Gender, Flexibility, Skill, and Industrial Restructuring: The Electronics Industry in India

Abstract

Recent trends in global industrial restructuring, with moves towards more flexible production systems, have raised new issues and questions regarding gender, flexibility, and skill. Based on research on women workers in 24 companies in the electronics industry in Delhi, India, this paper discusses features of gendered labor regimes in the electronics industry and recent changes within a broader context of intensified labor market flexibility. Changing policy in the electronics industry is outlined up to the present period as the industry undergoes a major process of restructuring in response to the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s. It highlights the issue of the nonrecognition of the existing skills of women workers as significant in the context of trends in the industry where a dual process of a demand for more ’technically skilled’ women has emerged alongside a downgrading of existing skill categories. Finally, a proposal is presented for an alternative approach to skill assessments and job designations.