CASE STUDIES OF WOMEN’S WORK PARTICIPATION IN DOMESTIC AND MARKET SPHERES

‘Work is worship,' a very old proverb is the mantra towards the equal development of all humankind across region, religion, class, caste and gender. Unfortunately, there is enough evidence of unequal opportunity to male and female in all aspects from region to region. However, the average female labour force participation (FLFP) rate is increasing at the global level at around 50 per cent as per a report of International Monetary Fund. In case of India, women's work participation holds a key to the development of the country as almost half of the population is female. Surprisingly, despite gains in education, Indian women's work participation rate compared to men in the formal economy stands at a lowly 27 per cent (Lal 2017). Here, work participation sounds an area limited for economic analysis but as there are different spheres in which women participate and as it has intricate relationship with their social life; work participation of women can't be studied only from economic determinism. Therefore, this paper seeks to spell out the work participation of Manipuri women from two research studies. Firstly, it focuses on the participation of women in domestic sphere. Secondly, this paper analyses the extensive work participation of women vendors in a well-known historic ‘Women Market' in Manipur, Northeast India.