Choices and Constraints in the Work Lives of Paid Women Domestic Workers: Experiences from Chennai

In the neo-liberal era, India has seen increased participation of women in informal sector work, mainly as unskilled labourers, even as the female labour force participation (FLFP) rate declined to 17.5 per cent in 2018 from 30.2 per cent in 1990 (Deora, 2023). According to the National Commission of Enterprise in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS, 2007), 96 percent of all working women are in the informal sector of which 20 per cent have been absorbed in the urban informal sector. Even more noteworthy is the fact that 50 per cent of these women workers are main earners of their family. In such circumstances, women who work primarily in the informal sector have the least bargaining power to demand higher wages or decent working conditions.