ABSTRACT
We have tried to trace how domestic service evolved as the most important work avenue for both women and girl children through a historic interaction between social, cultural and economic factors specific to Bengal. Occasional references to some other states have been brought in only to highlight the contrast. But as each Indian state has its own complex story to tell, we decided not to enter into the metamorphosis of these stories as such. Instead, we felt that a somewhat closer look at the socioeconomic and cultural interactions in post-independent East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, would be more instructive to understand the outcomes in West Bengal. Bangladesh and West Bengal – the two parts of South Asia – were an integrated whole till 1947 with much lingual and cultural commonalities. Women traditionally were more home-bound in this region than in many other parts of India. With more or less similar experience of economic development till the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the two Bengals have seen major economic transformation in two different directions: land reform efforts in West Bengal and the advent of export-oriented garment manufacturing activities–led industrialization in Bangladesh. Since this time, the statistics regarding women’s work started showing significant differences (See Jose 1989 and Table 3.7 of this book). We had opportunities to comment on the possible implications of land reform on women’s work in West Bengal. In this chapter, we concentrate on Bangladesh in the main. The analysis here is based on secondary literature. However, this is in no way an attempt at substantial explanation of the complex events unfolding in the country since Partition. Our focus is narrow and mainly aimed at understanding certain trends in women’s paid work participation behaviour in the urban areas of the country.
