Expansion of Markets and Women Workers in India

This case study primarily aims at understanding the implications of expansion of markets for the women workers of Andhra Pradesh, India concentrating, as it does, on the garment manufacturing industry of the state. This, of course, involves the sweeping changes in the macroeconomic regime in India, and in many other developing countries, relate mainly to the Industrial sector in terms of expansion of markets and technological modernization. Generally, the standard literature on the implications of these changes in the industrial sector is not gender specific, and it coexists with a women-focused literature the burden of which is often to present women as victims of the changes in the policy regime. However, the existing diversity in the nature of different industries on the one hand and firms within an industry on the other, the implications of the changes are likely to differ at the micro level where disaggregation by gender assumes importance.