ABSTRACT
Home work is commonly defined as work carried out at home for pay. The fact that home work is so heavily feminized reflects social constructions of home work as women's work. The working conditions of home workers have been a cause for concern, particularly because of their health implications. In the neoliberal view the industrial and social policies instituted after the Second World War were thought to have created structural rigidities that impaired the free play of market forces and were responsible for the global economic crisis of the 1970s. The British Homeworker's League and the Homework Protective League in the United States provided a medium for home workers to lodge complaints about low wages and undesirable working conditions. In India, nonprofit groups organizing women in the informal sector count home workers among their constituencies. Most vocal in speaking on behalf of home workers is SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat.
