Women’s Relationships with Paid Work in the Transnational Economy

This chapter examines middle class women’s motivations to enter the globalized labour market and the differences in their access to the resources required to succeed in it. As Table 5.1 suggests, the proportion of adult women in paid employment in India is only about 33%, and of these women a very small number are in the organized sector. The unorganized sector itself accounts for over 90% of the total workforce according to the National Sample Survey 2004–2005, and a larger proportion of women workers are in this sector (National Informatics Centre, Government of India, 2009). However, after economic reforms in 1991, multinational companies began to enter India and local companies established a transnational presence, particularly in the IT industry. Following the growth of the organized sector, particularly in the form of private industry, there has been much hype around the creation of jobs for women in the organized sector, particularly the prestigious IT industry where a third of the workforce is said to be women. Therefore, one may draw some conclusions about women’s relationships with paid work in the transnational economy based on the experiences of women in the IT industry. Within the transnational economy I include organizations that engage in economic relationships across two or more nation states. Both multinational companies which have offshore development centres in India and local companies that provide goods and services to markets overseas would be part of the transnational economy.