Within the walls: home-based work in Lahore.

This article describes womens constrained living and working conditions within the Walled City of Lahore Pakistan. Womens home-based employment is invisible and unrecognized by official statistics and by the dominant male community. Men control non-production work such as trading and buying raw materials. Both men and women work in production but men work in small shops and women work in the privacy of their homes. Census reports in 1981 indicate that 46.6% of the total population of over 200000 in the 15 census wards of the Walled City were women. 12% of the women were literate. In all of Lahore only 4% of women were working or looking for work in 1981. The author conducted a study among a random sample of 100 women in the Walled City in 1987. Findings from this study indicate that about 66% of the women reported that they worked or wanted to work. 33% reported current income generation. 51% of the nonworking women were willing to work if the opportunity arose. 75% of women reported skills in sewing or embroidery but only 10 women earned an income from either trade. The women relied on middlemen for distribution of materials and the finished product. Women did not protest the low wages for fear of reprisal resulting in loss of income or respectability. The next most prevalent skill was literacy. Literate women worked as teachers either privately or outside the Walled City. Most women did not perceive literacy as a skill. Although 41% possessed some marketable skill only 16% earned income from the skill. 48% of the working women used sewing embroidery or teaching skills while 42% worked as small producers. One woman said she did not work even though she made samosas for sale by her family in the local market. There are many primary schools within the Walled City but few secondary ones. The women talked about other more lucrative options for making money.