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| Format: | Recurso digital |
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Zenodo
2021
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| Accés en línia: | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20237786 |
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- <div> <div class="relative font-sans text-base text-foreground selection:bg-super/50 selection:text-foreground dark:selection:bg-super/10 dark:selection:text-super"> <div class="min-w-0 break-words [word-break:break-word]"> <div class="gap-y-md after:clear-both after:block after:content-['']"> <div class="has-inline-images my-2 first:mt-0 [&:has([data-inline-type=image])+&:has([data-inline-type=image])_[data-inline-type=image]]:hidden [&:has(table)_[data-inline-type=image]]:hidden"> <div> <div class="prose dark:prose-invert inline leading-relaxed break-words min-w-0 [word-break:break-word] [&_>*:first-child]:mt-0 [&_>*:last-child]:mb-0"> <div> <p class="my-2 [&+p]:mt-4 [&_strong:has(+br)]:inline-block [&_strong:has(+br)]:pb-2">The Darjiling tea industry is both a key export sector and a highly gendered labour regime, where women’s work is central to production yet remains structurally undervalued and precarious. This paper investigates gendered divisions of labour, conditions of work, and everyday negotiations of livelihoods among women workers in selected tea estates of the Darjiling hills, West Bengal. It situates women’s labour within the historical evolution of the plantation system, contemporary crises of garden closure and casualisation, and broader debates on feminisation of labour and gendered precarity in agrarian capitalism.</p> <p class="my-2 [&+p]:mt-4 [&_strong:has(+br)]:inline-block [&_strong:has(+br)]:pb-2">The study draws on a mixed‑methods research design combining household surveys of women workers, focus group discussions, key‑informant interviews with union representatives and management, and participant observation in three purposively selected estates representing different ownership and performance profiles. Secondary data from plantation statistics, wage agreements and government reports are used to contextualise field findings. Analytical attention is given to the gender division of work between field and factory, wage structures, access to social amenities, unpaid domestic and care labour, and women’s participation in collective action and decision‑making spaces.</p> <p class="my-2 [&+p]:mt-4 [&_strong:has(+br)]:inline-block [&_strong:has(+br)]:pb-2">The findings confirm that women constitute the majority of the permanent workforce in Darjiling plantations, particularly in field operations such as plucking and pruning, where their labour is seen as “naturally suited” to the dexterity required to harvest the ‘two leaves and a bud’. At the same time, women are largely excluded from higher‑paid factory jobs and supervisory positions, reinforcing vertical and horizontal segregation by gender. Despite their numerical dominance, women workers receive meagre wages, often below a living wage once the monetised value of in‑kind benefits is discounted, and face chronic deficits in housing quality, healthcare, childcare and old‑age security. The burden of unpaid domestic work—fetching water and fuel, cooking, caring for children and the elderly- creates a “double day” that intensifies time poverty and limits opportunities for skill upgrading or alternative livelihoods.</p> <p class="my-2 [&+p]:mt-4 [&_strong:has(+br)]:inline-block [&_strong:has(+br)]:pb-2">The paper also highlights how recurring episodes of garden closure, casualisation and out‑migration from the hills have produced what some scholars term a “female underclass”, wherein women bear disproportionate costs of income loss, food insecurity and social dislocation. Women’s representation in trade unions and local governance remains weak, contributing to limited influence over wage negotiations, welfare provisioning and restructuring processes. Yet, the research documents emerging forms of agency, including women’s participation in strikes over bonus and wage demands, informal savings groups, and small‑scale diversification into tourism, petty trade and home‑based work, which partly mitigate vulnerability while also adding to work burdens.</p> <p class="my-2 [&+p]:mt-4 [&_strong:has(+br)]:inline-block [&_strong:has(+br)]:pb-2">By bringing together feminist political‑economy perspectives with grounded empirical evidence from Darjiling, the paper argues that any sustainable future for the tea economy must recognise and redistribute the costs and benefits of women’s labour. Policy recommendations include revising wage‑setting mechanisms to reflect reproductive labour, strengthening women’s representation in unions and Panchayati Raj institutions, enforcing labour and social‑security standards, and supporting alternative livelihood opportunities that enhance women’s bargaining power within and beyond the plantation. The study thus contributes to broader debates on gender, work and social justice in plantation economies and in the changing agrarian landscapes of the eastern Himalaya.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="flex items-center justify-between"> <div class="-ml-sm gap-xs flex flex-shrink-0 items-center"> </div> <div class="gap-x-xs flex flex-shrink-0 items-center"> <div> </div> </div> </div>