Work Profile of Rural and Urban Working and Non Working Women with Special Reference to Their Time Utilization in Home Activities

Abstract

Woman plays an important role at home as well as in the society. In earlier days majority of Indian women were shy, illiterate, pessimistic and traditional and their traditional mind feels that being women they are subordinate in society and restricted themselves to household activity only. They also play a vital role as housewives and copartners in farming profession. As cultural and social endowment, they have the responsibility for all domestic tasks including cooking, fetching of water, washing, care of children and livestock. Thus women plays double role inside the home as a home maker and outside the home as a professional worker. Therefore woman works harder and longer hours than man. Their average daily input work is not less than 14-16 hours. Participation of women in different fields has become a common feature now-a-days. However, changed social status of women resulted in additional workload and stress resulting in adverse effect on health and nutritional status of working women. In the present study in order to have an in depth understanding of the participation pattern of home women, their utilization of time in homestead activities and out of home and the health problems they are facing while performing their work, an interview of 600 women working in home activities from rural and urban areas was conducted. The respondents were personally interviewed with the help of pre - structured interview schedule. It was found that majority of the women were from the age category 31-45 years, educated up to school level. Majority of them were householder. They had joint type of families with medium sized (5-8 members) family members. Low organizational membership of the women was noted. Media ownership was good among the selected respondents. Extension contacts of the selected women were found to be very low. Major participation of the women in home was found in the activities for food preparation and washing and drying clothes for working and non working women doing independently. As far as time utilization was concerned