Income sources

2 11

No. of Households Percentage

S.C = Self-Cultivation Source: author’s own survey

5.2.3 Income sources

„In Pakistan’s Punjab, women have limited possibilities of making a living because of household tasks, cattle keeping and purdah rules. Thus, household income combinations in a marginal farm household are only possible when at least one male household member is employed exclusively or mostly in off-farm work and at least one other male household member manages the farm exclusively or mainly“

(KLENNERT 1988:157).

The community does not have many occupational choices at its disposal. Among salaried jobs, adult men educated up to twelfth or fourteenth grade are usually employed on regular basis in nearby urban offices. Urban wage laborers usually do not have regular work in cities, they work for daily wages. Army service is a third possibility. There is just one retired soldier in the sample village. Among village salaried jobs, teacher and Imam (religious leader) are the only regular jobs. Apart from agricultural labor, there are two cases of rural/urban business and seven cases of labor in oil states, in young age groups.

As far as higher wages are concerned, labor abroad is preferred to every other earning opportunity among the young people.

ECKERT’s (1972:61) survey villages also had a large number of households whose members had migrated temporarily or permanently. 22 percent of all the rural households surveyed in the district Faisalabad and 18 percent of all farm households surveyed in the five survey districts stated that they had members who had migrated. 82 percent of all migrants left their family in the village when they took up off-farm work in a town. The temporary migrants contribute to the household income combinations.¹⁴¹ AKHTAR (1978:67) also reports the significant off-farm employment of family workers from the same region, but he did not mention the nature of the off-farm employment.¹⁴²

141 Cf. KLENNERT (1988:157).

142 Cf. KLENNERT (1988:156).

Table 12 shows occupation categories by male age groups among 60 sampled households.

The majority of the males are engaged either in urban jobs, rural agricultural labor or labor abroad.¹⁴³ 25% of the total adult males are found among non-farm occupation activities and 75% in farming. This means that only one-third of the sampled population has a an individual income source.

Empirical observation also reveals a contribution of women to the household economy, which is not considered unless it is a regular job outside the four walls. Table 13 shows all possible categories of earning activities for women. Apart from teaching and midwifery, all other occupations are not counted as proper income-generating activities, although small activities such as the sale of milk and churned butter as well as tailoring and goat keeping helps to a great extent to fulfill women's own needs as well as those of the household economy. „Depending upon their other daily or seasonal activities, women from farm households have, from time immemorial, always been employed in non-agricultural activities within the farmyard and within their four walls“ (KLENNERT 1988:148-149).¹⁴⁴ Although these skills are only utilized for personal requirements,

„The women generally disapprove of selling something made with their own hands. When asked the reason for this the women replied, ‘we do not sell our skills’, or ‘people who sell their skills are kammies’“(KHAN/BILQUEES 1976:255). 145

According to the definition of the Household Integrated Economic Survey (GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN 1990-91:9), „all persons who provide the household with material return in cash and kind,¹⁴⁶ for services rendered. [...], unpaid family workers (especially women) are considered to be earners, as their efforts result in an increase in household income.“ Table 13 shows 85% of the total women in the sample involved, in one way or another, in income- generating activities.¹⁴⁷ Only 15% can be considered as non-earning housewives. The empirical results of SAEED (1966:25)¹⁴⁸ from four villages of the district Faisalabad also report 84 percent of the interviewed women from farm

143 The employment status, according to the Household Integrated Economic Survey 1990/91 (GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN 1991:9), „refers to the capacity in which a person works in his/her gainful occupation. A person is considered to be working if he/she worked for most part of the week preceding the enumeration. An employer is a person who owns an enterprise and works himself as well as employs for pay one or more persons to assist him/her in his/her enterprise. An unpaid family helper is a member of the family who worked in the famly enterprise without pay or profit for one hour or more during the last month preceding enumeration.“

144 KLENNERT (1988:149) observes in the tehsil Jaranwala of the district Faisalabad in Pakistan that half of the 63 women interviewed could spin, knit, crochet, weave ribbons, and plait straw baskets and

containers. More than one-fourth of the interviewees knew how to sew and knit, and more than one-tenth mastered other skills.

See also, KHAN/BILQUEES (1976:255).

145 Cf. KLENNERT (1988:149).

146 Persons like landlords are also considered to be earners.

147 However, in Islamic societies in particular, women’s work in agriculture is limited. For example, „ among the Hausa, a tribe with a majority of Muslims in Nigeria, only women belonging to natural religions work in fields, whereas hardly any Muslim women are met there“ (MARTIUS-VON-HARDER (1978:23).

YOUSSEF (1974) reports in his study of seven Islamic countries that not more than 14 percent of women in rural areas are employed in agriculture; the minimum is 1.8 percent; up to 75 percent of the women are unpaid workers and these are mostly children or young girls. There are hardly any young boys of the same age who perform such work.

The evidence from Bangladesh (CHOUDHRY 1972:22) also supports these observations: „ women can be utilized in kitchen, gardening, family, poultry and duck farming with proper motivation and training, however, not for outdoor agricultural work“.

148 Cf. KLENNERT (1988:149).

households engaged in handicrafts such as spinning, weaving, sewing, etc. LÖFFLER (1992:68) observes a similar situation in north-west Pakistan: the women perform a variety of jobs within their four walls. Along with household work and child care, they do tailoring, knitting, etc. to add to the capital base of their household, even when the seclusion of women limits the chances of better education in professional training.¹⁴⁹ The seclusion of women limits the social as well as economic fields of their activities.¹⁵⁰ They are controlled by their village and by their family,¹⁵¹ „Women rarely contribute to the family’s cash income.¹⁵² However, by manufacturing household equipment and processing rice, they keep cash expenditure at a low level and thus indirectly improve their income“¹⁵³ (MARTIUS-VON-HARDER 1978:201-202).

149 For further details on the variety of economic activities of women, see also TOMFORT (1990:61ff) .

150 KAPUR (1970) is of the opinion (for India) that Indians are afraid of their wives, they are envious of the possible professional success of their wives and , in addition, they are afraid of losing their ‘autocratic power’ through the contacts which the women have with the outside world and their increased economic autonomy. It is also against the specific ‘ethos’ of men, who want to prove that they can support their family alone.

MIES (1973:38ff) writes: „ A man possessed a wife just as he possessed a field, and a fruit produced by that field belonged to the owner of that field, no matter who had sown the seed.“ In contrast to MIES, BERGER (1987:476) is of the opinion that a woman has a strong intrafamilial position but she does not expose herself in business affairs.

Another view in this regard is that women who work can no longer bear children or there is an actual fear that women who take up a profession can compete with men for already scarce positions (ELKAN 1956:45ff; Cf. MARTIUS-VON-HARDER 1978:201-24).

151 Women belonging to patriarchal families are subjected to a more or less intensive control throughout their lives. The smaller the family is, the less strict this control is. However, as the family becomes wealthier, the contacts with the outside world become more and more restricted. This system prevents the adoption of innovations by women in all fields of activities, since men are the bearers of information and control the nature and scope of this information.

152 Women belonging to below-subsistence and landless households can be employed as rural workers in wealthier households without infringing the ‘purdah’ rules and can thus increase the family income.

According to the labour requirement and economic situation of the household, female rural workers are employed, or neighbours help each other, thus reducing cash expenditure (MARTIUS-VON-HARDER 1978:209-201).

153 See also MALONEY/AHMED (1988:28ff).

Table 12: Sources of income in the sampled population (adult men)

Age

Groups S.

N0.

Occupation 15-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 > 60 Total

1 Urban Job 4

1. Total number of male adults engaged in non-farming occupations and their percentage in total male adult population.

2. Total number of male adults engaged in farming occupations and their percentage in total male adult population

3. Total number of male adult population.

Source: author’s own survey

Table 13 Sources of income (adult women)

All values in parentheses are the percentages in respective age groups.

154 Teaching and midwifery belong to those specific professions which can be performed without male competition and are, therefore, socially recognized.

155 Similar results are shown by MARTIUS-VON-HARDER (1978:141) for Bangladeshi women: 50 percent of the women interviewed are responsible for the preparation of feed. In 39 percent of the cases, other women from the household - in addition to the interviewees - were responsible for this work. The women delegated this task to employees in only 11 percent of the cases, which is usually the case in surplus households. Older women may also delegate this work to their daughter-in-law or to other female members of the household. Compared to the women from better-off groups, the women from below-subsistence households most often tend cattle to support the household economy.

156 MARTIUS-VON-HARDER (1978:144) also observes poultry raising as an important activity of women:

70 percent of the households keep up to ten chickens; the others keep up to 20 chickens (23 percent); and 7 percent keep more than 20. These households usually do not keep ducks, either because this is too

expensive, or because a second generation cannot be properly bred.

It is exclusively the task of women to keep poultry, i.e., to feed and breed the birds and to keep them clean.

These are usually kept in chicken coops built against the house for that purpose or in a box in the stable in the kitchen. Egg consumption is insignificant. MARTIUS-VON-HARDER (1978:145) reports that only 69 percent of the women who keep chickens stated that they occasionally eat eggs.

157 Like the cleaning of stables, milking cannot be assigned to any one person in particular. In one-third of the cases, the work is done by whoever has time to do it, most often by a man. Sometimes, it is done by the milk retailer who buys the milk at the farmer’s place.

1. Poultry raising is considered an earning activity when more than six hens are kept for selling eggs.

2. Milk selling is considered a female activity when females are responsible for its consumption and sale.

3. Agri. labor means labor against compensation in cash and in kind other than on one's own farm.

4. Housewives are usually the women from better-off classes who do practically nothing to contribute any cash or goods to the household economy.

Sources: author’s own survey