ABSTRACT

According to official statistics, Sri Lanka has had an impressive record of development with only 4 per cent of children dying before their fifth birthday, a high average life expectancy of seventy years and 85 per cent of women deemed to be literate. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, conditions have improved more slowly or not at all: unemployment exceeds 20 per cent of the labour force; prices have multiplied five-fold between 1977 and 1990 and government expenditure on social welfare has declined to pre-1960s levels. These conditions have had a devastating impact on low-income households, especially women, as increased poverty has forced them into the workforce as either co-, primary or sole income earners.