Organising Work as Migrant Domestic Workers and Construction Workers in the National Capital Region of India

Abstract

Exodus of migrant workers from different cities in India has brought the issues of migrant workers into light. The discourse in the public domain mainly focusses on male workers where women are more portrayed as mothers. Gender studies scholars (Mazumdar et al. 2013) have always raised concerns on the overemphasis of the social angle of women’s migration. This paper brings forth how migrant workers, all women, had organised their productive-reproductive continuum in Delhi and Gurugram as construction workers and domestic workers. They had come to the National Capital Region (NCR) in search of livelihoods. Their work continuum is discussed in the backdrop of the economic distress that led to migration, the working conditions (wages and leaves) and social security provisions (maternity benefits and childcare) they were entitled to as workers in the cities. The objective of the paper is to understand the structures that influenced the organisation of productive-reproductive continuum of migrant informal sector women workers and also to demonstrate the processes of multiple marginalisation.