On measures of value and their purpose Devaki Jain Assisted by Deepshikha Batheja

1. Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS)National Workshop on Women’s Work, Employment and the Indian Economy26th, 27th April, 2013, New DelhiTopic of the Session: Value and Valuation of Women’s Work in the Economy On measures of value and their purpose Devaki Jain Assisted by DeepshikhaBatheja

2. Our paper in sum • Refer to a time use study conducted by ISST in 1976- 77 . Show how it connects to the topic of this session “Value and Valuation of Women’s Work in the Economy” • Illustrate with examples how invisibility had many implications for policy and program. • Discuss the entry of Care-as an interesting exploration of women s work • suggest some ideas to NSSO • Raise some larger questions for those of us who are struggling with measures and values

3. Findings of a Time use study undertaken in 1977 by ISST • IF Time spent over a 24 hour day on various activities was the measure of value … then women would be on top , • NSSO questionnaire and the international classification of codes from which it derives its method should be changed . • Codes such as 92 – domestic activity and 93 domestic and other activities, should be discarded as they trapped women, and obscured their contribution to “gainful activity’ and thereby into being notified as workers. • Important for collection and presentation of data to be stratified by class. • We did this categorizing our sample households in land classes, - and “no land not even homestead land” as the poorest. • women weaved their time between household drudgery, we called it the 3 CS – child care, cooking and cleaning , and household based productive activities , often not counted , which we called HHP , and then outside work, often not reported so not identified .

4. Findings of a Time use study undertaken in 1977 by ISST(2) • While in landless households women went out to work even if uncounted and paid only in goods , daughters were mother surrogates and could not go to school while sons did . • So by examining time spent on a set of activities across all ages 5plus, male and female, and then bundling together what appeared to be contributing to the product , we could get a better picture of her contribution, and include her in the work force • In poverty households women were primary bread winners laboring under very difficult circumstances • In such a household when an income generating project is brought in , as for example a buffalo into a land less household in Anand , while the household income would increase the woman’s labour time increased often by 4 hours more to a 14-18 hour day, and this had impact on her health and often led to early mortality in the peak age of 30 – 45 due to the burden

5. How does all this connect to the topic of this session? Value, and Valuing Women’s Work • The answer would vary according to which class of women and which geographical region and what kind of overall political economy ideas or idealogy we choose. • They must be counted, formally so they are not invisible workers but visible and holding the economy. • We were interested in wage/income protection, skill development, and prevention of occupational hazards • We went into pre final product tasks leading to final product, , showing women’s invisible unidentified roles in the process of production . • Purpose was to ensure wages, but also notice displacement as well as to reach credit, skill development, tools, organization to them. • This invisibility had many implications for policy and program. • invisibility affects the outreach of development benefits as well as worker and work protection, • “Integrating women into a state five year plan”conductedin Karnataka in 1984 • There was no recording of what a woman inside a poverty household was doing!

6. Care • Today there are more interesting explorations of women’s work • Eg: the whole literature on linking production and reproduction and the expositions on the care economy. • new concepts such as giving formal value to care, arguing that it needs to be factored in structurally, included in domains such as social protection, pensions etc • Nathalie Lamaute-Brisson arguesthat “since with liberalization globalization and more education , women are entering the formal labour market , they have less and less time for their traditional care work. It is thus essential to redistribute total work, both paid and unpaid, but especially the unpaid care work done within the home, basically by women. Accordingly, a more active role for the State, the market and society is recommended, together with male participation in personal care, as necessary conditions for progress towards a society in which men and women alike are both breadwinners and caregivers.” • Need to recognize that “below” the monetised economy, there is an invisible economy which is “cracking” with ageing population. More women into outside “house” work demands revaluation of “caring” as “work.”

7. NSSO Codes • Codes used in identifying the labour force as well as sorting them into different occupations.  • As per the classification of activity statuses, persons with activity Code 92 attended domestic duties only and those with 93, attended domestic duties and were also engaged in free collection of goods, sewing, tailoring, weaving, etc. for household use. • So, when it comes to 92 most women will identify with it and of course many other women will go into 93. • Latest NSS 66th round (July, 2009 - June, 2010) has published the results of probing questions addressed to those persons who opt for 92 and 93 as their status . • The results reveal that many of these persons about 21.2 per cent of women of age 5 years and above in rural areas and 9.5 per cent of those in urban areas, responded that they did engage in activities such as (i) agricultural production such as the maintenance` of kitchen garden, work in household poultry, dairy, etc., including free collection of agricultural products for household consumption and (ii) processing of primary products produced by the households, for households’ consumption. • I had suggested another method by which we “capture” the truth as it were. This was to “ignore” i.e., not canvass code 92 and 93, but to introduce the idea of asking everyone the question posed as probing, in a block which is usually block 5 in a NSSO questionnaire. This asks how the respondent spent time over a week in half days.

8. Some larger questions for those of us who are struggling with measures and values • Valuing economic activity, of women, is only the fringe of our problem or challenge. Valuing economic activity per se is the bigger problem, • “The GDP is simply a gross measure of market activity, of money changing hands. It makes no distinction whatsoever between the desirable and the undesirable, or costs and gain. On top of that, it looks only at the portion of reality that economists choose to acknowledge--the part involved in monetary transactions. The crucial economic functions performed in the household and volunteer sectors go entirely unreckoned. As a result the GDP not only masks the breakdown of the social structure and the natural habitat upon which the economy--and life itself--ultimately depend; worse, it actually portrays such breakdown as economic gain.” (Clifford Cobb, Ted Halstead, and Jonathan Rowe,1995)

9. Where is the production, employment and exports coming from?Should we note value these engines • According to the Tenth Plan, GDP from handicrafts contributed about 25 per cent of the GDP of unregistered manufacturing sector in the country, about 7.5 per cent of the total manufacturing sector. • craft sector accounts for 15-20 per cent of the country’s manufacturing workforce • Its exportshave increased by 24.58% during the last year (2011-12) of the 11th Plan amounting to approximately 161 billion. • Handloom sector is one of the largest in terms of providing employment to over 4.3 million persons engaged in weaving and allied activities, out of which about 78% are women. • This sector contributes nearly 19 per cent of the total cloth produced in the country and also adds substantially to exports earnings. • Another important employment source is Khadi and Village industries, with 12 million persons working in this sector.

10. Where is the production, employment and exports coming from?(2) • Data shows that out of the total of 23 millions of home-based workers, 44 percent are women. • Domestic workers total around 5.2 million, and currently dominate the contribution of the services sector to the GDP. T • Also provide foreign exchange through remittances as they often migrate to serve in gulf and other countries. •  Nurses are another large women led economic confederation.   • Street vendors and waste pickers are coming up with national associations of themselves • Number of street traders exceeds 3.1 million in India. Unofficial estimates suggest there are closer to 10 million.

11. Important Question • There are advocates for salaried work in proper industrial and other enterprises and indeed as the latest figures from China are revealing. • “Globalization and gender wage inequality in China” by Zhihong Chen and Ying Ge published in World Development, the analysis is that globalization and liberalization has increased the job offers to women , and hence big rise in salaried work. It also says why women and why these MNC or the financiers are taking on women- cheaper less organised more desperate for bringing in income , we know all these “virtues “ • The paper suggests that” Overall, our results highlight the importance of globalization in encouraging female employment and reducing gender discrimination.“!!!! • How do we respond to this as a positive for women? The collapse of the building holding garment factories in BanglaDesh should alert us ? • We who are not slaves to the neo liberal paradigm or to GDP growth rates ? THIS IS WHERE WE NEED to go with our thinking on values

12. New thinking: one small example • “Harvesting Feminist Knowledge for Public Policy” which I co-edited with Diane Elson * feminists of the south in partnership with scholars from the north analysed the sources as well as offered ideas for reconstructing the very basis of economic reasoning as well as measures of valuation of work and progress. • We argue collectively that it is time to ‘harvest’ feminist knowledge to plot alternate paths for human progress, divorced from pre-existing economic and development frameworks • They offer new ways of measuring or giving values to the economic spaces…and argue that political democracy needs to be underpinned by economic democracy • Suggest that transformation that ‘bubbles up’ rather than‘ trickles down’ is the only way to power production, lead growth, andmove the economy in a broad-based, socially equitable direction

13. devakijain@gmail.com