The literature on female labour in Third World countries has
become quite extensive. India, being comparatively more advanced
industrially, and in view of its size and population, presents a
pictures of multiplicity of problems which face the female labour
market. However, the author has also included Mexico in this analytical
study. It is interesting to see the characteristics of developing
industrialisation in two different societies: the Indian society, which
is conservative, and the Mexican society, which is progressive. In the
first chapter of the book, the author explains that he is not concerned
with the process of industrialisation and female labour employed at
different levels of work, but that he is interested in forms of
production and women's employment in large-scale production, petty
commodity production, marginal small production, and self-employment in
the informal sector. It is only by analysis of these forms that the
picture of females having a lower status is understood in its social and
political setting.