Revision summary
Feminization is a rising female share in often flexible, low-paid work. Standing linked it to casualisation of labour. Implications: some income and mobility, a double day, cheaper informal sectors. SHGs, garments, NREGS, gig and NFHS are the developing-society files. Census undercount of unpaid work hides part of the story.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Feminization of work is the rising share of women in paid and counted labour, often in insecure, low-paid, and care-like jobs. In developing societies it is not automatically emancipation. It reorganises households, export industries, and the informal economy.
Body
What is being feminised
- Guy Standing described a feminisation of flexible labour: jobs once coded male become casual, and women fill them.
- Export garments, electronics assembly, domestic service, and now gig delivery and home-based piecework are typical sites.
- SHGs pull women into credit and micro-enterprise, which can be both voice and a new working day.
Implications
- Income and some public mobility rise. NFHS decision-making items sometimes move with earnings.
- The double day persists: unpaid care is not shed when the wage arrives. Ann Oakley and Sylvia Walby named that structure.
- Bargaining inside the household may shift, or male control of the new income may not.
- Informalisation: “women’s work” is used to cheapen a sector, which Marx would read as a cheaper labour-power.
- State programmes such as NREGS have high female participation in some states, which can tighten rural labour markets and still leave asset ownership male.
Limits
- Census work definitions still undercount unpaid family labour, so feminisation can be statistically half-visible.
- Elite professional feminisation is not the same process as garment-line feminisation.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD FEM[Feminization of work] --> W[Wage and public presence] FEM --> D[Double day] FEM --> I[Informal cheap labour] W --> MIX[Mixed implication] D[D] --> MIX[MIX] I[I] --> MIX[MIX]
Conclusion
In developing societies, feminization of work means more women in flexible paid labour, with mixed gains in income and voice and persistent unpaid care. SHGs, NFHS, garments, and gig home-work are the files. It is a restructuring of exploitation and agency together, not a simple success story.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Write a note on global trends of secularization.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q5(d)). View answer →
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Does paid work end patriarchy?
No. It can shift bargaining. Property, violence, and unpaid care may still sit with the old order.
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Is all women’s employment feminization of work?
The term is most useful for sector-wide casualisation and female crowding, not for every professional career.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
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2025 · Q4(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Critically analyze the sociological significance of informal sector in the economy of developing societies
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