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Event Description

The study looks at the relationship between women’s time use and Breastfeeding among daily wage labourers employed at construction sites in Ahmedabad.

Abstract

Evidence suggests that exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) provides ideal and adequate nutrition to children in the first six months. Yet, a significant proportion of mothers across the world are unable to adhere to EBF. Researchers have attributed low EBF rates to a wide range of factors such as cultural beliefs, maternal attitude, knowledge and subjective norms, previous experiences, awareness, intention to breastfeed and perceived barriers such as inadequate milk. This body of literature mostly focuses on the reproductive role of the mother, viewing them as bearers and nurturers. Literature on mothers as productive workers or wage earners is sparse. Among the studies that have explored the relationship between postpartum employment and breastfeeding practices, the discussion has typically been within the domain of formal employment with a call for better maternal benefits or provision of day care facilities. However, a large proportion of women in urban India are employed in the informal economy that exposes them to precarious and exploitative conditions. Their drudgery is further exacerbated in the domestic sphere where they shoulder additional caregiving responsibilities that imposes acute time-stress on women, particularly those with new born children that are biologically dependent on the mother for exclusive breastfeeding (EBF).  As Smith & Forrester (2013) write, a crucial aspect that is often forgotten is that EBF is “time intensive, which is economically costly to women.” For mothers in the informal economy who do not have access to paid maternity leave, lack social support or cannot afford additional help for other domestic chores, EBF is unsustainable, especially when income insecurity compels them to return to work within a few weeks of childbirth. While researchers have explored time as a resource that mothers invest in their young children’s overall development (Becker, 1981; Coleman, 1988; Craig, 2007), its impact on EBF, a critical but often invisibilized form of investment, has remained understudied.

In order to understand the relationship between women’s time use and EBF, we conducted an exploratory study with a group of daily wage labourers employed work at construction sites in Ahmedabad. We undertook shadowing as a method to record women’s time-use. Preliminary findings suggest that in the context of time-scarcity, women negotiate a vast range of factors such as the nature of work and wages, surveillance at the workplace, quality of alternative care and domestic work to be able to breastfeed their children. While shadowing as an exercise provides critical insights into these aspects, it also brings to the fore methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas that are inherent in undertaking fieldwork at informal worksites.

Speaker Bio

 Divya Ravindranath’s research focuses on informal work, migration, gender, and urban health. At IIHS she has been examining how the nature and conditions of work affect health experiences and outcomes among those employed in the informal economy. She is also interested in studying decent work, various dimensions of paid and unpaid work and its implications for women’s labour force participation. She has had close association with several not-for-profit organisations and her research portfolio has a strong policy and practice focus. Divya teaches ethnographic methods, gender in the city and urban health in the Urban Fellows Programme at IIHS.