Abstract
Urban expansion of the Indian metropolitan cities has reached the rural peripheries. There have been social, economic, and environmental consequences of this process of peri-urbanization on villages surrounding the big cities. In such situations, it becomes crucial to understand whether the peri-urban areas present opportunities for women emerging out of the processes of development or they expose rural women to previously unavailable challenges or not observed in other regions. This study analyses Female Work Participation (FWP) with related parameters in 712 villages surrounding the Ahmedabad city of Gujarat state. The analysis is based on village-level secondary data derived from the Office of the Registrar General, Census of India for 2001 and 2011. FWP is calculated using the standard formula provided by the Census of India. For the graphical presentation and urban proximity analysis, a geospatial mapping of all villages is performed with the help of Geographic Information System. To understand the association of urban proximity and other covariates with FWP, Ordinary Least Square regression is applied for 2001 and 2011. FWP reached 23 percent in 2011 from 38 percent in 2001. FWP has an inverse relationship with urban proximity, which means as the distance from the main city increases, there is an increase in FWP of villages. More than 40 percent of women are still working as marginal workers. Moreover, within the main worker category, a huge proportion of female is engaged as agricultural laborers. The findings suggest a pressing need for women-centric policies in the region.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abraham, V. (2013). Missing labour or consistent ‘de-feminisation’. Economic and Political Weekly, 48(31), 99–108.
Agarwal, B. (1985). Work participation of rural women in the third world: Some data and conceptual biases. Economic & Political Weekly, II, 51–52, A155–A164.
Antrop, M. (2000). Background concepts for integrated landscape analysis. Agriculture, ecosystems & environment, 77(1–2), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-8809(99)00089-4.
Appiah, D. O., Bugri, J. T., Forkuo, E. K., & Boateng, P. K. (2014). Determinants of peri-urbanization and land use change patterns in peri-urban Ghana. Journal of Sustainable Development, 7, 95–109. https://doi.org/10.5539/jsd.v7n6p95.
Bryant, C. R., Russwurm, L. J., & McLellan, A. G. (1982). The city's countryside Land and its management in the rural-urban fringe. New York: Longman.
Champion, T. (2001). Urbanization, suburbanization, counter urbanization and reurbanization. Handbook of urban studies, 160, 1. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848608375.n9.
Chandrasekhar, C. P., & Ghosh, J. (2013). Where have all the female workers gone. Hindu Business Line, 11. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/c-p-chandrasekhar/where-have-all-the-women-workers-gone/article20688064.ece1. Accessed 10 February 2020.
Chatterjee, E., Desai, S., & Vanneman, R. (2018). Indian paradox: rising education, declining womens’employment. Demographic Research, 38, 855. https://doi.org/10.4054/demres.2018.38.31.
Das, M., & Desai, S. (2003). Why are educated women less likely to be employed in India? : Testing competing hypotheses. Washington, DC: Social Protection, World Bank. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/616871468756558333/why-are-educated-women-less-likely-to-be-employed-in-india-testing-competing-hypotheses. Accessed 03 March 2020.
Dev, S. M. (2004). Female work participation and child labour: occupational data from NFHS. Economic and Political Weekly, 39(7), 736–744.
Dev, S. M. (2018). Transformation of Indian Agriculture? Growth, Inclusiveness and Sustainability (No. 2018–026). Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India. https://www.igidr.ac.in/igidr-working-paper-13/. Accessed 14 January 2020.
Duvvury, N. (1989). Study with special reference to female agricultural labourers, 1961 to 1981 (p. 63). Limited options: Female workers in rural India.
Eapen, M. (1992). Fertility and female labour force participation in Kerala. Economic and Political Weekly, 27(40), 2179–2188.
Gaddis, I., & Klasen, S. (2014). Economic development, structural change, and women’s labor force participation. Journal of Population Economics, 27(3), 639–681. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-013-0488-2.
Garikipati, S. (2009). Landless but not assetless: female agricultural labour on the road to better status, evidence from India. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(3), 517–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150903142774.
INDIA, P. (2011). Census of India 2011 Provisional Population Totals. New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner.
Greene, R. P. (1997). The farmland conversion process in a polynucleated metropolis. Landscape and Urban Planning, 36(4), 291–300. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0169-2046(96)00360-x.
Haarsma, D., & Qiu, F. (2017). Assessing neighbor and population growth influences on agricultural land conversion. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 10(1), 21–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-015-9172-0.
Hareedy, A. N., & Deguchi, A. (2010). Physical transformation of rural villages encompassed into Egyptian city borders. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 9(2), 379–386. https://doi.org/10.3130/jaabe.9.379.
Iaquinta, D. L., & Drescher, A. W. (2000). Defining the peri-urban: Rural-urban linkages and institutional connections. Land reform, 2, 8–27.
ILO (2013). https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/commentanalysis/WCMS_204762/lang--en/index.htm. Accessed 18 February 2020.
Kantor, P. (2003). Women's empowerment through home–based work: Evidence from India. Development and change, 34(3), 425–445. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00313.
King, A. G. (1978). Industrial structure, the flexibility of working hours, and women's labor force participation. The Review of Economics and Statistics. https://doi.org/10.2307/1924165.
Kingdon, G. G., & Unni, J. (2001). Education and women's labour market outcomes in India. Education Economics, 9(2), 173–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645290110056994.
Klasen, S., & Pieters, J. (2015). What explains the stagnation of female labor force participation in urban India? The World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-7222.
Kumari, R., & Pandey, A. (2012). Women's work participation in labour market in contemporary India. Journal of Community Positive Practices, 1, 18–35.
Lahoti, R., & Swaminathan, H. (2016). Economic development and women's labor force participation in India. Feminist Economics, 22(2), 168–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2015.1066022.
Mahata, D., Kumar, A., & Rai, A. K. (2017). Female Work Force Participation and Women Empowerment in Haryana. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 11(4), 1039 1044. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5d98/f17607d46a99f7153f688321fc39315f60b3.pdf. Accessed 8 January 2020.
Mathur, A. (1994). Work participation, gender and economic development: A quantitative anatomy of the Indian scenario. The Journal of Development Studies, 30(2), 466–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220389408422324.
Mehrotra, S., Saha, P., Gandhi, A., Devi, K., & Sinha, S. (2013). Low Female Employment in a Period of High Growth: insights from primary survey in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. IAMR Report, 9. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_250113.pdf. Accessed 30 March 2020.
Mencher, J. P. (1980). The lessons and non-lessons of Kerala: Agricultural labourers and poverty. Economic and political weekly, 15, 1781–1802.
Mitra, A. (2019). Women’s work in response to urbanization: Evidence from Odisha. ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change, 4(1), 92–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455632719836804.
Mukhopadhyay, S., & Tendulkar, S. (2010). Gender differences in labour force participation in India: An analysis of NSS data. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.555.5428&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Accessed 28 February 2020.
Nagaich, S., & Sharma, P. (2014). Is literacy a cause of increase in women work participation in Punjab (India): A regional analysis? International Journal of Research in Applied, Natural and Social Sciences, 2(2), 3–8.
Nilsson, K., Pauleit, S., Bell, S., Aalbers, C., & Nielsen, T. A. S. (2013). Peri-urban futures: Scenarios and models for land use change in Europe. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30529-0.
Pacione, M. (2001). Models of urban land use structure in cities of the developed world. Geography, 86(2), 97–119.
Reddy, D. N. (1979). Female work participation in India: Facts, problems, and policies. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 15(2), 197–212.
Sen, S. (2016). Gendered exclusions in the work spaces of peri-urban areas in a neoliberal environment: Learning from the experiences of large metropolitan cities in India. Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 7(1), 76–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0975425315619047.
Sen, S. (2017). Neo-liberal urbanization, work participation and women: Comparing the urban and peri-urban contexts of Delhi with Mumbai and Kolkata. In M. Punia (Ed.), Marginalization in globalizing Delhi: Issues of land, livelihoods and health (pp. 129–151). New Delhi: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3583-5_8.
Sinha, A., & Chattopadhyay, A. (2017). Inter-linkages between spousal violence and nutritional status of children: A comparative study of north and south Indian states. Sociology and Criminology, 5, 171. https://doi.org/10.4172/2375-4435.1000171.
Smith, M. D., & Krannich, R. S. (2009). “Culture clash''revisited: Newcomer and longer term residents' attitudes toward land use, development, and environmental issues in rural communities in the rocky mountain west. Rural Sociology, 65(3), 396–421. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2000.tb00036.x.
Srivastava, N., & Srivastava, R. (2010). Women, work, and employment outcomes in rural India. Economic and political weekly, 45(28), 49–63.
Sudarshan, R. M., & Bhattacharya, S. (2009). “Through the magnifying glass: female’s work and labour force participation in urban Delhi”. Economic and Political Weekly, XLIV(48), 59–66.
Tavares, A. O., Pato, R. L., & Magalhaes, M. C. (2012). Spatial and temporal land use change and occupation over the last half century in a peri-urban area. Applied geography, 34, 432–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2012.01.009.
Thomas, J. J. (2012). India's labour market during the 2000s: Surveying the changes. Economic and Political Weekly, 47(51), 39–51.
Tian, L., Ge, B., & Li, Y. (2017). Impacts of state-led and bottom-up urbanization on land use change in the peri-urban areas of Shanghai: Planned growth or uncontrolled sprawl? Cities, 60, 476–486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.01.002.
Unni, J. (1989). Changes in women's employment in rural areas, 1961–83. Economic and Political Weekly, 24(17), WS23–WS31.
Watson, V. (2009). ‘The planned city sweeps the poor away…’: Urban planning and twenty-first century urbanization. Progress in planning, 72(3), 151–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2009.06.002.
World Economic Forum (2012). The Global Gender Gap Report 2012. World Economic Forum. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2012.pdf. Accessed 20 March 2020.
Funding
Senior Research Fellowship from University Grant Commission, Government of India.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sikarwar, A., Chattopadhyay, A., Jaiswal, A.K. et al. Devaluation of female work participation with urbanization: a case of peri-urban Ahmedabad. GeoJournal 87, 319–331 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10258-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10258-5