Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Family structure, women's education and work: Re-examining the high status of women in Kerala

Contents:

Author Info

  • Mridul Eapen

    (Centre for Development Studies)

  • Praveena Kodoth

    (Centre for Development Studies)

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Literacy, together with non-domestic employment, which gave women access to independent sources of income, have been regarded as important indicators of women's `status', which affected fertility and mortality outcomes. Since women in Kerala have on average, been the most literate when compared with women in other states of India (though the same could not be said of female work-participation rates), much has been written about their `high status' and their central role, historically, in social development. However, there is a growing uneasiness with Kerala's social development outcomes linked to non conventional indicators as in the rising visibility of gender based violence, mental ill-health among women, and the rapid growth and spread of dowry and related crimes. We suggest that engagement with socio-cultural institutions such as families, which mediate micro level decisions regarding education, health or employment, could reveal the continuities rather than disjunctures between conventional social development outcomes and non conventional indicators of ill health and violence. Changes in the structure and practices of families in Kerala in the past century have had wide-ranging implications for gender relations. Alterations in marriage, inheritance and succession practices have changed dramatically the practices of erstwhile matrilineal groups as well as weakened women's access to and control over inherited resources. Alongside, women's education and employment have not played the transformative role so generally expected of them. Changing levels of female employment and the persistence of a gendered work structure have limited women's claims to "self-acquired" or independent sources of wealth. Underlying these changes are conceptions of masculinity and femininity, which privilege the male working subject and female domesticity.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.cds.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wp341.pdf
    Our checks indicate that this address may not be valid because: 404 Not Found. If this is indeed the case, please notify (Shamprasad M. Pujar)
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India in its series Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers with number 341.

    as in new window
    Length: 60 pages
    Date of creation: Nov 2002
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:ind:cdswpp:341

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: Peasanth Nagar, Trivandrum 695 011, Kerala
    Phone: +91 471 2448 881
    Fax: +91 471 2447 137
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.cds.edu
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: family; gender relations; women's status; empowerment; education; employment;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ind:cdswpp:341

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Shamprasad M. Pujar).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.