relatives acted as
vital links for the migrants. Around twenty two per cent of the independent migrants who
were incidentally Christians stayed in hostels run by Christian organisations when they
first came to the city. Friends and relatives also helped them in finding jobs within a
short time, which is evident in low waiting period. Sometimes this flow of information
happens at the level of the communities also. The sample data found that some of the
Christian women received information and help through Christian organisations.
Because of this organised help, many tribal Christian women migrants come to Delhi to
work. As far as migrants of other communities are concerned, people of the same caste
have helped the migrants considerably in moving. Thus link factors such as information,
friends and relatives affected the migration positively.
In effect we found that while economic reasons predominated there were
infrastructural and socio-cultural reasons intertwined with these economic reasons. The
second important thing that we showed is that economic reasons advanced by the
231
migrants were gender related. In terms of push and pull factors it was found that push
factors were much higher than pull factors in the first answers given by our migrants.
Twenty five per cent of the answers were related to demand for women's work in the city.
The villages at origin were not developed as a result they did not have enough
employment opportunity. Another crucial issue regarding reasons of female migration is
that unlike men, women move not only for economic reasons when they move to work.
Social and economic reasons are intertwined with economic reasons. At the family level,
it was found that the families were poor and encouraged the women to migrate for work,
which was evident in their encouraging attitude towards migration. It became easy for the
women to migrate when there was some woman was present to take care of the household
duties at the place of origin. The link factors are very important in female migration.
Link factors such as information, friends and relatives affected the migration positively.
In chapter 6 we analysed the consequences of migration on the women migrants. We
found that the migrants gained in terms of wages after migration. The migrants who
migrated with family earned a substantial proportion of the total household income and
thus justified their migration for employment. It was found that more of the migrants
who migrated without family remitted money. Among these, the unmarried migrants sent
more.
We also found that the migrants who migrated on own decisions and largely on
own decisions did not remit much and as such could spend a greater part of their earnings
on themselves than those who migrated on others' decisions or largely on others'
decisions who had to remit a higher proportion of their earnings. Thus in effect those
who migrated on own decisions or largely <:>n their own decisions benefited from their
earnings more than those who migrated on others' decisions or largely on others'
decisions. Only those migrants who had links with the original family remitted money to
the village. Remittance also depended on the stay of the migrant at destination. The
migrants who stayed for short periods remitted high amounts. However, the original
family was using the remittance mostly for consumption purposes of basic necessities,
which shows that the migrants migrated because of poverty in the family. In a nutshell, it
can be said that female migrants benefited economically from migration.
232
Chapter 6 also analysed the position of women after migration. The extent of the
improvement differed by the type of migration and the marital status.
Compared to
women who moved with family, women who moved alone could improve their economic
position a little more in terms of wages. The women who migrated with family earned a
substantial proportion of the total household income. But the women who migrated as
part of a survival strategy did not have much money left for themselves and so could not
improve their own condition much because of the need for remitting money to the
original family. Remittances from the migrant to the original family depended on who
decided to migrate as well as on the marital status. The women migrants took part more
in decision-making after migration but were never the principal financial decision takers.
And lastly, the position of women in the family improved somewhat but not in
accordance with the financial contribution made by them.
We found important differences between non-working migrant women and working
migrant women. The nonworking migrant women were more traditional. They did not
have any part in the decision to migrate whereas the working migrant women had some
part in the decision to migrate.
Quite expectedly their behaviour also differed after
migration. The nonworking migrant women were more conservative and traditional in
their ways than the working migrant women, as for example,
1)
Most of them still cook in traditional ovens with cowdung cake4 as fuel. Some of
them keep kerosene stoves for an emergency but not for daily cooking. Usually
they cook in traditional utensils and do not use pressure cookers.
2)
They do not venture outside the slum on their own.
3)
They do not talk to any outsiders or strangers.
4)
They do not have any pocket money to buy what they might fancy for their own
use and depend on the whims of the husbands for buying such articles for them.
5)
They do not get any help from their husbands in daily household chores except
when buying vegetables and getting groceries.
6)
They do not take any major decisions themselves.
4 Dried cow-dung used as fuel.
233
In contrast to this the working migrant women were quite unorthodox in their behaviour.
For example,
1)
They cook on kerosene stoves and all of them use pressure cookers to minimise
their cooking time.
2)
They usually go by themselves to buy vegetables and groceries outside the slum
area. Since they go out everyday to work, they do not bother about it and do not
ask their husbands to accompany them,
3)
They do not have any inhibition in talking to outsiders. On the other hand most of
them are smart enough to check the identity of the visitor and purpose of the visit.
4)
All of them are quite proud of the fact that they do not need to ask for money from
their husbands for buying what they fancy for their personal use.
5)
In some cases, they do get help from their husbands in daily household chores. If
they are pressed for time some of the men even cook the food at horne.
6)
Though financial decisions are taken together or by the male member, the women
take decisions about their own employment themselves. They also take part in
other decisions in the family.
Thus we find that the working migrant women differed from the non-working migrant
women in important ways. The working migrant women were somewhat forward and
took decisions on their own, which is lacking among the non-working migrant women.
The activities of the non-working women have minimum interaction with the outside
world and with men in general, on the other hand the working women have much more
interaction with the extra-domestic world and do not have much inhibitions about it.
To sum up it can be said that the migrants participated in the decision to migrate and
migrated with the motive of employment and did not move merely as associational
passive migrants. The proximate reasons for migration were overwhelmingly economic.
But the economic reasons were also gender related and intertwined with social factors and
factors related to infrastructure.
Lack of employment opportunity for women at the
village level and low development of the villages had pushed the migrants towards
migration. Summing up, it can be said that the migrants migrated owing to lack of work
at the village level. They said that on the one hand, commercialisation, mechanisation,
234
operation of rice mills and on the other hand, lack of demand of traditional skills of
women created lack of work for women at the village level.
They also received
information about higher wage rates and the amenities of city life from the friends and
relatives who had already migrated. Low caste women found employment in the city,
which they could not get in the village. Christian women received information and help
from Christian organisations.
Factors at the family level such as lack of adequate
resources, presence of women to take care of the household work, encouragement of the
family for migration helped migrants to migrate. Linkage and information were found to
play very important roles in female migration.
The effect of rural-urban migration on women is important because of its effect on the
position of women. The women migrated with the objective of benefiting themselves as
well as their families. Could they fulfill their objective? We found that the migrants had
positive gains in their income after migration. First, their migration helped the original
family by reducing the food deficit and then they helped the original family with
remittances.
Remittances of course differed according to the type of migrants and
decision to migrate. Thus migrants who migrated with family sent lower remittances than
those who migrated alone. Again the unmarried migrants among those who migrated
alone sent more money home. But much more crucial is the effect of the decision to
migrate on sending remittances. Those who migrated on others' decisions sent larger
remittances than those who migrated on their own decision. Then, only those migrants
who had links with the original family sent remittances.
Thus a number of factors
determined the remittance pattern of the migrants. The members who migrated with
family had to support the current family at the destination also. This was necessary
because most often the husband of the migrant was found to work as a casual labourer
and without regular work. In fact the migrants' contribution to the household income was
substantial. All the women in our study got work within a month, which minimised the
risk of migration. Thus we find that the migrants fulfilled their objective of getting
financial gain after migration with which they helped the original family and current
family to tide over their financial distress. But did it improve their decision making
power or their position in the family? Was there any change in the attitudes of the
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husband of the married migrants or of the original family members in the case of those
who migrated alone? We found that the migrants improved their part in decision-making.
But married migrants do not take financial decisions on their own even if their
contribution is greater in the household income. But they agreed that they were the sole
decision makers of their employment. The migrants also said that they could keep a
portion of their earnings for themselves and did not need to ask for money from their
husbands for personal consumption. Those who migrated alone said that though the
original family gave them more importance generally yet they were not consulted on
financial matters or property matters. However the widowed, divorced and separated
migrants and the aged unmarried migrants said they were far better off after migration.
Migration had definite positive effects on their economic, social and emotional
conditions.
We end this section with an apology for the small sample size as well as the
justifiability of the conclusions. The study is based on a comparatively small sample. On
the one hand financial constraint and on the other, need for detailed data from the
migrants forced us to restrain the sample size. Much of the data are qualitative in nature
and as a result collection of data required enough interaction with the respondents. This
was only possible for a small sample. However, we made a census survey of the area
selected. Moreover, the variation in data was not much. For example, all the migrants
migrated for employment and got jobs within a month, an overwhelming proportion of
the migrants participated in the decision to migrate, had prior information about the job
market for them in Delhi and received help from friends and relatives. As such the small
sample size is unlikely to have any bearing on the conclusions derived by us. However,
there was some variation in the consequences between the type of migrants, namely
whether migrated with or without family or by marital status where our conclusions were
according to the types of migrants. Again, within the different types of migrants there
was hardly any variation in these respects. We have also given four detailed case studies
to explain those differences.
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DISCUSSION
For a successful analysis of women's migration first, there is a need for typologies
sensitive to women. Women need to be categorised in meaningful categories. There are
a number of typologies used for categorisng migrants but those have a male bias and do
not differentiate between male and female migrants. When those typologies are used to
categorise female migrants the results do not always find female migrants in the
categories. For example trying to find working female migrants for employment in the
organised sector will lead to a fewer number of women migrants whereas the female
migrants migrating to the informal sector from rural to urban areas would lead to different
results in a developing country like India. Lack of data about place of work and nature of
work also hinders analysis by typologies. It is not always known in what kind of work
and what places women are working more which makes it difficult to identify the flows
and types for analysis. Widowed and deserted women migrants migrating for work from
rural to urban areas form a definite category. Women migrants who migrated with family
and those who moved alone are meaningful categories for analysis. Rural-urban female
migration is not insignificant and is considered to be important for women and thus is a
very important category for analysis of female migration in developing countries.
Then there are also some myths about types of female migration such as women are
short distance migrants and they migrate for longer durations, which needs to be
reviewed. Increase and expansion in accessible transport system has made travel easier in
modem times even for women, and as a result women move for employment and return
after short periods and also move for long distances. Thus though women are identified
as short distance migrants, there seems to be a change in the perception in recent times.
Women are thought to migrate for longer durations - a fact that varies from country to
country and also by rural-urban character of the destination.
Though most of our
respondent women migrants migrated for long durations, there are many instances in
India where women migrated for short durations for the convenience of work and for
looking after the family.
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Reason as a criterion perhaps affects female migration most. Women are categorised
in the same set of categories that are applied to the male migrants. When women migrate
for work with family, in most cases they are clubbed as passive migrants migrating with
family. Hardly any effort is made to find out whether the women migrants are really
passive or not. Data are mostly collected from the household heads who are usually male
members and as such play down the employment objective of women migrants. For a
successful analysis of women's migration, data should be collected from the women
themselves and preferably in the absence of any male family member whose presence is
found to make the answers prejudiced.
Women are at the low end of the job market in both rural and urban areas. The jobs or
activities open to women are traditional ones in which women perform tasks which are
women's tasks. The jobs done by women require little skill, are monotonous, involve
drudgery, low wages, 'nimble fingers' and docility. But in case the wages go up or if the
job undergoes skill classification i.e. if it gets upgraded as skilled work, then it is taken
over by men. Acquirement of skills has an economic dimension. Those who are in
higher economic groups are able to acquire skills much more easily than those in the
lower economic group. As such, people in lower caste groups, which have a lower
economic position, are also in an unfavourable position regarding this. Even with all
kinds of reservation policies for these lower caste groups, it takes time for them to acquire
the skills. But this phenomenon extends beyond the economic position and caste to
gender. Women are the last to acquire those skills which fall beyond the traditional skills
allocated for women under the patriarchal set up of division of labour and as such remain
mostly unskilled and fetch low wages.
POLICY
In this final section we note the effect of the planning process in India on the
traditional activities of women. Earlier approaches to planning in India, and modem
industrial development began with the Second Five Year Plan, which gave a boost to
industrialisation and core capital goods sector as well as encouraged the wage goods
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sector in India. The overall philosophy was that the benefits of growth would trickle
down to the masses. It is the Second Five Year Plan which decided on the nature of the
industrialisation programme which followed the concept of growth through import
substitution rather than export promotion. Though modem as well as traditional both
small scale sectors were given encouragement, this policy along with macro processes of
marketisation led to loss in ground of the traditional sector. The implication of this
growth strategy for women was that most of the women were outside the planning
process as most of them were in traditional sector. Traditional industries began to lose to
non-household manufacturing industries of the modem sector and women were adversely
affected because many were engaged in traditional activities. Women's survival base was
adversely affected. This implied loss of employment, traditional artisan skills and the
very survival base of women. From the First Plan onwards, women were targets for
welfare support. The welfare approach with the community development approach saw
the promotion of Mahila Mandals, which did not take account of the existing realities of
rural and urban poor women (Caplan, 1985). By the end of the Fourth Plan it was evident
that growth did not trickle down to all levels. In fact evidences showed that growth
policies such as the green revolution were in fact leading to greater agrarian
differentiation and leading to inequalities in income and assets in rural and urban areas
(Kalpagam, 1994).
As such there was a shift from the strategy of growth with
redistribution to the minimum needs approach.
The minimum needs approach to planning was much more broad based than the
quantitative estimates of target growth rates for sectors and the welfare handouts and
most importantly it accepted the responsibility of providing the basic needs to the poor.
The needs of the poor were identified in terms of life survival inputs (like employment,
health and nutrition) and basic infrastructural services (like protected water supply,
sanitation, roads, hospitals and schools).
But most of the schemes were targeted at
households and not specifically at women as beneficiaries. However, many poor women
from poor households were included in the various schemes to empower the poor in their
productive roles. But the level of assistance was unrealistically low for the long-term
viability of the enterprises as the schemes were assisting the individuals and did not
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consider the sustainability of the enterprises (Kalpagm, 1994).
But it is true that
minimum needs approach to planning started the beginning of the focus on the poor and
marginalised segments of the country in the planning process.
Consequently there grew a critical consciousness among the feminists and those who
speak for women and other marginalised groups. The critical approach to earlier attempts
to poverty alleviation gave rise to insights and more comprehensive understanding of
women's occupations and employment in the informal sector. The National Commission
on Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector was constituted to translate
this understanding into an accessible form for policy makers.
It recommended an
integrated planning approach to tackling the basic issues relating to women.
The
Commission recommended that the policy should aim at the following:
1. Ensuring them fuel, fodder and water to meet their basic requirements;
2. strengthening their existing employment by providing appropriate support in the
areas of skill, training, credit and marketing;
3. protecting their employment in the sectors where it was declining owmg to
technological advancement;
4. creating new employment opportunities for them based on local markets for mass
consumption goods;
5. protecting women workers from casualisation and contractualisation, which led to
their exploitation;
6. providing supportive services to women (like housing, toilets and child-care
facilities); and
7. proper and effective implementation of industrial and protective legislations.
Since July 1991, the Government of India has been following a process of
liberalisation programmes, widening the market, which reduces the role of the state.
With the expansion of markets women in traditional and subsistence production activities
have been found to lose control over their income and earnings and I or have much less
autonomy in what they do.
It also appears to be true that when markets transform
subsistence activities, the women who lose out consequently are not the same as those
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who gain some advantage in income, employment or autonomy.
For example when
traditional fishing is replaced by large-scale capitalist fishing, the women in the
traditional fishing families lose the advantage of access to the catch by the household
members. Though the modem fish processing industry uses mainly women workers the
women employed are not those who lose their jobs because of mechanisation and
commercialisation. It is a fact that when markets expand and grow women and men with
small resource bases lose out and become wage earners.
It is in this way that the
traditional activities of women have been lost and the process is only being hastened by
the policies of liberalisation. The structural adjustment process does not take account of
the fact that women are unequal in many terms and are marginalised.
The intention of the comment on the policies adopted by the government was to point
out that the macro level policies of Five year Plans adversely affected women's traditional
activities, which ultimately induced them to migrate in search of living.
Sectoral
planning in India could never accommodate various forms of production organisations
and enterprises. As a result the efforts in regional planning, decentralisation and
backward area industrialisation programmes could not take off where the women could
have been possibly absorbed. The net effect of this is found in mass migration of poor
families from rural to urban areas, specifically to metropolitan cities where men and
women can both earn some kind of a living.
Migration of labour being an excellent
indicator of availability of economic opportunity in the place of destination as well as
lack of it in the place of origin of the migrants, care should be taken to understand and
identify the migration flows. Lack of proper understanding of the migration flows to the
urban areas, their reasons and consequences will only lead to problems in urbanisation.
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