Poverty and young women's employment : linkages in Kerala

Abstract

This paper explores one of the key issues in current research on \ngender and development: the links between poverty and young women’s \nemployment. Specifically, the following questions were addressed, in \nthe context of Kerala: Which young women work for pay and why? To \nwhat extent is a woman’s household economic status -- especially poverty \nstatus -- an important determinant of employment, and to what degree \ndoes this relationship differ for married and single women? Data for this \nstudy come from a 1997 survey of 530 women aged 18 to 35 in \nTrivandrum district of Kerala. The analysis provides strong evidence \nfor a U-shaped relationship between household economic status (or class \nstatus) and women’s current employment status. This is true for the entire \nsample and for the married women. However, in case of single women, \npoverty increases the likelihood of paid employment without significant \neffect at the upper end of the class spectrum. The interplay of economic \nfactors (in terms of household needs and aspirations) and cultural factors \n(in terms of women’s position in the family as unmarried daughters as \nopposed to wives or daughters-in-law) as determinants of women’s \nemployment is important both on the supply side of the labour market \nand women’s ability to obtain employment in an imperfect and almost \nsaturated labour market in the context of Kerala. \nJEL Classification: I32, J12, J16, J23 \nKey Words: women, employment, poverty, households, Kerala

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