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Female-Supported Households:
A Continuing Agenda for the Kerala Model?
by
Richard W. Franke and Barbara H. Chasin
Montclair State University
Upper Montclair New Jersey 07043 USA
Paper for Presentation at the Seminar on
Women in Kerala: Past and Present
Government College for Women
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 63210
11-12 February 1995
Co-Sponsored by
Government College for Women Students' Union and
AKG Centre for Research and Studies
This paper was published in Economic and Political Weekly
31(10):625-630. March 9, 1996.
------------------------------------------------------------------
1.Introduction
Delegates to the first International Congress on Kerala Studies
in August 1994 focused their attention on shortcomings of and
threats to the widely acclaimed "Kerala Model" of development.
They were right to do so: the essence of the Kerala Model is
social justice, and social justice can only come about through
honest discussion of all groups left out of the model's achieve-
ments, followed by effective action to bring the "forgotten ones"
in.
Kerala has brought near 1st world levels to most of its people
in literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality. Kerala's
achievements have largely transcended caste, class, rural/urban
and gender limitations (Franke and Chasin 1994). But papers at
the International Congress revealed a number of small groups left
out. These included fishing people (Karuna et al and Kurien),
female stone cutters (Ukkuru et al), female domestic servants
(Subramony), some female agricultural laborers (Mencher), at
least some tribal peoples (Devi; Corrie), and migrant workers
from Tamil Nadu. Although not discussed specifically at the
Congress, we could add that headload and other casual laborers
may also suffer deprivations not consistent with Kerala's social
justice model of development (Pillai 1992).
Adding all these groups together, we estimate that perhaps 15%
of Kerala's people are left out in some way from the benefits of
the Kerala model. Although most development experts would
consider 85% beneficiaries a remarkable achievement, Kerala's
activists should see this 15% as a challenge. The Kerala model
cannot be fully successful until all the state's people are includ-
ed.
A closer examination of the "forgotten ones" makes clear that
women are a major component. As in other societies, Kerala
women earn less than men and face numerous barriers to equality
and economic security. Understanding the dimensions of women's
inequality is one step towards developing an agenda for action to
overcome it.
In this paper, we offer evidence on two dimensions of male/fe-
male inequality in the Central Kerala village of Nadur: (1)
women's work and wages and (2) the effects of wages on house-
holds primarily dependent on women for their incomes. Our
research in Nadur took place from 15 November, 1986 to 15 July,
1987. We surveyed 170 households including 1,035 individuals
across a range of castes, classes, income levels, family struc-
tures, educational levels, and Kerala model variables such as land
reform, ration shops, school lunches, and special development
programs. Our main village-level findings appear in our study
entitled Life Is a Little Better: Redistribution as a Development
Strategy in Nadur Village Kerala (Franke 1993), soon to appear in
a Malayalam translation. That study covers caste, class, and
income inequality, but does not include our findings on women.
We present them at this conference for the first time.1
2.Women's Work and Women's Wages in Nadur
Our sample includes 676 individuals between the working ages
of 15 and 64 as shown on table 1. Occupational categories are
listed from most to least common. The table shows that unem-
ployment is the main situation for both males and females added
together. The first finding confirms what other observers have
reported for Kerala: unemployment is the most serious problem
facing the work force.
Looking beneath this overwhelming problem, we see that work-
ing men and women differ in their employment patterns. "House-
hold affairs" is most common for females while males dominate the
category of house compound and general labor with 89 workers
against only 23 women. By contrast, women make up 57 of the 64
persons listing agricultural labor as their main occupation.
These first two labor categories are important. In 1987 house
compound and general labor brought in Rs 25-30 per day.
Agricultural labor garnered Rs 20 for men and Rs 12 for women.
Table 1
Main Occupation of Household Members
Ages 15 Through 64
Nadur Village Kerala, 1986-87
------------------------------------------------------------------
Occupation Males % Females % Total Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------
Unemployed 51 15.4 96 27.9 147 21.7
Household Affairs 11 3.3 126 36.6 137 20.3
House Compound and
General Labor 89 26.8 23 6.7 112 16.6
Agricultural Labor 7 2.1 57 16.6 64 9.5
Student 25 8.4 23 6.7 48 7.1
Petty Trade 30 9.0 3 0.9 33 4.9
Skilled Labor 29 8.7 1 0.3 30 4.4
Service 12 3.6 4 1.2 16 2.4
White Collar 10 3.0 4 1.2 14 2.1
Farmer 11 3.3 0 0.0 11 1.6
Professional 5 1.5 2 0.6 7 1.0
Pensioner 3 0.9 1 0.3 4 0.6
Other 4 1.2 3 0.9 7 1.0
Subtotal 287 86.4 343 99.7 630 93.2
Absent Laborer 45 13.6 1 0.3 46 6.8
Total 332 100.0 344 100.0 676 100.0
------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
The category Other includes 3 servants, a religious practitioner,
and 3 unknown.
Spinners at the Cooperative are included in General Labor.
Source: adapted from Franke 1993:162.
We see further that women are approximately equal as numbers
of students, but table 1 shows that petty trade, skilled labor,
white collar, service work, farmer, and professional employment
are dominated by men at an average ratio of about 10 to 1. Most
Nadur men do not earn high incomes, but nearly all Nadur women
are relegated to the status unemployed, household affairs, or the
lowest paying agricultural field labor.
Table 1 also shows that 45 of 46 absent workers from Nadur
are males. Except for one female working as a maid in New
Delhi, all remittance incomes are provided by men. These data
are more extreme than Kerala's overall picture, but they fit
generally into the Kerala pattern where overwhelmingly workers
outside their home villages are men.2 In Nadur in 1987, 9% of all
sample income derived from male labor outside the village, further
skewing the inequality in earnings between males and females
individually within Nadur.
3.Female-Supported Households as Units of Analysis
Individual employment statistics are important but incomplete
indicators of individual well-being. Most individuals in Kerala
live in households where income and resources are shared to some
extent. Thus, females earning low incomes, suffering unemploy-
ment, or engaging in household work, could be receiving some of
the benefits of their higher-earning male household partners.
Depending on the household structure and composition, these
could include husbands (nuclear households), fathers or sons
(extended households), male in-laws (joint households), or combi-
nations of these (complex households). Even the single female --
widowed, divorced, abandoned, or never married -- could be
receiving assistance from male relatives nearby. Especially in
rural areas, where family members live close to each other --
even if households have partitioned -- households are usually
more appropriate units of analysis than individuals.3
The question then becomes: to what extent does the concentra-
tion of females in the lowest income-generating labor categories
lower the incomes of the households themselves?
4.Female-Supported Households in Nadur
We identified 22 female-supported households, or 13% among
the 170 households in the 1987 Nadur sample. Female-supported
means that over 50% of household income derives from the work of
female household members.4 Table 2 shows the distribution of the
working members of the two kinds of households.5
Table 2
Main Occupation of Household Members
Ages 15 Through 64 by Gender of Economic Dependency
Nadur Village Kerala, 1986-87
------------------------------------------------------------------
Male-Supported Female-Supported
N=148 N=22
----------------- ----------------
Occupation Males Females Males Females
------------------------------------------------------------------
Unemployed 48 94 3 2
Household Affairs 10 119 1 7
House Compound and
General Labor 89 14 0 9
Agricultural Labor 6 46 1 11
Student 23 19 2 4
Petty Trade 29 0 1 3
Skilled Labor 29 0 0 1
Service 13 3 0 3
White Collar 7 3 0 1
Farmer 11 0 0 0
Professional 7 1 1 1
Pensioner 3 1 0 0
Other 3 1 0 0
Subtotal 278 301 9 42
Absent Laborer 42 0 3 1
Total 320 301 12 43
------------------------------------------------------------------
From table 2 we can see that male-dependent households have
most of the better paying income sources such as professional,
skilled labor, service occupations, white collar, and house com-
pound labor. After subtracting students, unemployed, and
household affairs persons, male-supported households have 308
workers or an average of 2.1 per household. Female-supported
households, by contrast, have 36 workers for 22 households, or
1.6 on average.
As we predicted, the incomes of the female-supported house-
holds were substantially lower than male-supported households;
average household income was Rs 3,702 for female-supported
compared with Rs 7,342 for male-supported households. This
difference was statistically significant at 0.02 in an analysis of
variance (ANOVA). As table 3 indicates, female-supported
households were distributed far more in the lower income quin-
tiles.
Table 3
Quintile Distributions of Household Incomes of
Male-Supported Versus Female Supported Households
Nadur Village Kerala, 1987
------------------------------------------------------------------
Male-Supported Female-Supported
---------------- ----------------
Quintile Number Percent Number Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------
Highest (Rs 9,200-54,000) 33 22 1 5
2nd (Rs 6,000- 9,199) 33 22 1 5
3rd (Rs 3,920- 5,999) 29 20 5 23
4th (Rs 2,900- 3,919) 30 20 4 18
Bottom (Rs 840- 2,899) 23 16 11 50
Totals 148 100 22 101
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus we see that 22% of male-supported households are
within the best-off quintile compared to only 5% of female-sup-
ported households. By contrast, 50% of female-supported and 16%
of male-supported households were in the lowest quintile.
General household income, however, does not take into
account size differences as we saw above in the breakdown of
dependent household members over 64 and under 14. Female-
supported households average 3.9 members versus 6.4 for male-
supported households. When adult equivalents (AE)6 are used,
we find that female-supported households average 3.2 versus 5.4
for male-supported households. When household adult equivalent
composition is taken into account, the AE income averages Rs
1,501 for female-supported households versus Rs 1,570 for male-
supported ones. The difference is not statistically significant.
Similarly, households are almost equally distributed across the
income quintiles as shown on table 4.
Table 4
Quintile Distributions of Adult Equivalent Incomes of
Male-Supported Versus Female Supported Households
Nadur Village Kerala, 1987
------------------------------------------------------------------
Male-Supported Female-Supported
----------------- ----------------
Quintile Number Percent Number Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------
Highest (Rs 1,951-9,265) 30 20 4 18
2nd (Rs 1,252-1,950) 28 19 6 27
3rd (Rs 857-1,219) 30 20 4 18
4th (Rs 632- 850) 30 20 4 18
Bottom (Rs 267- 621) 30 20 4 18
Totals 148 99 22 99
------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 4 and the AE income data for the Nadur sample strongly
indicate that households supported primarily by women do almost
as well as households supported primarily by males. Since table
1 shows clearly that women are clustered in the lower wage jobs,
and the associated wage data show that women earn less than men
in comparable jobs such as agricultural labor, we must conclude
that female-supported households have developed survival strate-
gies and that these strategies succeed in placing them almost
economically equal to male-supported households. What could
these strategies be?
5. Strategy 1: Small Size and Limited Dependents
In the absence of higher-earning male supporters,
female-supported households apparently limit their size to maxi-
mize their per-AE incomes. To a certain extent this is a conse-
quence of the likely causes of female-supported households in the
first place. Most are made up of women whose husbands died,
abandoned them, or have become too ill or feeble to work -- along
with any dependents these women cannot or are not willing to try
to place in other households.
We can see from table 2 that female-supported house-
holds absorb less than their share of unemployed, household
affairs, and students: with 13% of the households, they account
for 3% of the unemployed, 6% of those living off household affairs,
and 12% of students. Members over 64 are 15% (13 of 88) in
female-supported households along with 7% of children under 14
(21 of 317).7 The demographic support burden on female-sup-
ported households is thus less than on their male-supported
counterparts. Another way to conceptualize this is to say that
female-supported households manage greater efficiency in the
relation between earners and dependents.
How do female-supported households achieve this efficien-
cy? One mechanism is to partition themselves off from their
children, living in small houses on the family paramba, after
transferring any rice land to the adult children. Added to this
may be benefits from Kerala government programs such as agri-
cultural laborer pensions.
Lakshmiyamma is a 71-year-old widow of many years.
She lives with her 33 year old daughter Narayani, an
agricultural laborer whose husband deserted her
several years back. One of Lakshmiyamma's sons is
in a leprosy hospital. Lakshmiyamma and Narayani
live in a small house on the edge of the main para-
mba. Two sons live in the main house, managing the
1.5 acres rice land to benefit their own partitioned
households. Along with Narayani's small income from
field labor, the household lives off Lakshmiyamma's
agricultural laborer's pension of Rs 45 per month [in
1987].8
Lakshmiyamma is a Nair caste member, like 82% of the female-
supported households in Nadur. None are Nambudiri, Muslim, or
Mannan; 1 is Pulaya, 1 Chetty, and 2 are Ezhavas. The flexibili-
ty of membership and gender roles as heads of households among
Nairs may contribute to their being so over represented in the
female-supported households. Nairs make up 48% of the Nadur
sample households overall.
Lakshmiyamma is one of 10 widows among the 22 female-sup-
ported households. Two other widows are receiving agricultural
laborer pensions, one receives a pension from a company in
Madras where her husband had worked before his death, one
works on a rubber estate, another sells coconuts, and another
sells rice from the farm land of her children who are living away
from Nadur. Another widow of 20 years shares running of a tea
shop with two adult daughters; one other widow has a 29 year old
daughter who works as an agricultural laborer and another
daughter who receives a pension for being handicapped. Finally,
Janaky is a 65 year old Pulaya widow of 15 years.
Three daughters -- 30, 28, and 25 years -- work as
agricultural laborers. One granddaughter of 7 also
lives in the household. The 3 combined agricultural
labor incomes are almost all the household has on
which to survive. The daughters sometimes get a
little paramba work as well. In 1986 the household
received a Rs 6,000 building loan to repair their
house which had been in bad condition. They are
required to repay Rs 4,500 of the loan.
Janaky's case illustrates the efficiency of a low-income house-
hold: 3 workers supporting themselves, one elderly mother --
not apparently receiving an agricultural laborer pension to which
she is presumably entitled -- and one grandchild. One husband
is unaccounted for, and 2 adult daughters remain unmarried --
one of the consequences of their situation.
Altogether 8 males and 54 females are widowers/widows in 59
sample households. Since 10 of these households are female-
supported, the chances of becoming female-supported are not
increased by widowhood: 17% (10/59) versus 13% of the sample
overall (22/170). Similarly, 83% (49/59) of male-supported
households have widows or widowers versus 87% of sample overall
(148/170). The ratios for each gender of support are thus almost
the same.9
With separation, however, the chances are reversed. Six
households are headed by women separated, divorced, or deserted
by husbands. Four male-supported households have a separated
female. The odds of becoming female-supported are 60% (6/10
versus 13% of sample) after separation contrasted with 40% (4/10
versus 87% of sample) for remaining male-supported. In one
case, a 68 year old woman lives with her 56 year old sister and
the sister's adult daughter. The husband is severely ill, but
lives in his mother's family's house in a nearby town. The elder-
ly woman receives a small amount of money for cleaning the main
village temple and the sister's daughter brings in a small income
as a tailor. Another separated woman of 54 lives by herself and
works in a rubber estate; a third now divorced receives rice as
needed from her daughter living in the next village; a 46 year
old divorced pappadam maker continues to make pappadams while
supporting her 23 year old daughter training to be a nurse. One
26 year old woman abandoned by her husband works full time in
Nadur's spinning coop from which she earns a meager income.
And one divorced woman lives from agricultural labor and work as
a servant to a high caste household. Her daughter also does
agricultural labor; together they support 2 infant children and
the daughter's husband who has been severely ill and weak for
several months.
The final 6 female-supported households have intact couples,
but are also primarily aged partition split-offs or households with
adults unable to work full time because of illness.
Govindan is a 49 year old Nair former temple servant
and agricultural laborer. Both he and his wife have
had health problems and are not able to work regular-
ly. The household's 8 members include the parents
and their 6 daughters. Amaru, 19, and Karthyayani,
18, work at the Nadur spinning cooperative. Their
combined earnings are the primary support of the
household. When Amaru marries, a prospect soon to
happen, she will probably stop cranking the charkas
to rewind the thread and the household may have to
send the 3rd daughter, Chinnamaru, now 16, and
studying in the 10th standard, to help keep the
household afloat.10
One Nair household depends entirely on the incomes of 2 spinn-
ers to support its 5 members. Another Nair household combines
the former village clerk's pension to the 83 year old male head
with the income from their 39-year old daughter who works as a
teacher in the village school. A daughter-teacher combines with
income from temple work to support an elderly couple who lost
substantially in the land reform. A household partition combines
the agricultural labor pension and servant income of the male
head with his adult daughter's work as an agricultural laborer
and maidservant to support their small house on the edge of a
compound where the larger dwelling has gone over to the other
adult children.
Finally, Sankaran and his wife, aged 79 and 62, both receive
agricultural labor pensions. They combine these with the income
from one daughter who works as an agricultural laborer and
another who works as a postal agent to support the four adults
and 4 children.
In general, then, we see female-supported households in Nadur
maximizing income per person or AE by remaining small and/or by
partitioning off from larger family units. We also see in these
cases that women maintain small households in part by remaining
childless after divorce or separation. Unlike in the Caribbean
and some other parts of the world, Kerala women do not apparent-
ly gather children around them into matrifocal or female-centred
households. The reasons for this pattern are worthy of further
study.
6.Strategy 2: Kerala Redistribution Programs
The examples in section 5 above illustrate another strategy for
female-supported households: extensive use of Kerala government
programs to redistribute wealth to the poorest households.
Although these programs do not target female-supported house-
holds in particular, such households seem to benefit out of pro-
portion to their numbers. Three of the programs seem particular-
ly important in Nadur: agricultural laborer pensions, the ration
shop, and the Nadur spinning cooperative.
We saw in the cases above that a total of 6 agricultural labor
pensions occurred in 5 of the 22 female-supported households
(23%). These pensions accounted for 4% of the combined income
of these 22 households, compared with 0.6% for the 12 pensions
(8%) distributed among the 148 male-supported households.11
Nadur's Ration Shop provides a second government program
especially utilized by female-supported households. Female-
supported households average 17 cents rice land and 34 cents
house compound land versus 33 cents and 88 cents for male-
supported households. Neither of these differences is statistically
significant, but the rice land difference qualifies female-supported
households for greater ration shop access: 77% of rice over the
year as compared to 49% for male-supported households.12 We
conducted 24-hour recall nutrition surveys in February and July
1987. In February, female-supported households were slightly
above, in July slightly below their male-supported counterparts:
all averages were within the range of 2,033 and 2,472 calories.
According to respondents, female-supported households ate meat
only 8 times per year on average. When the all-vegetarian, all
male-supported Nambudiri households were removed from the
sample, male-supported households averaged 19 times per year to
eat meat. Since the ration shop does not supply meat, the meat-
eating differences support our interpretation that a substantial
portion of the reason for female-supported success in nearly equal
calorie intake to male-supported households is their access to and
use of the ration shop. Without the ration shop, the female-
supported households are at a strong disadvantage; for the foods
it supplies, they achieve virtually equality with male-supported
households.
7.Strategy 3: Nadur's Spinning Coop
Nadur houses a unit of the Kerala Khadi and village Industries
Association, a spinning cooperative that employed 29 young women
from 3 villages in 1987. The women, ages 15 to 33, turn masses
of ground and twisted cotton called sliva into refined thread that
can be woven on handlooms. Their work -- hand cranking ma-
chines called charkas, is called rewinding.
The work is monotonous and unhealthy. The charkas are not
electrified.13 The women sit before the machines for hours.
Cotton dust fills the poorly lighted and poorly ventilated room.
The workers complain of backache, stomach pain, chest pain, and
bronchial disorders. Because of the illnesses and because the
young women also have substantial household chores, they aver-
age only 2.3 weeks work per month, for an average monthly wage
of Rs 103.
Despite the physical difficulty of the work, rewinding sliva at
the charkas attracts young women from poor households because
of the regular work and the relatively high pay. Rs 103 per
month for 12 months equals Rs 1,236 per year -- more than many
male agricultural laborers could earn in the rice fields in 1987.
Twenty of the coop workers came from Nadur, of whom 11 were
members of 9 sample households. Spinning wages made up only
1% of total sample income, but averaged 29% for the 9 households
with spinners. Three of these households were female-supported:
14% of female-supported households compared with 4% (6/148) of
male-supported households. The spinners in the female-supported
households worked an average of 2.8 weeks per month, 22% more
than in male-supported households. Only one worked at the
average while all the others worked above it. They contributed
73%, 85%, and 100% to their household incomes. Two of the
households had 2 spinners each, while:
Sujatha was married at 23, but her husband deserted
her a few months later. Now 26, she lives alone in a
small house on a small plot of paramba. She has no
rice land and her immediate relatives shun her,
blaming her for the loss of her mate. He lives in a
nearby village, married to another young woman, and
sends no money. Without her full-time coop job,
Sujatha would have only a few coconuts on which to
live.
8.Female-Supported Households and the Kerala Model:
A Continuing Agenda?
The Nadur household survey indicates that female-supported
households achieve near equality with their male counterparts.
They achieve this near equality despite women's lower wages and
their concentration in the lowest paying jobs. The strategies
they use include tailoring their household structure to maximize
income per consumption unit, making extensive use of Kerala's
redistribution programs, and working at unhealthy, unpleasant
jobs to earn incomes. As Kerala's planners and activists consider
initiatives for the next generation of the Kerala model, each of
these strategies raises issues that suggest the need for further
research or for immediate political action.
8.1Structure
Let us consider first the structure of female-supported house-
holds. While highly efficient in a technical sense, they may be
exacting a price in exhaustion from their members. By maximiz-
ing workers in the household, female-supported households may
lack adequate personnel to take care of household tasks. Or, the
members may have to do these tasks after hard days' of labor.
In other words, female-supported households may achieve income
equality with male counterparts at the cost of concentrating the
double-shift within their household boundaries.
To get an indication of the access to household labor, we
compared all persons of all ages listing household affairs as their
main activity by gender of main support. The 22 female-
supported households have 17 household workers (8 between the
ages of 14 and 64 -- see table 2) for an average of 0.8 per
household. The 148 male-supported households have 183 house-
hold workers (129 between 14 and 64) for an average of 1.2, 50%
more household workers. In addition, male-supported household
affairs workers average 52.4 years compared to 61.4 in female-
supported households.14 Female-supported households have fewer
workers taking care of the home, and those workers are older
and less physically able.
These observations leave several questions unanswered. Do
female-supported households that are partitions farm out house-
hold tasks to their nearby offspring? Do women workrs in fe-
male-supported households make extra use of Kerala's extensive
tea shops for meals? Most importantly, perhaps, don't female-
supported households have fewer household tasks? We saw on
table 3 that most unemployed dependents are in male-supported
households. And in section 5 we saw that only 7% of children
live in the female-supported households. Therefore, such house-
holds have fewer household maintenance burdens. However, all
households have certain basic "start-up" activities and daily
maintenance activities that require some input from adult house-
hold workers: shopping for food, cooking, cleaning, and child
care where relevant.
Does the lower demand for household labor balance out for
female-supported households or do the adult members suffer more
physically and mentally from their double shift burdens? This
seems an important area for further research. One approach
would be time allocation studies comparing male- and female-
supported households to find out how work is carried out inside
and outside the households. This could be combined with attitude
surveys and/or life histories to get some indications about how
the household members feel about their situation.
Life histories might also make possible some understanding of
another aspect of female-supported households: the apparent lack
of sexual and child-bearing fulfillment available to their adult
female members. In India, separation and abandonment leave men
in position to have new spouses and families; for women this may
be a difficult burden to overcome. Sujatha's case in section 7
above is illustrative. Knowing more about the chances for remar-
riage for abandoned women in Kerala would help assess the emo-
tional price paid for the break-up of the household that is one
major cause for the creation of female-supported households. How
many of the cases were freely chosen by the women?
Widowhood poses a similar problem. One estimate for India as a
whole gives 33% of ever-widowed women as remarried compared
with 66% of men (Gulati 1992:WS95). The 1961 Indian census
suggests that 20% of rural Kerala female widows remarry, with no
figure for males (Gulati 1992:WS96).
8.2Kerala Redistribution Programs
The Nadur data indicate strongly that 2 of Kerala's major redis-
tribution programs are crucial to female-supported households.
Recent central government policies to make the ration shops more
like the open market will likely harm female-supported households.
Our data suggest that returning the ration shop policies to their
previous benefit patterns and maintaining the agricultural labor
pensions should be high priorities for activists of Kerala's next
phase of development.
8.3Creating Female-Worker-Friendly Rural Employment
Government programs such as ration shop price subsidies and
pensions can only be secondary measures in Kerala's development.
One of the highest priorities might be rural employment. We saw
in section 2 and on table 1 that Kerala women do not go out of
their home villages to find work nearly as easily as do men. One
solution to this problem is to bring employment to the villages.
Nadur's Khadi Cooperative which we describe in section 7
provides some information on the dimensions of this issue. While
offering work crucial to the support of several households, the
coop until recently took a heavy toll on its workers' health and
happiness. In 1992, the coop built an improved structure and
electrified some of the machines, but cotton dust still fills the air
and workers sit in uncomfortable positions without back rests.
The coop building also lacks other amenities such as a conveni-
ent, dust-free area for eating lunch.
One way to think about the future of rural employment in
Kerala is to look at Kerala Dinesh Beedi Workers Cooperative
Society (KDB). This large centralized and decentralized industri-
al concern in Kannur and surroundings has managed to pay high
wages and maintain profits while introducing gradual improvements
in working conditions and benefits. Over 50% of work sheds are
now modernized and a building program is underway to modernize
the rest within a few years.
Significant features of KDB are its structure and its ownership
system. The structure includes centralized purchase and market-
ing combined with decentralized production units close to the
homes of workers. KDB is essentially worker owned. With more
than 50% of its workers female by 1992, KDB has become probably
the largest female-worker-owned company in the world. Close
attention to the details of KDB's success and to its continuing
problems might suggest how organizations like Nadur's Khadi
cooperative could be modified to make them more attractive to
rural workers.15 Such actions seem consistent with the ideals
behind Kerala's New Democratic Initiatives that call for energizing
the working population for action in its own self-interest. The
alternative is to await foreign investment or other outside inter-
ventions that may be based on concepts of efficiency intended to
produce greater profits through exploitation and abuse of workers
rather than through worker participation and social justice in the
work place.
9.Conclusions
Social movements in Kerala historically have engendered hope
among workers and farmers that life can be a little better. The
strength of these movements has also stimulated optimism and
idealism among Kerala's intellectuals and academics. Both groups
are represented at this conference on Women in Kerala: Past and
Present. The old Kerala model has provided Kerala with many of
the elements needed to plan and carry out a new Kerala model.
We hope that the needs of women workers and female-supported
households will be directly addressed by research and action
coming out of this seminar.
10. Notes
1. A detailed description of Nadur Village and its environment
appears in chapter 3 of the English edition of Franke 1993. The
rationale for choosing the village is given in chapter 2.
2. Thomas Isaac (1992:4; 1993:64) provides evidence that about
14% of Kerala workers in Kuwait in 1990 were maids, with nearly
all other categories likely to be male workers except for teachers,
cooks, clerks, and paramedics, of whom a small percentage might
be female. Oberai, Prasad, and Sardana (1989:28) found that 15%
of Kerala migrants within India were female, a percentage higher
than from Bihar (9%) or Uttar Pradesh (13%), the other two states
represented in their sample.
3. See Franke 1993:32-33 for further discussion of the rationale
for using households rather than individuals for income analysis.
Of course, individuals must be the units when intra-household
variations or inequality are the subjects of research. For male-
female inequality, this is an important area in which much addi-
tional research is needed.
4. We chose female-supported over female-headed. For economic
analysis, the gender of economic support seems more straightfor-
ward. The category female-headed implies concepts of authority
as well as income generation. In our Nadur sample 61 respond-
ents (36%) listed a female head of household. In many cases, this
seemed to be more a sign of respect towards an aging woman than
an accurate account of decision-making power. Some researchers
in India would argue that any household with a male 18 years or
older could not effectively have a female head. Mencher (n.d.)
gives various examples of the dimensions of this problem. She
too, seems to conclude that gender of support is the more useful
concept.
5. Marilyn Cohen's (1992:309) findings from the 1901 Irish census
demonstrate striking similarities with Nadur in patterns of female-
supported household structure and composition as well as employ-
ment efficiency (1992:306 and 308). This suggests that in male-
dominated societies, female-supported households may have similar
properties and similar causes despite otherwise large cultural
differences.
6. An adult equivalent designates the amount of food energy
required to sustain "an average adult male doing sedentrary
work." The Indian Council of Medical Research adds tenths of
an equivalent for heavier work and subtracts tenths for smaller
body size of females and children giving a range of 0.4 to 1.6.
Since most Nadur households spend well over 75% of their income
on food, we consider the adult equivalent more accurate than per
capita. See Franke 1993, chapters 2 and 10 for further details
on the use of this measure for the Nadur sample.
7. Males 60+ were 5.9% of sample individuals compared with 7.1%
for the same category for Kerala as a whole. Nadur females 60+
were 6.5% compared with 8.6% for all-Kerala. The ratio of females
to males 60+ was 1.1 for both (all-Kerala figures for 1986 from
Gulati 1992:WS95). These data confirm our claims (Franke
1993:chapter 2) that the Nadur sample is representative. Gulati's
calculation of the totals is an average of the two percents rather
than their addition, however.
8. The village name Nadur and the names of all individuals are
pseudonyms. No other information has been altered.
9. For Kerala in 1981, 19% of males over 70 remained widows.
For Nadur, the figure was 21% (6 of 29). Kerala females over 70
were 81% still widowed -- that is, not remarried, compared to 73%
for the Nadur sample (19 of 26). For all-Kerala in 1981, the
expected duration of widowhood for men was 3.5 years; for women
it was 14.7 years (Gulati 1992:WS97 and WS99). We do not have
a comparable figure for Nadur, but the combination of longer
female life expectation and lower ability to remarry could mean for
Nadur and for Kerala that elderly female-supported households
are likely to continue to be produced.
10. See Franke 1993:188-190 for a more detailed description of
this household.
11. A Chi-Square test on the numbers of households receiving or
not receiving at least one pension by gender of main support is
significant at p < .05.
12. The ration shop percentage difference is significant in ANOVA
at p < .001. For this and all food and nutrition-related compari-
sons, we removed the single member households of both genders
as consistent with the approach adopted in Franke 1993 and
1993a, where explanations for the decision are provided. On the
individual nutrition surveys, ration shop usage by gender of
household support was different in the same direction, but not
statistically significant.
13. In 1992 the coop built a new work shed with electrical hook-
ups for some machines.
14. The age difference is significant at p = 0.0425 using ANOVA.
15. A forthcoming book on KDB will hopefully provide some of the
material for the relevant discussions. See Thomas Isaac, Pyaralal
Raghavan, and Richard W. Franke, Mobilization, Skill, and Social
Justice: Achievements and Dilemmas of Kerala Dinesh Beedi, to
be published in Malayalam and English in 1995.
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