IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v37y2023i4p823-840.html

Cracking IT: Negotiating Working-Class Gender Capital through Group Enterprises in India

Author

Listed:
  • Shoba Arun

    (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

  • Thankom Arun

    (The University of Essex, UK)

Abstract

Digital work is often associated with higher levels of earning and increased social mobility. Working in the digital economy will not benefit all women equally or act as an enabler of broader social change. The article draws attention to the intersection of gender and class in work in the information technology (IT) sector of India, where women have increased their visibility and participation. Through a gender capital approach and intersectional analyses, the article points to the incontrovertible impact of class and gender when women from low-income backgrounds engage in IT-based group enterprises in the state of Kerala. A central insight from the study is the need to disaggregate types of IT work as women’s experiences in IT are shaped by the simultaneity of working practices, intersectional inequalities and gendered behaviours, often with limits to gender capital and spill-over impact on broader gender and social relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Shoba Arun & Thankom Arun, 2023. "Cracking IT: Negotiating Working-Class Gender Capital through Group Enterprises in India," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(4), pages 823-840, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:823-840
    DOI: 10.1177/09500170211054951
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211054951
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09500170211054951?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aparna Mitra, 2014. "Son Preference in India: Implications for Gender Development," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 1021-1037, December.
    2. Richard Heeks & Shoba Arun, 2010. "Social outsourcing as a development tool: The impact of outsourcing IT services to women's social enterprises in Kerala," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 441-454.
    3. Heller, Patrick & Harilal, K.N. & Chaudhuri, Shubham, 2007. "Building Local Democracy: Evaluating the Impact of Decentralization in Kerala, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 626-648, April.
    4. Vanessa Beck & Paul Brook, 2020. "Solidarities In and Through Work in an Age of Extremes," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 3-17, February.
    5. Shoba Arun & Thankom Arun, 2002. "ICTs, gender and development: women in software production in Kerala," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 39-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Caroline Patsias & Anne Latendresse & Laurence Bherer, 2013. "Participatory Democracy, Decentralization and Local Governance: the Montreal Participatory Budget in the light of ‘Empowered Participatory Governance’," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 2214-2230, November.
    2. Gore, Radhika, 2021. "Ensuring the ordinary: Politics and public service in municipal primary care in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    3. Jessi Hanson-DeFusco & Natalia Lamberova & Blair Mickles & Tanisha Long & Eliana Beligel & Quinten Boose & Paul Smith & Alexis McMaster & Dragana Djukic-Min, 2024. "#Polarized: Gauging Potential Policy Bargaining Ranges Between Opposing Social Movements of Black Lives Matter and Police Lives Matter," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-26, November.
    4. George,Siddharth & Rao,Vijayendra & Sharan,M. R., 2024. "Two Hundred and Fifty-Thousand Democracies : A Review of Village Government in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10793, The World Bank.
    5. Saguin, Kidjie, 2018. "Why the poor do not benefit from community-driven development: Lessons from participatory budgeting," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 220-232.
    6. Tüzemen Samet & Barış-Tüzemen Özge & Çelik Ali Kemal, 2021. "The relationship between information and communication technologies and female labour force participation in Turkey," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 7(4), pages 121-145, December.
    7. Jafar, K, 2014. "A Note on Peoples’ Planning Initiative -Possible lessons from the Kerala Experience," MPRA Paper 65610, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Melisa Ross, 2025. "Liberal and Deliberative Democracy in the Global South: Models, Functions, Practices," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 13.
    9. de Renzio, Paolo & Wehner, Joachim, 2017. "The impacts of fiscal openness," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 82521, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Fischer, Harry W. & Ali, Syed Shoaib, 2019. "Reshaping the public domain: Decentralization, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and trajectories of local democracy in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 147-158.
    11. Tiangboho SANOGO, 2017. "Does fiscal decentralization enhance citizens’ access to public services and reduce poverty? Evidence from a conflict setting," Working Papers 201715, CERDI.
    12. Cong Minh Huynh & Tan Loi Nguyen & Thi Huong Tra Lam, 2023. "Fiscal decentralization and income inequality in OECD countries: does shadow economy matter?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(3), pages 515-533, December.
    13. Nahid Tavassoli, 2021. "The Gender-Biased Fertility Behavior: Evidence from Southeast Asian Countries," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 2, pages 235-261, July.
    14. Andrea Garnero & Stephan Kampelmann & François Rycx, 2014. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Workforce Diversity on Productivity, Wages, and Profits," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 430-477, July.
    15. Di Zhou & Jingyi Zhang & Shixuan Li & Xiaoru Zhang, 2026. "Sex Composition of Children and Competitive Poverty Prevention," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 182(2), pages 1-28, March.
    16. Pratima Dawadi & Aarati Sharma Bhatta & Laxmi Rajbanshi & Rajendra Gautam, 2024. "Gender preference and fertility behavior among married women: A community based study from far western Nepal," PLOS Global Public Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(6), pages 1-14, June.
    17. Ragasa, Catherine, 2012. "Gender and Institutional Dimensions of Agricultural Technology Adoption: A Review of Literature and Synthesis of 35 Case Studies," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126747, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Harry Blair, 2018. "Citizen Participation and Political Accountability for Public Service Delivery in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(1), pages 54-81, April.
    19. repec:osf:mediar:p8kjf_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Ioannis Prinos & Julian Manley, 2023. "The Preston Model: Economic Democracy, Cooperation, and Paradoxes in Organisational and Social Identification," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 28(3), pages 627-643, September.
    21. Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei & Frank Kwaku Agyei & Joyce Osei Adjei, 2020. "Decentralized forest governance and community representation outcomes: analysis of the modified taungya system in Ghana," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 1187-1209, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:823-840. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.