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Research Article

Informal Work and the Appropriation of Social Reproduction in Home-Based Work in India

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Pages 130-152 | Published online: 29 May 2023
 

Abstract

Home-based work is among the largest forms of employment in the informal economy in India and is overwhelmingly represented by women. Employing a social reproduction framework that reframes what is counted as labor, this article asks how women’s unpaid work activities are appropriated as labor in subcontracted home-based work. Applying this analytical framework, it becomes clear that domestic work in the home, often completed by women, is needed and exploited in this production process as a result of gendered constructs of care. The contribution considers how unpaid work is directly appropriated by capital as surplus value. The context of informal work is key here because of the irregular and fragmented production process, the space where work occurs, and the use of unpaid family workers. The goal of this research is to offer empirical evidence that broadens analytical perspectives to account for the context of informality in the Global South.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Subcontracted home-based work in India relies on a gendered, fragmented, and precarious labor force.

  • Unpaid caregiving and household work directly contributes to profit-making.

  • Western analytical concepts of the economy need to be reexamined in the context of the postcolonial informal economies.

  • Research tools that measure economic participation need to capture how unpaid activities directly or indirectly contribute to economic processes.

Notes

1 A dupatta is a long scarf worn with women’s salwar kameez (trouser and tunic) in South Asia. The “dupatta work” mentioned here is sewing a beaded border to the scarf.

2 All names of participants are pseudonyms, and all personal information that would allow the identification of any person(s) described in the article has been removed.

3 As I discuss later on, there is considerable debate among Marxist-socialist feminists on whether unpaid domestic activities contribute directly or indirectly to profit-making.

4 To acknowledge Jayshree and IASEW staff’s role in interpreting and producing research accounts from our interactions with home-based workers in the field, I use the plural first pronoun throughout the rest of this article (Temple and Edwards Citation2004).

5 This was done to examine the impact of SEWA programs on women, though that is not a focus of this article.

6 I discuss how characteristics of gender, caste, and religion shape women’s experiences with home-based work in Boeri (Citation2021).

7 The exchange rate here and throughout the article is based on Indian Rs. 61.76 to US $1. This was the average exchange rate when I collected household information in October and November 2013.

8 Participants could choose more than one response to why they work at home. Purdah, the social and cultural practice of limiting Hindu and Muslim women’s movement, is common in India, and scholars point to this practice as one reason for women’s high rate of participation in home-based work (Saba Gul Khattak Citation2002).

9 Given rising rates of informal and gig employment and the work-from-home mandates as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, workers in the Global North might face similar conflicts of paid and unpaid work. This brings up questions of whether we should consider unpaid social reproduction as directly contributing to surplus value in these settings as well, but further inquiry into this is beyond the scope of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted with funding from the American Association of University Women and the National Science Foundation (US) [Grant Number SES-1332621].

Notes on contributors

Natascia Boeri

Natascia Boeri, PhD is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bloomfield College in New Jersey. Her research interests include gender, social reproduction, and the political economy.

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