Women Workers in Unorganized Sector

The present study was carried out with women construction workers, agriculture laborers and domestic helpers working in the unorganized sector. An attempt has been made in the paper to understand the socioeconomic condition of women laborers, nature of their work, their working conditions, wage pattern, wage discrimination and other difficulties faced by them at their work place. Multistage stratified random sampling technique was applied to collect data from 350 women laborers from urban and rural areas of 3 districts of Haryana: Panipat, Kaithal and Kurukshetra. Findings show that majority of the migrant women were engaged in the construction industry and were only employed in unskilled and low paying jobs as coolies, laborers and helpers. Women were exploited to a greater degree as they were paid less compared to men for similar nature of work and hours spent on work. The conditions of work in the unorganized sector were unsatisfactory and the problems confronted by them were acute. And that their illiteracy, poverty and indebtedness forced them to work for lower wages and under unjust conditions.