Abstract
Women’s education and employment are considered fundamental to the development of national economic growth, empowerment and maximization of human potential. And yet the latest reports from India indicate that while women’s educational opportunities are expanding, curiously, their labour force participation is declining. What explains this gap between women’s educational attainment and their labour force participation? Where are the missing women? This ethnographic study of women who were once employed in high status careers illuminates how class, gender and notions of motherhood mutually shape the meanings and economic value of women’s work at the intersection of the family and labour market such that women in India ‘choose’ to withdraw from the workforce.
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Notes
- 1.
While popular media glamourizes the ‘new Indian woman’ (see for example, the Economic Times article, ‘Fortune’s Favourite: Indian Women on Power List’ 2006), academic studies have focused on deconstructing representations of the ‘new woman’ in television, advertising, fashion magazines and beauty pageants (Malhotra and Rogers 2000; Munshi 2001; Thapan 2004).
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Acknowledgment
This research was funded by a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence award (2014–2015). The content is solely my responsibility and does not represent the views of the Fulbright Office.
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Arabandi, B. (2016). Karma and the Myth of the New Indian Super Woman: Missing Women in the Indian Workforce. In: Land, Labour and Livelihoods. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40865-1_9
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