Women's Roles In Economic Development In India

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The economic development of a country is measured on the basis of its industrialization. Small manufacturing sector including the village and cottage industries functions as a powerful instrument for quick and diversified growth of a country like India. It plays an important part in building up the economic structure of the society. There are empirical facts to show that productive occupation plays a key act in sending the benefits of economic growth into poverty reduction. Employment of women is important in industrialized economies, particularly for those facing a labour supply constraint. In growing economies, women play an important role by contributing to domestic income, adding to the supply of labour for economic activities, and above…show more content…
Factors affecting demand for and supply of female labour can be different from those relevant for males, and hence it is important to give specific attention to gender differences in this respect. Employment opportunities for women are expanding widely with the establishment of industrialization in developed and developing countries. Women workers is an integral part of the labour force, engaged in the Match Industry in India. Match Industry plays an important role in providing employment opportunities to the women-workers. The industry produces match box, both for domestic consumption and for export purposes. The origin of the safety match industry in India goes back to the commencing of this century. Around 1910 migrant Japanese families who stayed in Calcutta started making matches with simple hand- and power-operated machines. Local people quickly learned the required skills and a number of small match factories sprang up in and around Calcutta. These small match factories might not assemble the total requirements of the country however, and India started to import matches from Sweden and…show more content…
These two non automatic sectors of the match industry are distinguished, primarily by output size. All the raw materials required are indigenously produced. The industry as a whole, directly employs an estimated 2, 50,000 people, with only 6,000 of these in the mechanized sector. A large number of Indian tree species have been discovered suitable for use in the match industry. Officially, the cottage industry in match making is defined as any manual production unit producing less than 75,000 cases of match boxes per year. The industry as a whole directly employs an estimated 250,000 people, with only 6,000 of these in the mechanized sector. The cottage sector, which involves totally manual operations and produces less than 75 million match sticks per year and is often household-based, accounts for about 50,000 workers. Thus, small-scale, factory-based match production units employ by far the largest number of people (195,000 workers) involved in the match

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