WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

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S. SUDHA –S. KHANNA –S. I. RAJAN –R. SRIVASTAVA
(Arunima 2003; Kodoth, 2001).
Further socioeconomic change occurred after Independence in
1947, as successive state government policies focused on redistributive
justice (e.g. land redistribution), workers’ rights (supporting strong
workers’ unions) and providing basic health and education. In the
course of these developments, Nayars from more prosperous families
transitioned into the higher ranks of educated professional classes.
Those who began from a disadvantaged position formed a lesseducated,
poorer subgroup. Proportions in these strata are not known
as official statistics are not collected on the basis of specific castes.
Gender issues were not a focus in the planning process due to the
assumption that female education would be a panacea, and gender
inequities are only now being highlighted (Eapen and Kodoth, 2002).
While demographic patterns in Kerala had been favourable to women
(e.g. Kerala has been the only state in India with a female-dominant
population sex ratio), district-level data from the 1990s onward suggest
emerging female disadvantage in child mortality and child sex ratios
(Rajan et al., 2000).
3. Theoretical Perspective and Research Question
Theories suggesting why gender inequality may widen during
socioeconomic development, and the role of kinship organization in
this process, include the ‘gender and development’ approach (review in
Razavi and Miller, 1995). This approach argues that conventional
socioeconomic development worsens pre-existing inequalities unless
they are deliberately addressed during the planning process. In
particular, gender inequality in the family and household emerges as an
unintended consequence. Specifically, Blumberg (2004) has argued that
women’s position in agrarian societies diminishes when social
organization separates the spheres of women and men; socioeconomic
change enhances productive roles of men but not women, and kinship
organization is male-centric. Critical variables influencing gender
equality include women’s control over resources and involvement in the
production process, contextualized within kinship systems determining
whether women can inherit and how near female natal kin they reside.
Our research therefore examines whether socioeconomic changes that
enhance the productive roles of men more than women, and the rise
of male-centred kinship and systems and dowry custom where
matrilineal and matrilocal systems used to exist, will be associated with
the emergence of son preference among the Nayars of Kerala.