Structures and Strategies

The third volume in the series Women and the Household in Asia, this unique book explores the interlinkages between two themes central to the analysis of gender - family structure and intra-household relations, and work and production.

The rich ethnographic studies - from Bangladesh, Iran, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Korea and Thailand - challenge the erroneous conception of an isolated individual household and of a common undifferentiated Asian model of the position of women and gender relations. The contributors discuss women's work and autonomy in relation to the management and control of female sexuality; the changing character to the division of labour and redefinition of work in the context of wider economic processes; the changing context of the centrality of women in the kinship system in relation to the production system; differing connotations of household headship; migration and gender; women's entitlements and rights to resources; and exploitative mechanisms at the national and international levels.