Geography, Environment & Development Studies

India. The failure of gender and development studies to investigate men's gendering casts doubt on the value of much extant feminist research. In the context of household studies the investigation of men and masculinity through male informants is in danger of merely redirecting the object of essentialism and pathologisation from men to that of women. Examining the way people employ discourses on gender identity in their attempts to define and contest household relations will enable us to develop a more empathetic approach to the difficulties facing poor men without losing sight of the consequences for women of domestic hierarchies. The representation of men in development literature as unmarked and undifferentiated, other than by socio-economic cleavages, makes a clear case for investigating the effects of their gendering. Such research will elicit material on the experiences, difficulties, motivations and aspirations of men in a number of contexts.

Nadu, it is argued here that while there can have been no golden age for the filial support of ageing parents, recent social and economic policies are creating a situation where sons are less able and less willing to support their parents. It is not only the post-1991 economic changes that are having this effect but also longer term changes in the rural economy together with policies that have raised expectations regarding the needs and rights of children, irrespective of caste, and of Scheduled Caste people. In order to understand how social and economic policies are impacting on intergenerational relations it is necessary to understand the logic underlying the distribution of family resources across the generations. This distribution is based on differential conceptions of personhood, and their associated needs, which change across the life-course and as social and economic conditions change. The argument here is that social and economic policies that have been directed at developing the country and strengthening what are known as 'weaker sections' can have and are having a negative impact on older people precisely because policies are conceived in reference to what is thought of as the working adult generation and children, rather than towards ageing populations. These policies are formulated on the assumption that what benefits younger people will benefit the old because 'in India sons support their parents'. It is on the basis of this assumption of universal filial support that the State's provision for old-age social assistance is limited to destitute men and women

Research on chronologically older people approaches “the old” as a category of people sharing common problems and experiences that are rooted in the functional disparities between old and younger people. These functional disparities are seen as impinging on social and economic positioning, leading to asymmetries in dependence and vulnerability. The argument here is that, rather than simply being an objective functional condition, old age is a deeply contested, socially structured condition precisely because the definition of “old” does not merely denote diverging abilities, but confers differential needs, rights and obligations on both the “old” and on younger people. Drawing on research in rural and urban South India, the article illustrates how definitions of “old age” are shaped by class position within local economies. These definitions pattern older people's access to work and, consequently, not only the extent to which people can remain self-supporting in old age, but also the degree to which younger people expect downward resource flows.

India is now entering the final stages of transition from a population with high fertility and high mortality to one with low fertility and low mortality – and is doing so in the context of widespread poverty and under-developed social and infrastructural provision. The rapidly growing population of young adults, the accelerating growth of the older population, and the increasing feminization of old age have important and largely unrecognized implications for the economy, for inter-generational transfers, and for the experience of old age that do not conform with the usual accounts of a rising burden of old-age dependency. Yet most academic and policy interest in India’s shifting population structure focuses on the ‘working generation’, defined as 15–60 years, and of these the focus is on the ‘youth’ who, it is thought, could potentially deliver a ‘demographic dividend’ of rapid economic growth. Old age, in these formulations, is seen (if discussed at all) as an uninterrupted period of dependence. By contrast, the argument here is that older people’s paid and unpaid work is needed in order to realize the demographic dividend and to counter the negative consequences of the shift to low fertility and low mortality. Drawing on mixed-methods field work that spanned two decades, this chapter will demonstrate that older people play a key role in reducing family poverty and in supporting economic growth. It explores what demographic transition means for the multiply deprived urban poor by examining its consequences for slum dwellers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Chennai is one of India’s largest and fastest-growing urban economies and is located in a state with good human-development indicators in comparison with the national average.

Research undertaken in the low-income settlements of India’s fourth largest city, Chennai, has uncovered the contribution that older people make to family, society and economy. By situating people at the centre of a study of urban poverty and focusing on what older people do, rather than on what they need, the study has uncovered older people’s contribution to the economy, to social reproduction and to the care economy. The backward linkages of older people’s work links the rural economy, where fifty percent of India’s working population are engaged, to the urban economy. By making up for shortfalls in government social and physical infrastructure, older people have released women into the work force and have themselves provided low-cost inputs to industry and low-cost services to the urban population, thereby buttressing the city’s role in the global economy as an IT and manufacturing centre.

"This chapter uncovers the conceptual issues underlying policy framing
in India that impinge on older people’s self-support or support from family or
State, demonstrating this with a brief review of Indian pension policy.
Drawing on the author’s collaborative research, it explains why filial support
does not meet the needs of the older urban poor in Chennai, the capital of the
South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It identifies the accumulation of
disadvantage over the lifecourse as the determining factor in the urban poor’s
well-being and, by raising the taboo subject of what happens to inadequately
supported older people, it identifies age discrimination as a key issue for
development policy and social justice. The argument presented below is that
despite the duty to provide public assistance for the aged, as stipulated in the
Indian Constitution, the Government of India (GOI) considers itself to have
limited responsibility for the welfare of the older urban poor, relying instead on
filial support and people working into late old age, and has overlooked the
mortality implications of poverty in later life."

Much current interest in South Asia's population structure focuses on 'the working generation' (aged 15-60) and particularly on the 'youth' who could potentially deliver a 'demographic dividend', thereby solving the conundrum of population ageing in developing economies. In contrast to this idea and the related one underlying a wide range of development strategies, that reductions of poverty at younger ages will have a meaningful impact on poverty in old age, this paper will demonstrate, first, that older people’s paid and unpaid work is needed to realise the demographic dividend, second, that older people already play an important role in reducing family poverty and sustaining national economies and, third, that only age-specific policies can address poverty in old age.

The stereotype of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in India is that of a dominating mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) argue that daughters-in-law no longer submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital. Rather than being culturally determined, relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are shaped by shifting physical, social and economic dependencies and expectations of dependence in the future. In many families social and economic developments are redefining relations between older and younger generations. Where such developments have had, or are expected to have, a deleterious effect on older women's capacity to support themselves or secure the support of their family, mothers-in-law are adopting a variety of strategies towards their daughters-in-law including that of appeasement.

This article examines how older women’s work in the informal economy contributes to family, national and global economies. It is argued here that protecting and promoting older women’s livelihoods will not only serve the interests of older women, but will also have much wider social and economic significance. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken over the last two decades in urban South India, the article demonstrates that amongst the poorest families, rather than being dependent on spouse or family, older women are often self-supporting, support husbands and subsidise the incomes of younger relatives. Older women’s work not only helps to reduce family poverty, it is critical to the distribution of agricultural produce in urban areas and supports India’s global competitiveness. The article identifies how state and market responses to liberalisation and globalisation are threatening older women’s livelihoods while failing to provide adequate safety nets for older women or their families.

Tlw objective in this paper is to show how household composition in M,ldras' low-income se ttlem ents is the consequence of three facto rs: first, th<' struggle over resources within and between families; second, a concern for 111aa11am (honour/reputation) and third, housing form and tenure. The argument is that dominant principles regarding domestic relations combine with ho using form and tenure to condition individuals' access to particular households. The comparison of household composition in Slum Clearance Board tenements, government allotted land and a squatter settlement indicates that who is included as a member of the household and on what terms is strongly shaped by housing form and tenure.

Book synopsis: Looking at the concept of risk from a cross-cultural perspective, the contributors challenge the Eurocentric frameworks within which notions of risk are more commonly considered. They argue that perceptions of danger, and sources of anxiety, are far more socially and culturally constructed -- and far more contingent -- than risk theorists generally admit. Topics covered include prostitutes in London; AIDS in Tanzania; the cease-fire in Northern Ireland; the volcanic eruptions in Montserrat; modernisation in Amazonia; and the BSE scare in Britain.

This research uses a fresh perspective to trace the impact of multiple economic, financial and environmental shocks on the 'underbelly' of slum dwellers in the South Indian city of Chennai over the period November 2008 to May 2009. It examines the effects of a concatenation of events scaled from the global to the local: consisting of economic shocks (speculation in financial, fuel and food markets) and extremes of rainfall and temperature on a cross-section of the urban poor (differentiated by age and gender)taking in household dynamics and work status.. The paper also traces the rapidity with which these shocks transfer from the global economy to slum settlements. The method involved 12 month recall over the 6 month survey period during the shocks and their aftermath, a comparison of emic and etic measures of economic wellbeing and the comparative use of mixed methods. This research is also the first application of Qualitative Comparative Analysis to slum conditions.

The stereotype of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in India is that of a dominating mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) argue that daughters-in-law no longer submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital. Rather than being culturally determined, relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are shaped by shifting physical, social and economic dependencies and expectations of dependence in the future. In many families social and economic developments are redefining relations between older and younger generations. Where such developments have had, or are expected to have, a deleterious effect on older women's capacity to support themselves or secure the support of their family, mothers-in-law are adopting a variety of strategies towards their daughters-in-law including that of appeasement. Amongst Indians and the general public in the West the predominant image of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in Indian joint families is that of the dominant mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, many residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) complain that in the city daughters-in-law do not submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital. Younger women in these settlements, wishing to stress the inversion of the `typical' order of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, state `here it is the daughter-in-law who lies on the bed ordering her mother-in-law around'. In practice many women in these low-income households are wary of their daughters-in-law and anxious not to antagonise them. Such claims and relations not only contradict the