Gender and Livelihood

The book aims to understand the larger question of livelihood and how it is entwined to the questions of women and livelihood activities in Indian society and how livelihood generation initiatives can lead to economic empowerment of women. The book also deals with various discourses on gender and livelihood. Generating livelihood opportunities for women and economic empowerment of women is a major area of concern which can reduce the gender gap. The notion of economic activity is largely perceived to be the domain of male in the patriarchal social structures. Women are neither perceived nor being provided space in the productive market society and quite often the works of women are not measured in economic terms. Women from marginalized groups not having particular marketable assets, capabilities and facilities or linkages are excluded from opportunities to add and improve their capabilities. Therefore livelihood activities of women gets very least attention in the society. In fact the necessity of the contemporary society has drastically changed and the equal engagements of women at work are pre-requisite for any sort of development. Various livelihood generation and improvement initiatives have been taken at the government level like National Rural Livelihood Mission which aims to creating effective institutional platform for the rural poor enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancement and improved access to financial services. There is a need to evaluate these kinds of initiatives from gender perspective. The book addresses these issues in detail. The book consists of seventeen chapters dealing with different issues related to gender and livelihood. Various issues which have been discussed in the book are: discourses on gender and livelihood; theoretical perspective on women and natural resource management; condition of Female headed household in census; women and work in urban spaces; regional perspective on women entrepreneurship; Rural women, livelihood, natural resources, sustenance ,sustainability and struggle for change, livelihood issue of tribal communities and women farmers; problems of domestic workers; gender in ethnic and eco tourism; women, forest and sustainable livelihood; role of elected women leaders in panchayats in strengthening livelihoods; livelihood and role of khadi industry; women worker and legislative safeguards, Role of ICT in gender equality and livelihood.