Valuing Women's Work for Human Development in India

Human development aims at enlarging people's choices. By people it is meant that both males and females are given the opportunities to enhance their capabilities. In the usual systems of national accounting, the economic contribution of men is majorly considered in the form of activities performed for an exchange price in the market. Such activities are measurable in terms of money for the productive services rendered by labour. However, women perform activities in the household that require the same or sometimes even more labour efforts as men require outside the house. But due to lack of the recognition and measurability imparted to such activities, they remain outside the ambit of the economic activities. This book is an attempt to highlight the importance of valuing women's work that is largely unpaid and unrecognised. An effort has been made to examine data related to the participation of women in different activities. This is required to know the nature of activities that include the involvement of women. A major observation form such data reveals trends that are quite a departure from the usually held beliefs.