SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES INFLUENCING FERTILITY REGULATION A MICRO-DEMOGRAPHIC STUDY OF TWO VILLAGES IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA
Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Australian National University
Madappa Guruswamy November 1986 Except where otherwise indicated, this thesis is my own work
(M. Guruswamy) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the guidance, support and assistance I have received in the course of preparing this thesis.
To begin with, the people of the two villages not only received me well and cheerfully responded to all my questions but also provided me with a home to live in. They were genuinely concerned about my well-being and the success of my efforts and during my year long stay in the area, never once made me feel that I was an unwanted stranger.
Respondents became good friends and were largely responsible for the successful completion of my fieldwork. My sincere thanks to all of
them.
In my efforts to collect the required data, I was fortunate in having the assistance of a team of investigators which indeed proved
to be priceless. Mr. K.N. Balu and Mr. N. Asaitambi were two young men who were wholly committed to the success of my fieldwork.
In spite of the strenuous nature of the work, they were always willing
put in their best and spent seemingly endless hours of patient and
careful observation. They turned out be not only excellent
investigators but also the most reliable sources of verification of
data and good friends. In addition, Mr. G. Ramachandran, Mr. M.
G. Doss, Miss, S. Jayamani, Ms. Rekha Madappa and Ms. P.N.
Sushama were also of great assistance. The efforts of these people
will remain permanently etched in my memory and I offer them my
thanks. ii
In Canberra, a number of people have guided and assisted me at various times. Mrs. J. Widdowson was of immense help in computerizing the data collected. Dr. G.W. Jones was a very encouraging supervisor. Dr. M. G. Santow provided guidance in my analysis of fertility and mortality and Mrs. W. Cosford carefully edited this thesis. I offer all of them my thanks.
Dr. K. Srinivasan who was my advisor took an active interest in my work. Not only did he offer me sound advice but was a source of constant stimulation during the numerous discussions we had about my thesis. His guidance was indeed invaluable. Dr. T. Hull who supervised the preparation of this thesis was, I am proud to say, more than just a 'supervisor*. Not only did he carefully read my chapters but also provided a host of suggestions to make sure that I 'was on the right track'. He was a source of encouragement and I will always be thankful to him for all his efforts.
Finally, the Caldwells. Bruce Caldwell was a patient listener and an informative friend. My discussions with him about south Indian society added tremendously to my knowledge. Pat Caldwell was always interested in my work and her questions were indeed thought provoking.
Prof. J.C. Caldwell as my major supervisor was largely responsible for the completion of this thesis. In spite of his various committments, he was always prepared to guide me in my efforts and patiently read this thesis many times over at various stages. Working with him and being his student has been an education and an experience, memories of which I will forever cherish. ABSTRACT
This thesis attempts to examine the influence of social and economic activities on fertility regulation using data collected from two villages in rural Tamil Nadu, South India. Data collection was carried out through a year long semi-anthropological investigation relying on in-depth interviews, direct observation of activities, participant observation and a retrospective survey of activities apart from a household census to collect basic data on the structure of the population.
The study found that society in the study area remains traditional in the sense that the rigid caste system still prevails.
The higher castes control the land and thei^by control the labour market as well. However, there has been a redistribution of land in recent times, and with the advent of improved agricultural techniques, there has been a significant change in the economic structure of the area. There have also been several social changes of significance in
the area. Foremost of these has been that the importance of primary education is now recognized and people's attitudes towards health has changed. People are now concerned about health and have developed
faith in the modern system of medicine. As a result of improved
health services, mortality in the area, especially infant and child mortality, has been declining. The increasing popularity of the
family planning programme has led to an increase in the rate of
acceptance of family planning methods. iv
A relatively high level of agricultural productivity and other economic changes such as a diversification of activity patterns due to the advent of non-agricultural jobs have resulted in a rapid expansion of the cash economy. Availability of a wider range of goods and services has led to significant changes in consumption patterns and the people of the area no longer consider themselves as producers in a subsistence economy but as consumers in a cash economy. Changes in the consumption patterns and the expansion of the cash economy have led people to believe and accept the view that having children is a costly proposition and that having a large number of children is no longer of any economic value. Apart from this, with the aged depending more on themselves and less on their children, the concept of old age security is gradually losing importance and is^longer a prime motive for having a large family.
Parental perceptions about the value of children have been
further changed by the structure of the labour market and the way in which labour is hired and paid for. Intensification of agriculture
and the introduction of multiple cropping has led to a high rate of
labour force participation by the women and has also increased
employment opportunities for the aged. Moreover, due to increasing
school enrolment, children are available to a lesser extent for farm
work. The nature of agricultural operations is such that, except
during the dry summer months, there is a great deal of activity and
both males and females aged contribute significantly to this activity.
The activity patterns of the adults in the area are such that
people now find that, in order to ensure that their income earning
capacities are not affected and that they can continue to maintain a V certain minimum standard of living, it is necessary to control fertility. Moreover, having a large number of children places a strain on the economic resources of the households and uncontrolled fertility is no longer considered socially acceptable. Because of the type of work, they now do and they way in which they have to live, parents find fertility control inevitable. Thus, the social and economic activities of people in the area have brought about an irreversible decline in fertility. CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgement i Abstract iii Contents vi List of Tables ix
Chapter 1 - Socio-Economic Development and Changing Values
1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 The Value of Children 3 1.3 The Effects of Economic and Social Change 1.3.1 Modernization 7 1.3.2 The Economic Value of Children 11 1.3.3 Old Age Security 13 1.3.4 Health Facilities 14 1.4 Statement of Purpose 17 1.5 Organization of the Thesis 18
Chapter 2 - Methods of Data Collection
2.1 Choice of Research Techniques 22 2.2 Retrospective Survey 24 2.3 Direct Observation 28 2.4 Participant Observation 32 2.5 Summary 36
Chapter 3 - The Study Area
3.1 Selection Criteria 38 3.2 The District 40 3.3 The Villages 43 3.4 The Higher Castes 3.4.1 Brahmin 48 3.4.2 Thevar 48 3.4.3 Chettiar 50 3.4.4 Velallar 50 3.5 The Intermediate Castes 3.5.1 runbalakarar 51 3.5.2 Nadar 52 3.5.3 Kallar 52 3.5.4 Konar 53 3.5.5 Pandaram 53 3.6 The Service Castes 3.6.1 Kammalar 54 3.6.2 Vannan 56 3.6.3 Ambattan 57 3.7 The Scheduled Castes 3.7.1 Pallar 58 3.7.2 Paraiyar 80 3.7.3 Chakkiliyar 61 3.7.4 Koravan 61 3.7.5 ChristianPallar 62 3.7.6 Muslim 62 3.8 Caste and Landownership 63 V I 1
3.9 Economic Change in the Study Area 70 3.10 Social Change in the Study Area 72
Chapter 4 - Fertility, Mortality and Family Planning
4.1 Introduction 76 4.2 Vital races in the Study Area 80 4.3 Indirect Estimates 81 4.3.1 Fertility 81 4.3.2 Mortality 84 4.4 Marriage and Sterility 89 4.5 Family Planning 91 4.5.1 History of Family Planning in Tamil Nadu 91 4.5.2 Family Planning in the Study Area 95 4.5.3 The Voluntary Approach 96 4.5.4 The Role of Governmental Institutions 98 4.5.5 The Reasons For Accepting Family Planning 103 4.5.6 The Decision Makers 105 4.6 Summary 108 4.7 Implications 109
Chapter 5 - Monetization of the Economy
5.1 Changes in Consumer Aspirations and Consumption Patterns 117 5.1.1 Consumers in a Village Economy 117 5.1.2 The Demands of Children 121 5.1.3 The Importance of Cash 124 5.2 Income by Age and Sex 129 5.3 Indebtedness in the Study Area 133 5.3.2 Why Money is Borrowed 134 5.3.3 Sources of Borrowing 139
Chapter 6 - The Annual Cycle of Activity and the Labour Market
6.1 The Annual Cycle of Activity 148 6.2 The Labour Market 152 6.2.1 The Non-Agricultural Sector 153 6.2.2 The Agricultural Sector 156 6.3 Activities of Children 165 6.4 Activities of Adults 173 6.5 Activities of Males and Females - A Comparison 179 6.6 Activities During the Various Seasons - A Comparison 180
Chapter 7 - Activity Patterns and Fertility Control
7.1 Activity Patterns in User and Non-User Households 183 7.2 Statistical Analysis of Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use 189 7.3 A Micro Level Analysis of the Relationship Between Contraceptive Use, Income and Activities 210 7.4 The Social and Economic Status of the Aged 216 viii
Chapter 8 - Summary and Conclusion
8.1 Summary 228 8.2 Conclusion 233 8.3 Implications for Future Research 234
References 239
Appendix - List of Activities List of Tables
Table No. Title Page
3.1 Caste by Number of Households and Population 46
3.2 Organization of Castes 47
3.3 Households by Amount of Land Owned 64
3.4 Caste by Landownership 65
3.5 Landownership over Three Generations by Caste Group 66
3.6 Proportion of Landless Households over Three 67
Generations by Caste Group
3.7 Caste by Type of Agricultural Work 68
3.8 Proportional Increase in School Enrolment by Age and Sex 73
4.1 Females by Age and Marital Status 78
4.2 Age Distribution of Ever Married Women by Average Parity 80
4.3 Estimates of Total Fertility Rate Based on Rele's Method 84
4.4 Fertility Levels in the Study Area 111
4.5 Indirect Estimates of Mortality in the Study Area 112
4.6 Probabilities of Infant and Child Mortality Implied by 113
Indirect Mortality Estimates Derived From Women Aged 20-44
and a West Pattern of Mortality
4.7 Infant Mortality Rate Estimated from Child Survivorship 113
Data, Age of Mother and Mean Age at Childbearing
4.8 Live Births by Place of Birth and Attendant at Birth 114
4.9 Live Births Taking Place at Home by Attendant at Delivery 114
4.10 Mean Age at Marriage in the Study Area 115
4.11 Primary and Secondary Sterility in the Study Area 115
4.12 Contraceptive Use in the Study Area 116
4.13 Sterilizations in the Study Area 116 X
5.1 Percentage Distribution of Annual Income By Age and Sex 132
5.2 Average Amount of Indebtedness (in rupees) By Reasons 134
5.3 Loans Obtained for Various Reasons By Source 140
5.4 Expenditure on Education By Age and Sex 141
5.5 Proportion of Expenditure on Clothes By Age and Sex 143
5.6 Expenditure on Health Services By Age and Sex 145
6.1 Annual Cycle of Agricultural Activity - Calendar 150
6.2 Age-wise Distribution of Workers and Non-Workers by Sex 154
6.3 Number of Persons Whose Activities Were Covered 165
By Direct Observation and Retrospective Survey
6.4 Seasonal Variations in the Activities of School Going 167
and Non-school Going Children - Average No. of Hours
Per 16 Hour Day - Direct Observation
6.5 Seasonal Variations in the Activities of School Going 172
and Non-school Going Children - Average No. of Hours
Per 16 Hour Day - Retrospective Survey
6.6 Seasonal Variations In the Activities of Persons 174
Aged 15 Years and Above - Average No. of Hours
Per 16 Hour Day - Direct Observation
6.7 Seasonal Variations in the Activities of Persons 177
Aged 15 Years and Above - Average No. of Hours
Per 16 Hour Day - Retrospective Survey
7.1 Direct Observation - Average Number of Hours Per Day 184
(16 Hour Day) Spent on Different Types of Activities
According to Age and Contraceptive Use xi
7.2 Retrospective Survey - Average Number of Hours Per Day 188
(16 Hour Day) Spent on Different Types of Activities
According to Age and Contraceptive Use
7.3 Analysis of Variance 193
7.4 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 194
with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-capita Income (V14)
and Occupation (V6)
7.5 Analysis of Variance 196
7.6 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 197
with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-capita Income (V14)
and Occupation (V6)
7.7 Analysis of Variance 199
7.8 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 200
with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Productive Activity (V9)
7.9 Analysis of Variance 202
7.10 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 203
with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Productive Activities (V9)
7.11 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 205
with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Domestic Activities (Vll)
7.12 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 206
with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Domestic Activities (Vll) xii
7.13 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 208
with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Social Activities (V12)
7.14 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use 209
with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14)
and Social Activities (V12)
7.15 Percentage Distribution of Persons Aged 60 or More 220
According to Residential Status
7.16 Residential Status of Persons Aged 60 or More 221
According to Economic Support CHAPTER 1
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGING VALUES
1.1 Introduction
Where production and distribution are arranged through the behaviour of prices, and all livelihoods depend on getting and spending, insuffiency of material means becomes the explicit, calculable starting point of all economic activity (Sahlins,1972:4).
Society in rural south India is largely agrarian by nature and the salient feature of a South Indian village is that most economic activities are related to the cultivation of the soil and other supportive occupations - animal husbandry and artisanship to provide the implements for agriculture and for household use. In spite of a growing dependency on towns and cities for the sale of agricultural produce and for the purchase of industrial products, a south Indian village is an almost self-sufficient unit for the production of food
and a few of the basic necessities. As Burton Stein notes:
During the medieval period of South Indian history, an agrarian settlement was considered a 'proper' - village only when there was a full complement of occupational specialists, ’the eighteen castes'. These included not only those service castes performing pollution related tasks, such as the washerman, the barber and, of course, the sweeper, but also scribal functionaries who actually enjoyed relatively high ritual rank; there was also a set of persons whose skills and productive functions were obviously important to a peasant settlement, e.g. potters, smiths, carpenters, and weavers (Stein, 1980:11).
But, the degree of self-suffiency in Indian villages is going down and
presently villages are not only interdependent but also have to look
to the towns and cities to fulfill their demand for many essential
goods and services. South Indian villages remain segmented with the
different caste groups living in clusters and pursuing traditional Page 2 occupations. The caste structure in Indian villages is fundamentally a labour structure, 'a system of interrelated services originating in specialized groups and instutionalized in a religious matrix* .
Parents are expected to pass on their occupational skills to their children in order to meet the demands of the community. In a village situation, only a barber's son can be a barber and only a blacksmith's son can be a blacksmith. Thus, certain occupations are hereditary and are likely to remain so for a long time to come because of the unwillingness of people in a Hindu society to take up jobs traditionally done by others. Caste groups tend to cluster together in their own quarters and are distinguished by broad differences in the way they make their living. The fact that there is some overlap does not obscure the fact that each caste group tends to pursue a particular range of occupations
The stratification of occupations according to caste, further strengthened by the existence of patron-client relationships, led to the employment of children, initially as apprentices or assistants and later as fulltime co-workers in the pursuit of the family occupation.
Perhaps, the most important factors which necessitated the employment of children was the nature of the economy and the restriction of educational facilities to the higher castes. Production was primarily for subsistence and not for the market, and was economically viable only through a maximization of the use of household labour and through a reciprocal exchange of labour. However, as Srinivas states, it would be an oversimplification to associate a caste with a single occupation (Srinivas, 1982:9); and while all the members of a particular caste group are not restricted to traditional occupations, it is now common to find people involved in occupations other than Page 3 those traditionally prescribed. For instance, potters in many villages are now farm workers because of a decline in demand for their traditional services. Agriculture is one occupation which is open to all and even a man belonging to the lowest caste is not prohibited from tilling the soil and growing crops to feed his family. Members of a family in India, as elsewhere, act together to attain a common objective, which is to promote the welfare of the family as a whole
(Mandelbaum, 1970:41-45). The demands of a growing population led to more intensive farming and improved techniques have resulted in better
yields. But, agriculture in India remains labour intensive and those
who farm at the margin find it possible to make both ends meet only if
they utilize the services of their spouses and their children on their
own farms and in offering their services elsewhere for wages.
1.2 The Value of Children
One area of demographic research, which has received due
recognition only in recent times, is the study of the work
contributions and the cost of children, and the net value of children
as a component of fertility control decisions. Ever since Leibenstein
(1957) and Becker (1960) first began writing in this field, there have
been a number of studies related to the value of children (Arnold,
1975; Boulier, 1977; Bulatao , 1975, 1979, 1981, 1983 ; Cain, 1977;
Dandekar , 1979; De Tray, 1983; Espenshade, 1972, 1977; Fawcett,
1974; Hoffman and Hoffman, 1973; Hull, 1975; Mamdani, 1972;
Mueller, 1976; Meyer , 1981; Nag, 1978; Peet, 1978; Vlassoff, 1979;
White, 1976). Page 4
Based on the assumption that in order to maximize utility, an individual divides his/her time into market work and leisure, the traditional labour supply theory establishes that a negative income effect will operate in a situation whereby an increase in income will cause a reduction in labour supply, and a positive substitution effect will be observed when an increase in an individual’s wage rate results in a rise in his/her labour supply to the market and a fall in leisure consumption. One important dimension the traditional theory fails to explain is women’s responses to economic change and a substitution of child labour by women's labour, when increasing wage rates attract women for work away from the home. The positive substitution effect
between home and market work resulting from women’s rising wage rates
has a much more powerful influence over the negative income effect
(Mincer and Polachek, 1974:S76-S108)•
Taking into consideration the treatment of unit cost of time in
the production and consumption process, Becker's theory of the
allocation of time has provided a new outlook on the time spent by
household members in productive activities. According to Becker,
while time spent in the market place or in the home is considered as
productive time, the manner in which a household allocates its
members' time in productive activities is based on the comparative
cost of the members’ time in the market. The comparative advantage of
one family member over another is determined ’partly by biological
differences and partly by different experiences and different
investments in human capital'. Page 5
Women tend to invest mainly in human capital that raises household efficiency, especially in bearing and rearing children because women spend most of their time at these activities. Similarly men invest mainly in capital that raises market efficiency because they spend most of their working time in the market (Becker,1981:23)
Thus, according to Becker, differential time allocation of family members into market and household production activities reflects differential capital investment between the sexes.
Becker's theory came in for criticism from sociologists and economists because of the exclusion of cultural factors affecting time allocation and because of the assumption of a single utility function in resource allocation decisions in a household setting. Moreover,
Becker fails to explain why women's labour force participation outside home keeps increasing, especially in the less developed countries where men hold a distinct advantage and the employment opportunities for women are limited.
More recently, Easterlin proposed a 'Supply-Demand Theory' which
integrates economic and sociological approaches to explain fertility decline. According to this theory, a shift from a natural fertility
regime to one of deliberate control occurs as a result of an increase
in couples' motivation to regulate fertility in the face of an excess
of supply over demand and due to a reduction in the costs of fertility
regulation. The three variables, namely, demand, supply, and costs of
regulation (costs here include not only economic costs such as time
and money but also parental attitudes) are linked to the process of
modernization to explain fertility decline. Easterlin singles out a
few aspects of modernization such as innovations in public health and
medical care, innovations in formal schooling, urbanization, the
introduction of new goods and the establishment of a family planning Page 6 programme and links these with the above mentioned variables. The reasoning behind this theory is that a couple have an idea of the number of children they would produce if they did nothing to regulate fertility. This ’potential supply' of natural fertility is weighed against their demand (measured by desired family size). If supply falls short of demand, there is no motivation to regulate fertility.
Conversely, if supply exceeds demand, parents will be motivated to regulate fertility. However, a higher level of motivation may not result in fertility decline if there is no reduction in the costs of
fertility regulation. In short, this theory focusses attention on the
'potential supply' of children (natural fertility), the demand for
children (desired family size) and the costs of regulation. Changes
associated with modernization are seen as having an impact on one or
more of these three variables thereby affecting decisions to regulate
fertility.
While both Becker and Easterlin rely heavily on economic aspects,
Caldwell's theory of fertility decline focusses attention on the
direction of inter-generational wealth flows to explain fertility
decline. According to Caldwell, when a series of social and economic
changes result in a shift from the 'familial mode* of production to a
'labour market mode', the direction of the net flow of wealth
(economic, emotional and psychic) between generations is reversed and
fertility regulation becomes not only desirable but essential and
inevitable. As long as there is an upward flow of wealth (from
children to parents), parents may find high fertility advantageous.
But, once the direction of flow is reversed and parents are only
providers and not recipients, there arises an imminent need for
fertility regulation, according to Caldwell, economic relationships Page 7 within the family change as a result of a change in the emotional
balance. To quote Caldwell:
..... the rules about who can get what from whom (and how much) and who can tell whom to do what fundamentally alter, thus rendering high fertility (indeed any fertility) disadvantageous. Very subtle shifts in emotional relationships within the family, usually reflecting changes in society's attitudes toward male-female and parent-child relationships, can dramatically alter the direction of wealth flow. a. strengthening of spousal relationships can both weaken extended family relationships and can alter intergenerational relationships (partly because the wife's influence in parental decisions becomes more important) (Caldwell, 1982:338).
Caldwell's theory focusses attention on the fundamental aspects of
change in personality, attitude and behaviour. Caldwell stresses that
attempts to explain fertility decline should 'concentrate more on the
intraf ami.lial social and economic relationships associated with
different modes of production and to examine the effect on the value
of children of changes in these relationships' (Caldwell, 1982:300).
1.3 The Effects of Economic and Social Change
1.3.1 Modernization
What is broadly termed 'modernization' by researchers is indeed a
social and economic transformation of society. Modernization on the
economic side involves changes in production techniques, transporting
and distribution of goods. There is an enlargement in the scale of
production and in the types of outputs and inputs. Modernization also
involves a diversification of the occupational structure and
monetization of the economy. On the social side, modernization
involves changes in family size and structure, in the spread of formal
schooling and in the provision of improved health services. However,
more importantly, modernization means a changes in attitudes and Page 8 perceptions. To quote Easterlin and Crinunins:
In terms of human personality, modernization is characterized by an increased openness to new experience, increased independence from parental authority, belief in the efficacy of science, and ambition for oneself and one’s children (Easterlin and Crimmins, 1985:4).
According to Caldwell ’Modernization is that degree of social change which inevitably accompanies economic change because the new economic order demands it’ (Caldwell, 1982:289).
How does modernization affect a predominantly agrarian society?
In an area where agriculture is the mainstay, the amount of cultivable land determines the demand for labour which in turn influences not only the supply of labour but also the activity patterns. As Nag,
White and Peet note, the opportunities for individuals to participate in the work force and the returns from such participation are limited more by ’relationships external to and virtually unaffected by the economy and demography of the individual household but inherent in the
overall economy of the society' than by the relationship between
household resources and household labour supply (Nag,White and Peet,
1978:298). Cain, on the other hand, argues that a majority of
cultivating households usually incur some labour costs to meet
production requirements and the extent to which labour must be hired
is determined by the household labour force and the size of the farm.
He goes on to state that 'there are substantial advantages to
households providing most or all of their cultivating labour’ (Cain,
1977:206). But, the point missed by Cain is that the advantages are
'substantial' only if the children in the households are old enough
and have the experience necessary to meet the specific demands of
certain agricultural activities. If, according to Cain, employment of Page 9 household labour depends on the size of the farm, it must be pointed out that where landless families constitute a majority there is no scope for using household labour other than to offer it for hire. On the other hand, families owning any considerable amount of land usually have enough resources and are interested in sending their children to school rather than putting them to work on the farm. This leaves us with a relatively small proportion of households which own marginal holdings and find it imperative to use all the household labour on the family farm. It may be argued that the size of the household labour force does not depend on the number of children of working age but on the type and structure of family. True, in extended families there may be a sizeable adult labour force available, but, such households are few in number and the trend is towards nucleation of families where the household labour force is reduced in size by the fewer number available for and capable of farmwork. Thus, in a situation where agricultural operations are becoming increasingly commercial and the demand is for skilled labour, use of household labour depends more on the market conditions than on the size of households and the size of the family farm.
In this situation, activity patterns are affected and there is likely to be a net downward flow of wealth from parents to children.
This downward flow is also influenced by the number of children in a household and their consumption patterns. If there are more children
in the household who do not contribute to the family income, the extent of the downward flow of wealth may be greater and influences
the parents to regulate fertility. However, both activity patterns and consumption patterns are influenced by social and cultural
factors. Keeping up with the Joneses is not a phenomenon restricted Page 10 to urban areas and even in villages, people are conscious of their status in society and constantly try to improve it. In a traditional south Indian village this effort to improve one's standing in society finds expression in the form of clothes, possession of household goods, the ability to educate children and most importantly in the form of land ownership or at the least, access to cultivable land.
Thus, in the context of modernization or social and economic development, the important changes in rural south India have been:
1. Fragmentation of land holdings
2. Commercialization of agriculture
3. Diversification of activity patterns
4. A market oriented cash economy
5. Monetization of daily life
6. Changing consumption patterns
7. Increased cost of living
8. Emphasis on formal education
9. Changing social values regarding family size
10. Spread of modern medicine
11. Changing attitudes about sickness and treatment
12. An intensified family planning programme
These aspects of modernization have by themselves or jointly affected
the following factors, leading to a decline in mortality, an increased
acceptance of contraceptive methods and ultimately to a decline in
fertility. Page 11
1.3.2 The Economic Value of Children
In a traditional subsistence economy use of child labour is positively associated with poverty and it is mostly the children from the poorer households who are put to work at an early age. Vlassoff
(1979:427) found in Maharashtra that, apart from a low level of adult productivity, several alternate sources of labour were available during times of peak demand. It has been found that while there is a surplus of labour available when averaged over a year, there are, nevertheless, periods of scarcity (Mamdani:1972:94).
It is because of the relative scarcity of adult labour during times of peak demand that the small and marginal farmers resort to the use of child labour (their own children and their relatives' children on an exchange basis); not only because of its easy availability but also because it does not require any monetary input unlike hired labour. Moreover, most farmers face a cash flow problem at the beginning of the agricultural season and try to minimize the costs of hired labour. Children from the poorer families are also sent to work on other farms for wages. Further, use of child labour is positively associated with low levels of school enrolment.
However, in the face of changing consumption patterns and a market oriented economy, marginal farming alone may fall short of meeting the demands of the household, and it may be necessary for the farmers to work for wages. While the family farm output may be enough to supply its members with food for a good part of the year, farmers have to look elsewhere to satisfy the ever increasing monetary demands of the household members (primarily for better clothing and periodic recreational visits to the nearby town, as well as for medical Page 12 expenses). Apart from this, there is the element of parental
'discretionary spending’. As De Tray states, ’parents may provide clothing of a certain style because they enjoy seeing their children dressed in that style' (De Tray, 1983:438). This desire for goods of a certain quality and style adds to the list of demands which have to be met. The advent of school has imposed certain requirements which the parents feel obliged to satisfy. As Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell note:
There are minimum standards of dress and of feeding and health demanded of school children; there are pressures from teachers, peer group pressure on the children, and parental decisions that their sons and daughters should not appear noticeably worse off than other children.
With the growing importance of monetization and the market economy, the level of consumption has increased: parental aspirations are changing and even the poorest farmer would like to see his children better fed, better clothed and going to school. While families with a small number of children wish to educate all their children, those with a large number of children would like to see at least one child going to school. The poorer farmers find it impossible to achieve such goals relying on self employment alone, and regard wage employment for themselves, their spouses and their children to be of utmost importance. The incomes earned by the family members are pooled and distributed largely to enable the families to live as comfortably as possible. In their efforts to keep their families fed and clothed the one resource which our villagers find most freely available is time. This is especially true of children from the poorer households who do not, or simply cannot attend school.
A considerable proportion of these children's time is spent either on
(directly) productive income earning activities or on activities which Page 13 allow their parents and older siblings to engage in wage employment.
Boys in the age group 10 to 14 tending livestock and girls in the same age group taking care of siblings are common examples. Children are also recruited into the work force at an early age (this is done primarily to provide them with training). In this context, (Children's
education and occupation are two matters which deserve a more thorough
investigation.
In a traditional economy where the bulk of the agricultural
production is for subsistence and where school enrolment is at a low level, it may be economically advantageous to have a large number of children. However, in an economy where agriculture has been
intensified and production is market oriented, a high level of female
participation in the work force reduces the need to employ children on
the farm. On the other hand, the spread of formal schooling reduces
the availability of child labour. When children start going more to
school than working on the farm, the economic advantages of having a
large number of children are reduced. Further, due to an increase in
the cost of living, parents may have to spend more on children's
clothes and medical expenses. Thus, a reduction in the economic value
of children may occur as a result of commercialization of agriculture,
an increase in the cost of living and increased emphasis on formal
schooling.
1.3.3 Old Age Security
When children are in school and not on the farm, and when there
is a diversification of activity patterns because of intensified
agriculture, there may be an increase in the employment opportunities
for the aged. Further, a number of non traditional jobs may become Page 14 available as a result of modernization. When the aged are able to
find employment, they will tend to depend less on children for old age
support. Moreover, the introduction of old age pensions and other
benefits like issues of free grain and clothing by the government
helps to decrease dependency. Further, the gradual disappearance of
the extended family system has resulted in a change of attitudes. Any
person who does not have to or cannot support his parents during their
old age will tend to expect less from his own children. This change
in the attitudes and expectations of parents may be gradually eroding
the importance of the old age security hypothesis which has been
frequently cited as a reason for parents desiring a large number of
children.
1.3.4 Health Facilities
An important aspect of social and economic development in rural
south India has been in the area of health. The spread of modern
medicine on the one hand and changing attitudes about sickness and
treatment on the other have resulted in a reduction of infant and
child mortality. The increasing popularity of doctors and hospitals
has resulted in a situation where children are receiving prompt
medical treatment. Immunization is now very popular and in great
demand. Improvements in health facilities also result in the
implementation of an intensive family planning programme which not
only brings about an increase in the awareness and knowledge of family
planning methods but also reduces the costs of fertility regulation.
In view of the above, the theoretical framework of this thesis is
as follows: Page 15
An interaction of the forces of demand and supply determines activity
patterns. The changing consumption patterns, the market economy, and the prevailing social and cultural conditions also influence activity
patterns. When both activity patterns and consumption patterns are influenced by social and cultural conditions, whereby even older
people can be engaged in wage earning activities, there is less dependence of the older people on their children, and an important motive for high fertility is reduced. In other words, a number of
developmental factors such as intensified agriculture, a market
oriented cash economy, the spread of formal schooling, improved health
facilities and changing social values have an important bearing on the
economic value of children, old age security, infant and child mortality and a reduction in the social and economic costs of
fertility regulation leading to an increased acceptance of
contraceptive methods and a decline in fertility. This is illustrated
by the following schematic model. Page 16 Page 17
1.4 Statement of Purpose
This Thesis is aimed at examining the influences of social and
economic activities on fertility control decisions with special emphasis on the following variables.
1. A reduction in the economic value of children
2. Increasing old age independence
3. A reduction in mortality
4. A reduction in the costs of fertility regulation
The impact of these variables on fertility regulation is studied in
the context of the factors which have resulted in modernization or
social and economic development in rural south India. In this regard
I propose to test the following hypotheses.
(1) The traditional theory that children are valuable because of
the returns they bring and because they are needed for old
support is breaking down. In a commercialized, market oriented
economy, the older people have more opportunities to earn wages
because of a diversification of activities, making them less
dependent on their children for their old age support.
(2) While accepting the proven fact that children make a positive
contribution to the production process, I hypothesize that the
extent of this positive contribution is no longer seen by parents
to be adequate to sustain high fertility. This is largely
because of an increase in the cost of living, the spread of
formal schooling and changing parental attitudes about childrens'
education and health. Page 18
(3) South Indian society is undergoing a transition where it is
no longer advantageous to have a large number of children in
spite of the widespread use of child labour, which is being
resorted to as an unwise but necessary step.
(4) In poorer households subsistence farming is not adequate to meet all the demands of the family members and wage labour has
become essential.
(5) Because of a shift from the ’familial mode' to the 'labour
market mode' of production, household division of labour is
becoming increasingly important and a high level of female
participation in the labour force is made necessary to earn a
monetary income. Consequently, working women in the poorer
households tend to regulate fertility as they do not want to lose
their capacity to earn money from farm work.
(7) In relatively affluent families where women do not work
outside the home, children's work contribution is minimal and the
net flow of wealth is downward. In order to minimize this
downward flow of wealth, parents control fertility.
(8) The landowners prefer not to have large families so that they
can avoid further fragmentation of holdings.
1.5 Organization of this Thesis
In Chapter 2 we will discuss the research techniques used to
collect the required data with emphasis on the adequacies and
inadequacies of certain techniques. In the next chapter we will
introduce the study area with a detailed description of the Page 19 location, size, facilities available and the socio-economic structure of the villages. This chapter will also contain a description of the caste system in the study area and its impact on social and economic stratification. Social and economic changes of significance which have occurred in the area will also be discussed. Chapter 4 will be devoted to a discussion of the demography of the study area and the extent of fertility control.
In the first section of this chapter we will highlight the
components of growth, the vital rates in the area, marital status
by age as well as divorce, widowhood and remarriage. In the
second section we will deal with the mortality levels, especially
neo-natal and infant mortality. The final section of this
chapter will deal with the impact of fertility control programmes
and their implications. We will examine how the family planning
programme functions in the study area. Apart from a discussion
of the prevalence of contraception by age of mother, living
children and socio-economic status, the family planning methods
used, the reasons and motives for acceptance and the decision
making process will be analysed.
Chapter 5 will focus on the monetization of the economy and
changing consumption patterns. A comparison of the consumption
patterns between adults and children will enable us to evaluate
the net value of children. Chapter 6 will contain a description
of the labour market and an analysis of the nature of activities
in the study area. The structure of the labour market, the
demand for and supply of labour, the seasonal variations in
activity patterns and the annual cycle of activity wuLll be
discussed. This chapter will also include an analysis of the Page 20 occupational stratification in the study area. In Chapter 7 we will analyse the differentials in activity patterns between people in households which have accepted contraceptive methods and those in households which have not done so. The relationship between different types of activities and family planning acceptance and the extent to which activity patterns affect family planning acceptance will also be examined in this chapter.
The findings contained in this chapter are based on an intensive study of day to day activities, a retrospective survey of activities in a sample of households in the study area, in-depth interviews and participant observation. We will conclude this chapter with a discussion of the impact of continued labour force participation of older men and women in activities that do not require a great deal of physical work on the regulation of fertility. This chapter will also contain a section on the parental perception of the value of children and parental assessment of the value of child activities, a discussion of the changing value of children in the context of changing activity patterns of men and women in different age groups and the potential demand that is created by such a diversification for the acceptance and use of fertility regulation methods. To conclude this thesis, we will discuss the future prospects of children's education and their participation in the work force, the changing socio-economic structure and the need for families to regulate fertility as well as highlight the issues raised in this thesis which could benefit from further investigation. Page 21
In order to conduct the type of investigation I had in mind,
I decided on an in-depth anthropological investigation of a rural population in Tamil Nadu and to use certain methods of data collection, the reasons for which are detailed in the next chapter. CHAPTER 2
METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION
2.1 Choice of Research Techniques
It is felt that the choice of an adequate research method should
be dictated by the problems under investigation rather than the mere
availability of standard techniques and procedures - which in our case
led to the adoption of an anthropological type of enquiry for a
variety of reasons. Firstly, in order to estimate the value of the
contribution of children’s work to the families, it was essential to
examine activity differentials in terms of their age and sex, as well
as such characteristics of the families as religion, family structure
and socio-economic status. There are variations in the activity
patterns of the adult males depending on the cropping pattern, and
this in turn affects the activities of the women and the children as
well. To reach a comprehensive understanding of the nature of
activities in their immediate social context, it was necessary to live
in the village and observe the annual cycle of activity and the
seasonal variations in activity. During the first few days of our
stay in the village, when asked to describe what they did throughout
the year, most of the respondents were able to provide a summary of
events, but none could provide the more systematic details. Secondly,
the amount of time spent on different activities, another research
objective, could be accurately estimated only through observation.
This meant living in the village, observing activities and visiting
the households at regular intervals throughout the year to collect the
required information. Page 23
Apart from conducting in-depth interviews, I decided to use a combination of three methods for this purpose - a retrospective survey, direct observation and participant observation. Direct observation was primarily conducted by a team of investigators and the activities were recorded in the presence of the respondents. A
structured instrument of data collection was used and the respondents were aware that their activities were being recorded. The households
to be observed were selected in advance and observation was conducted according to a pre-planned schedule. However, there were certain
activities which could be observed only as they occurred, but not
recorded in the presence of the respondents, and participant
observation was required for this purpose. Direct observation was
used with the objective of obtaining information which could not
possibly be collected through a retrospective survey. In addition,
participant observations could help a better understanding of the mechanisms of the division of labour. Johnson (1975:301-11) used the
random visits technique in Latin America to note what the respondents
were doing the instant before they noticed his presence. This
technique had to be used because the population was not receptive to
lengthy visits. In our case, the people did not mind direct
observation and we did not feel it necessary to use this technique as
we could collect reliable data through the methods mentioned above.
What follows is an attempt to evaluate the relative merits and
limitations of these methods in the light of my field research in
South Indian villages. It needs to be mentioned at this stage that I
had the assistance of a team of six investigators in collecting the
required data. Page 24
2.2 Retrospective Survey
As early as 1932 the Indian Statistical Institute conducted a survey in selected areas to measure agricultural productivity. In the late nineteen thirties surveys were conducted in the United States to assess the unemployment levels following the Great Depression. In
1941 a fertility survey was conducted in Indianapolis and in 1948 Hatt conducted a study on the backgrounds of human fertility in Puerto
Rico. With the development of statistical methods, the use of surveys became widespread, especially in the fields of fertility, mortality and migration. The National Sample Survey was first conducted in
India in 1950, and the United Nations conducted the Mysore Population
Study in 1951 emphasizing knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of family planning. The sixties saw a number of surveys in the same direction and the World Fertility Survey was initiated in 1974.
Conducting sample surveys has become a standard feature of demographic research all over the world, and it cannot be denied that
the surveys have one great strength in that they can cover a
comparatively large population to discover patterns through which
relationships can be established. Compared to other methods like
direct or participant observation, surveys are less time intensive.
The survey is useful in collecting information about certain
demographic characteristics of the population. At the beginning of my
study, the households and the population had to be enumerated and the
quickest way to do so was through a census. Following this, a sample
of 50 households was selected for direct observation of activities.
The sample was selected on the basis of caste, socio-economic status,
occupation and the number of children living in the household. In Page 25 each of these households, activities were observed over a five day period after which we had to move to the next household. In order to collect information on activities performed throughout the year, these households were visited at regular intervals and the data collected through a retrospective survey. This survey was highly focused to collect data on activities performed and in effect became an anthropological tool which supplemented the data collected through other methods.
The greatest advantage of such a procedure is that it is possible
to cover a large number of households and collect information on a wide range of activities. For instance, we could see that farmers were applying fertilizer and pesticides but could not estimate the
time spent on such activities, since members of those households which we directly observed did not perform these activities during the
period of observation. Likewise, many other activities that are not
regularly performed, such as construction work and road repair, could
be observed only through a retrospective survey. Another advantage in
using the retrospective survey is that some of the respondents who
dislike being under the constant gaze of the investigator feel less
apprehensive in answering questions about activities which they have
already performed.
Cain distinguishes two methods for conducting a retrospective
survey, recall-activity specific and recall-sequential (Cain,
1977:9-12). The first method requires the respondents to estimate the
amount of time spent on specific activities, while the second method
requires the respondents to report activities in the sequence in which
they were performed. A field trial of the first method revealed that Page 26 respondents were not able to estimate the time spent on activities performed at different locations by other members of the family. For instance, a respondent could report that his son went ploughing at 6 a.m. and returned at 2 a.m. but he could not estimate how much of the time was actually spent on ploughing. Respondents tended to report in greater detail about their own activities but less completely about those of the other members of the family, and it was not possible to contact all members of each household to obtain this information. We also found that the respondents tended to understate the- contributions of the children, especially in domestic activities like fetching water, washing clothes, etc. Another limitation of this method was that certain activities, though productive and useful, were not reported if the respondents did not feel them important enough to be reported: there was emphasis only on the major activities performed during the day. A similar tendency of respondents to be selective in what they choose to report was observed by Peet
(1974:38a) in Nepal. We found that some of the respondents tended to
overestimate the time spent on productive activities, maintaining that
they had very little or no leisure time.
Use of the recall-sequential method proved to be more
advantageous in that respondents could report the activities performed
in sequence without much difficulty. Respondents' estimations of time
use were reliable and they did not feel any difficulty in making
estimates. On the basis of our observations, we prepared an activity
check-list in order to minimize respondents' reporting errors. We
found that a combination of the recall-activity specific and the
recall-sequential methods, though more time consuming, helped a great
deal in obtaining reliable estimates of time use. Page 27
It should be noted that, more often than not, surveys are used to obtain results in a very short time and from a large sample during which it is not possible to study attitudes and behaviour. As has been pointed by Reinharz (1979:74) Tin the case of the questionnaire, the actual behaviour is the mode of responding rather than the response's content'. Martin Trow writes:
The amount of information people can tell us, quite simply and reliably, about their past experience is very great; and it is only in the light of that information, that we can frequently understand their behaviours in the 'here and now'...... (1957:34)
This point is highly debatable as it takes at least several weeks for both the investigator and the respondents to develop a degree of mutual trust that is vitally necessary for obtaining detailed
information. In conducting a quick survey, it would be erroneous for
social scientists to assume that respondents are completely honest and
their attitudes are 'stable and accessible'. It would also be unfair
to expect the respondents to understand every question and to
willingly divulge their most private thoughts (Reinharz, 1979:74).
Surveys have one inherent limitation and as Caldwell points out:
It is unlikely that the knowledge or attitude data - even the ideal family size information - will stand up to rigorous examination in each individual society, precisely because it will be shown that there was a blurring of concepts or that the assumptions built into the questions were inappropriate at that time for many members of the society (1982:2).
An example taken in the context of another segment of our
investigation is the variation in responses to the use of family
planning. In the process of enumerating the households, we enquired
about family planning acceptance and all those who had accepted Page 28 sterilization readily came forward with the information while others flatly denied that they had used any method, which we suspected was often far from the truth. A month later when interviewed in depth, the very same respondents who had earlier denied using any method at all, gradually admitted that they had resorted to induced abortions, talking freely about why they preferred induced abortions, who the abortionist was, how much they had to pay, from where they obtained the money and how they felt before and after the abortions. In south
Indian villages, the activity patterns of individuals are determined by the kinship system, the role of neighbours and the community. As has been pointed out, the marginal farmers depend mostly on their own children and their relatives and neighbours to farm their lands. It was only through participant observation and in-depth interviewing that it was possible to understand the meaning and usefulness of activities in the context in which they were performed.
2.3 Direct Observation
The greatest advantage of using direct observation as a method of
data collection lies in -the fact that respondents’ reporting errors
are avoided, and, in a study of the control of activity, errors in the
estimation of time use are also avoided. Data can be accurately
recorded and reliability enhanced (Hull, 1981:55).
In the conduct of a demographic investigation there are instances
when the respondents resent being subjected to a lengthy interview.
It is not that they do not want to answer questions but they would
like to terminate the interview so that they can attend to more
pressing and urgent activities, especially if they stand to earn Page 29 money. Direct observation enables the investigator to leave the respondents alone to do whatever they wish or have to do. The respondents feel free and not tied down. However, it can be argued that the very presence of the investigator may prevent the respondents from doing certain things which they normally would have done. In other words, how normal, representative and important are activities when they are being observed ? In a sense, direct observation is
'obtrusive1 and the respondents may regard it as an intrusion into
their privacy and freedom. We found this to be partly true in certain households and in certain situations. The head of one household was not prepared to have male investigators near his house all the time because he felt that his unmarried daughters needed protection. In another instance, the members of a Harijan household did not mind
their activities being observed and extended all co-operation, but requested that their activities related to the preparation and sale of
illicit liquor be ignored and not recorded. Their only worry was
about the consequence of the record falling into the hands of the
police. However, their fears were allayed when we assured them that
our records were confidential and the contents would not be revealed
to anyone they might worry about. In yet another case, a Harijan
woman would not cook snails as she thought it indecent to do so in our
presence. We explained to her that the very purpose of our
investigation would be lost, and, with an understanding grin she
started cooking snails.
In short, there are people who do not want their activities to be
observed and there are others who try to be more civil and dignified
in the presence of an investigator, especially when they speak to the
other members of the household. But this we found to be true only for Page 30 a limited number of households, and even then, only for the first few hours of observation. As time went by we became a part of the environment and the respondents hardly took any notice of us. What became important was that there was no evidence of any feeling of
resentment or discomfort. Initially, most respondents felt amused, but once they understood the nature of the investigation, to the best of our knowledge, they went about doing what they normally would have done.
The direct observation of a household for a period of five days or a week helps in establishing rapport with the respondents. This
enlarges the scope of the investigation and greatly enhances the
reliability of the data collected in subsequent interviews, which are
focused on specific issues. At the end of the five day period of observation, instead of being glad that it was all over, many of the
respondents felt genuinely sorry that we would no longer be there the
next day. Our subsequent visits to the households were cheerfully
welcomed and the respondents freely answered questions about all matters which interested us. In addition, the respondents did us a
valuable service in the sense that they spoke well of us to their
neighbours, friends and other villagers. In fact, often when we were
observing a household, some of the neighbours walked over to ask us if
we were going to observe their households too. They were not
satisfied with a negative answer and we had to explain why we could
observe activities only in a selected sample of households.
Direct observation also provides a better understanding of the
functioning of the household as a social organization. We were able
to observe and record how different members in a family reacted to Page 31 each other, what roles they played in the day-to-day management of the household, the basis of work allocation, how responsibilities were shared by the family members, how important decisions were arrived at and who made them. In an interview, respondents may tend to understate, for instance, their own levels of consumption while emphasizing how much the other members of the family consume. Through direct observation we were able to obtain a clear picture of the consumption pattern.
If there are advantages in using direct observation as a method for collecting data, there are some disadvantages as well. The number of households that can be observed is limited by the time and resources at the disposal of the investigator. In the case of a time budget study, direct observation is undoubtedly more labour intensive than other methods of data collection. It is not possible for an investigator to observe and record simultaneously the activities of more than three persons. The investigators should be not only trained and alert but also acceptable to the respondents. As three of the investigators were from the same village, they could identify
themselves with the respondents and this made all our tasks easier.
However, in a community highly stratified according to caste, it was
sometimes difficult for an investigator of a lower caste to observe
activities in a higher caste household. In the affluent households, where most of the female activities take place inside the house, only
female investigators can do the job; but it may be hard to find
female investigators who are prepared to live and work in a village
over an extended time. Page 32
Another disadvantage of this method is that it is not possible to prevent some respondents from disappearing out of sight, and it is not always possible to follow them everywhere. To this extent, the observation is not complete and has necessarily to be supplemented with retrospective questioning. It must also be noted that the observation technique is limited and not sufficient in itself; certain types of demographic data, such as fertility and pregnancy histories and other basic statistics, can only be collected through an interview.
2.4 Participant Observation
Participant observation has been interpreted as a method of data collection wherein the investigator deliberately participates in the activities of the study population to observe and understand the
phenomena he/she is interested in (Kluckohn, 1940:331-43). But in
south Indian villages, there is hardly a role into which a social demographer can fit and most of the time the only option available to
the investigator 'is to be what he really is - a friendly and curious
outsider' (Srinivas, 1979:4). In a village setting where the
investigator is only a temporary resident, total conformity with the
population is not only unnecessary but also impossible (Whyte,
1951:497).
Participant observation has also been defined as a process in
which the observer lives with the respondents in their natural life
setting to gather data. In the initial stages of an anthropological
study it is common for the respondents to feel apprehensive about a
stranger living in their midst who wishes not only to observe them but Page 33 to ask. all sorts of questions about their private lives as well. The village leaders who provided assistance in making our work in the village possible thought that they were in a position to provide answers to all our questions as well, and a few of them were surprised at our intention to visit every household. But gradually they learned that while we needed their co-operation, we would know the village and study what we intended to only by visiting all the households - an experience reported by many others (Wiser and Wiser, 1971:27). At the beginning of my field work we had to answer many questions about our background, our intentions, the questions we were going to ask and why we wished to ask them. What were we going to do with the responses and how would the whole exercise benefit the respondents ? We were, after all, strangers from a distant city whom no one in the village knew. In other words, the villagers were the investigators and we were the respondents. However, as we settled down in earnest to do our job, the early apprehensions vanished and the villagers came to accept us as a part of their everyday life. Even the more educated among the villagers used to confess that they could not understand the full rationale behind our study and they were worried if their responses would land them in trouble. But, once they were convinced that any lack of response would only harm our interests, they opened up and in a matter of time they were not merely respondents but good friends. Our presence in the village was taken for granted.
Researchers often become so involved that they 'go native'. After a month's stay in the village we found ourselves in a situation where our opinion was sought on a variety of matters. We were called upon
to settle quarrels between brothers-in-law, while parents used to
request us to tell their children to attend school regularly. During Page 34 times of crisis we were approached for financial assistance which we provided because we could understand the plight of those respondents who asked us for help assistance. All the money we lent was promptly repaid and even the people who did not seek such assistance felt glad that we were of some help to their needy neighbours and friends.
People used to voluntarily provide information about events in their own households, in their neighbours’ households and in the village.
They knew that we would cross-check such information but they did not mind .
The greatest single advantage of living in the village was that we could freely move about and observe whatever we wished to. This helped us understand better the nature of activity control. Using our observations as a yardstick, we were able to check and verify the completeness of the data we had gathered using other methods. We could see why people belonging to certain caste groups had to perform certain activities and why others did not perform them. We could understand the role of male children in households where there were no female children and vice versa. We could understand how activities were divided among the different members of the household. Often we observed that children substituted for parents in performing certain
activities as they were aware that their parents were either ill or
otherwise engaged. The children were as concerned as the parents
about the welfare of their families and performed activities of their
own accord usually without any motivation or order from their parents.
In short, our observations enabled us to understand activities, both
economic and social, at the village level and at the individual level.
The picture that emerged from the retrospective survey and direct
observation became clearer when we linked it with our own Page 35 observations. One evening, one of the respondents was found walking into the village with a cow. The retrospective survey told us that he had spent a good part of the day in travelling to a nearby village to purchase the cow and our observation told us that he had purchased the cow so that his young grandchild would have sufficient milk.
A very important aspect of village life which we could study only through observation relates to group dynamics and factions. At the village level We could observe that each caste group formed a faction but the more important feature was that the dominant caste group in
the village was itself divided, a phenomenon reported earlier in rural
India (Lewis,1958:114; Srinivas,1976:221-32). There were two
factions always warring other over a number of issues. Members of both the groups were related to each other through birth or marriage
and therein lay the main problem. The groups were fighting with each other for supremacy as land ownership passed from one group to the
other because of inheritance and marriage. Another sore point was an
extramarital affair which resulted in an alleged suicide. We realized
that we were treading on delicate ground, and in the interests of our
research we should not give the impression of being sympathetic to
either faction. Fortunately, the members of the two groups understood
the purpose of our stay in the village and kept us above their
factional politics. Members of both factions were equally friendly
and co-operative and they presented their own side of the stories,
allowing us to arrive at our own conclusions. It was interesting to
observe how the leading caste group in the village behaved, but more
interesting was the effect this factional fighting had on the rest of
the community. Both these factions had their own supporters in the
other caste groups; there were neutrals who carefully steered clear Page 36 of any trouble by staying away from both factions, as well as fence sitters pretending to be good to both factions while on the lookout for the winning side. But, by and large, all the caste groups were affected by the factional disputes in the leading caste. The worst affected were the landless labourers of the scheduled castes. We could observe that some of the Harijans had to work only for a landlord belonging to one faction as they had been doing so for generations. Because they were indebted to him, it was not possible for them to procure employment from a landlord belonging to the other faction. In other words, the activity patterns of a considerable number of people in the village were determined not by themselves but by a few people of the dominant caste who control the land.
Finally, it was only through participant observation that we could accurately record the occurrence of vital events in the village.
Vital events tend to be understated, especially infant deaths, and from the beginning of the study we made it a point to keep track of all the pregnant women in the village to find out how the pregnancies terminated. The investigators would make a note of every birth and death, following which we used to visit the households either to offer our best wishes to a happy couple or to offer our condolences to a bereaved family. To make sure that we did not miss any vital event, we used to make regular enquiries when we visited the households periodically to conduct the retrospective survey.
2.5 Summary
There was no doubt that the anthropological approach was
essential in attaining our objectives, and we could effectively do so
because we used a combination of methods to conduct the study. It was Page 37 only through this combination that we could study the entire spectrum of activities in the village. The limitations of the retrospective survey were offset by the data gathered through direct observation, and, likewise, it was possible to gather data on a wider range of activities and events through the retrospective survey. Use of any one method alone would have been inadequate and would have thrown up a distorted picture of the nature, the pattern and sequence of activities. Ultimately, it was participant observation which enabled us to understand the rationale behind the activities performed by the villagers and their children in their attempts to earn a living and manage as well as they could. In the end we realized that had we not lived in the village, such a study would not have been possible. CHAPTER 3
THE STUDY AREA
3.1 Selection Criteria
Since my primary interest was in studying activity patterns of men and women of different ages in an agricultural area, I decided to
select an irrigated area where intensive cultivation results in a wider range of variations in the activity pattern than a dry farming
area characterized by a very short busy season.
While a number of researchers have extensively studied villages
in the neighbouring states of Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh not
much work had been done in Tamil Nadu. While I did not want to study
a village in certain Tamil Nadu districts which bordered the other
three states, the prevailing political conditions in certain other
districts were not conducive to a year long study. As part of the
Census of 1961, the government of India Conducted demographic studies
in selected villages in each district in the country. I decided to
select one such village as I could famaliarize myself with the area
before I commenced my study. Of the districts in Tamil Nadu where I
could conduct a study, I selected Thanjavur as it has traditionally
been a bastion of Tamil culture and is a fertile area where there is
intensive wet rice cultivation.
Of the four villages in Thanjavur district where village studies
had been conducted, I found that while one village was too small in
size for my study, two others had grown into small towns due to the
effects of urbanization and could no longer be considered as villages
suitable for the study. Thus, the process of elimination left me with Page 39 a village which appeared to be ideally suited for my study except for the fact that it had no Muslim population to speak of. To overcome this limitation, I selected an additional village nearby which was inhabited only by Muslim fishermen.
An introduction to the study area is followed by a description of the selected villages, a detailed description of the caste system, a discussion of the influence of caste on landownership and activity
patterns and a discussion of the social and economic changes that have taken place in the area in the recent past.
Of the four South Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the present state of Tamil Nadu was formed out of the area formerly known as the Madras Presidency. In 1901, the
Madras Presidency covered a total area of 226,728 square kilometres.
After reorganization of the States on a linguistic basis in 1956, the
present area of the State of Tamil Nadu is 130, 058 square kilometres with a population of 48,408,077 (Census of India, 1981). Tamil Nadu
is flanked by the State of Kerala and the Western Ghats on its western
side and by the Bay of Bengal on its eastern side. It is bordered by
the State of Karnataka in the north-west and by the State of Andhra
Pradesh in the north. For administrative purposes, each State in
India is divided into a number of districts and Tamil Nadu has 16 such
districts. Each district is divided into a number of taluks
(administrative units) and each taluk consists of a number of village
Panchayats. Panch means five and a Panchayat is an assembly of Elders
representating a group of villages. Page 40
3.2 The District
Thanjavur is a coastal district with a population of 4,063,545
(Census of India, 1981) and is known as the ,granary of Tamil Nadu.
The district is one of 41 in the country where agricultural productivity is at the highest level. It had a per hectare productivity of 2,371 rupees, the total foodgrain production average of 1970-1973 was 1,383,168 tonnes and it had a food surplus of 796,223 tonnes in 1971 (United Nations, 1982:272). It has not only a glorious history behind it as the seat of the Chola Kings but also a rich and varied cultural heritage. To the north of the district lie South
Arcot and Tiruchirapalli. The Palk Strait and Ramanathapuram form the southern border and the Bay of Bengal, the eastern. The district has a coastline of 225 kilometres and is a vast and fertile alluvial plain gently sloping towards the sea. It can be divided into three distinct divisions - the deltaic region, the upland area and the salt swamp.
The deltaic region consists of the northern and the eastern parts of
the district and is is rich in paddy fields. The western and southern parts form the upland area which is relatively dry but well irrigated with the help of irrigation. The third region is the salt swamp which runs along the coast towards the west covering an area 50 kilometres long and 16 kilometres wide.
When we speak of Thanjavur as the granary of Tamil Nadu, it
should be mentioned that intensive cultivation is made possible by the
river Kaveri. Originating in the Coorg mountains of Karnataka State,
the Kaveri splits into two, the Kaveri and the Coleroon in a district
adjacent to Thanjavur. The Coleroon runs along the northern border of
the district while the Kaveri enters Thanjavur and divides into Page 41 numerous small streams which go to irrigate the vast expanse of paddy fields. The district gets adequate rainfall from the north-east monsoon, but the south-west monsoon has a significant role in that it feeds the river Kaveri which is the main source of irrigation. r Page 43
3.3 The Villages
The two villages selected for the study called Vilangulam and
Senthalaivayal are situated at a distance of 90 kilometres from the district headquarters town of Thanjavur (population, 184,015). The nearest big town and trading centre is Pattukottai (population,
49,484) which is located 30 kilometres north-west of the villages.
The taluk headquarters is at Peravurani (population, 7,505) a town located 20 kilometres away. The nearest small town with facilities such as a bank, telegraph office and health dispensary is Perumagalur
(population, 3,721) about five kilometres away. Both the villages are connected to all these centres by frequent bus services. To Thanjavur and Pattukottai there is a bus every hour from 4 a.m. till midnight,
and the state transport bus from Peravurani makes six trips every day.
Vilangulam has a consumers' co-operative society (established in
1960) which sells basic essentials like rice, sugar and kerosene at
controlled prices. The village also has a post office which was
established in 1981 as part of an experimental scheme wherein a matriculate from the same village is employed by the postal department
to run the post office. The village is electrified but only 10 per
cent of the households have electricity. Drinking water is supplied
through three taps but the supply is not regular. However, the
village has more than 50 ponds, the water from which is used for
domestic purposes as well as for bathing and washing. There are three
petty shops in the village which cater to the daily needs of the
villagers, and there are three tea shops ( frequented by the menfolk)
which also serve as regular meeting places. Page 44
The south-eastern coastline of India is dotted with many fishing villages which are inhabited only by Muslims. Most of the Muslims in the area are fishermen or traders and very few of them are involved in agriculture. It is typical in this area for the coastal villages to be inhabited only by Muslims while the villages in the interior are inhabited mainly by Hindu agriculturists. Senthalaivayal is one such
Muslim village and is located three kilometres south-east of
Vilangulam. Unlike Vilangulam, this village has no co-operative society and the people have to depend on the petty shops or travel to
Vilangulam to purchase necessities at the co-operative society.
However, an outstanding feature of this village is that it has fourteen shops and eight small hotels which are regularly frequented by the fishermen immediately after they return with their catch.
Though the village is completely Muslim, the language spoken is Tamil and the adults of this village have absolutely no knowledge of arabic or urdu unlike Muslims in other parts of the country. If the language is Tamil, the customs and traditions are totally Muslim. The village has a child welfare centre and a primary school. In 1981, the elders of the village decided that the children should be taught arabic as well and consequently, another school (funded by a religious institution from a middle east country) has been opened. All contact between the two villages is purely economic in nature. The Hindus of
Vilangulam depend on the Muslims of Senthalaivayal for a daily supply
of fish and crabs and the Muslims in turn depend on Vilangulam for a
regular supply of paddy or rice and manual labour to cultivate their
lands. There is no barter and all transactions are paid for in cash. Page 45
While Senthalaivayal is inhabited only by Muslims, Vilangulam is a village where one finds more than 20 different caste groups living together and depending on each other for a variety of functions. A description of the major caste groups in terms of occupation, education and social status will enable a better understanding of the social and economic structure of the study area. For convenience of analysis the various caste groups have been classified into different groups such as the the higher castes, the intermediate castes, the service castes, the lower castes, the Christians and the Muslims. At the very top of the social hierarchy are the Brahmins followed by the
Aghamudaiyars, the Chettiars, Velallars, Ambalakarars, Nadars, Konars,
Kallars, Mudaliars and the Naidus. At the second rung of the social ladder are the Kammalars, Ambattans, and the Vannans. The Pallars,
Paraiyars, Koravans and the Chakkiliyars are at the very bottom and are treated as untouchables. While in the northern taluks of the district the Brahmins are in a majority, we could find only one
Brahmin household in the study area. The structure of the villages according to caste, number of households and population is presented
in Table 3.1 and the social organization of the area according to caste and occupation is presented in Table 3.2. It should be noted here that though the Muslims belong to a separate religion, they have
been included under the category ’caste’ for convenience of analysis. Page 46
Table 3.1
Caste by Number of Households and Population
Caste Group Households Males Females Total HH/Popu No Z No % No % No Z Lation
Higher Castes
Thevar 85 16.7 173 15.7 184 16.4 357 16.1 4.2 Velallar 45 8.8 82 7.4 90 8.0 172 7.7 3.8 Brahmin 1 0.2 3 0.3 6 0.5 9 0.4 9.0 Chettiar 8 1.6 14 1.3 17 1.5 31 1.4 3.9
Intermediate Castes
Ambalakarar 70 13.8 161 14.6 144 12.9 305 13.7 4.3 Konar 10 2.0 19 1.7 20 1.8 39 1.8 3.9 Nadar 13 2.6 37 3.4 37 3.3 74 3.3 5.6 Pandaram 15 2.9 35 3.2 32 2.9 67 3.0 4.5 Naidu 2 0.4 4 0.4 5 0.4 9 0.4 4.5 Kallar 5 1.0 8 0.7 15 1.3 23 1.0 4.6 Mudaliar 2 0.4 6 0.5 4 0.4 10 0.5 5.0
Service Castes
Kammmalar 21 4.1 37 3.4 59 5.3 96 4.3 4.6 Vannan 4 0.8 8 0.7 10 0.9 18 0.8 4.5 Ambattan 4 0.8 11 1.0 10 0.9 21 0.9 5.3
Lower castes
Pallar 117 23.0 210 19.0 198 17.8 408 18.4 3.4 Koravan 2 0.4 4 0.4 3 0.3 7 0.3 3.5 Paraiyar 3 0.6 3 0.3 4 0.4 7 0.3 2.3 Chakkiliyar 1 0.2 1 0.1 1 0.1 2 0.1 2.0
Christian 28 5.5 83 7.5 64 5.7 147 6 • 6 5.3 Muslim 73 14.3 203 18.5 216 19.2 419 18.9 5.7
All 509 100.0 1102 49.6 1119 50.4 2221 100.0 4.36 Page 47
Table 3-2
Organization of Castes
Caste Social Status Traditional Present Occupation Occupation
Ambalakarar Intermediate Cultivators Fishermen
Ambattan Low Barbers Barbers
Brahmin High Priests Priests
Chakkaliyar Untouchable Shoemakers Shoemakers
Chettiar High Moneylenders Moneylenders
Kallar Intermediate Soldiers Farmers
Kammalar Intermediate Artisans Artisans
Konar Intermediate Shepherds Agl Labourers
Koravar Untouchable Nomads Agl Labourers
Mudaliar Intermediate Landowners Landowners
Nadar Intermediate Toddy Tappers Toddy Tappers
Naidu Intermediate Landowners Landowners
Pallar Untouchable Agl Labourers Agl Labourers
Pandaram Intermediate Temple Priests Agl Labourers
Paraiyar Untouchable Scavengers Scavengers
Thevar High Courtiers Landowners
Vannar Low Washermen Washermen
Velallar High Landowners Landowners
Christian Pallar Untouchable Agl Labourers Agl Labourers
Muslim Intermediate Fishermen Fishermen Page 48
3.4 The Higher Castes
3.4.1 Brahmin
There is only one Brahmin family in the village and the head of the household is the temple priest. The eldest son is a graduate and works in the village co-operative society. This family owns no land at all. Though the Brahmins elsewhere occupy the topmost position in the social hierarchy, in this village they are respected but not considered socially important.
3.4.2 Thevar
There are two sub-castes in the village who call themselves
Thevars. They are the Aghamudaiyars and the Maravars. The title
Thevar, meaning God is given to people from three castes, namely,
Aghamudaiyars, Maravars and Kallars, but in this area it is only the
Aghamudaiyars who are referred to as such. The name Aghamudaiyar is derived from the root Aham which in Tamil has many meanings. It means a house or land and hence house-holder or land-holder, the suffix
Udaiyar indicating ownership. It is also said to have been derived from Aham meaning pride. The Aghamudaiyars are Saivites and have been greatly influenced by contact with Brahiminism. They have Brahmin
priests for their birth, marriage and death ceremonies but nevertheless depend on the washermen and the barbers for a variety of
ritual functions.
The Thevars are at the top of the social hierarchy and they own most of the land in the village. Of 85 Thevar families we found that
59 per cent of them owned more than five acres of land, 20 per cent
owned between two and five acres of land and only 10 per cent owned Page 49 less than two acres (see Table 3.4). With their economic and social superiority the Aghamudaiyars stand out as the leaders of the village.
In spite of being relatively affluent the Aghamudaiyars do not feel it below their dignity and prestige to work in their fields. The
Aghamudaiyar women however, are mostly confined to their houses and if
they go to the fields at all, it is only when they carry food for the males working there. The Aghamudaiyars encourage education and send
their boys to cities for tertiary education. The boys are withdrawn
only if they lose interest in studying further. However, we found
that the boys themselves had no longer any interest in higher
education because they were not confident of getting employment after
graduation and at the same time they felt that they could not return
to intensive agricultural work. Many of them who had dropped out
expressed the feeling that investment in higher education was a waste
as they could not get jobs in the cities. Regarding female education,
the Aghamudaiyars are very conservative and no different from the
other caste groups in the village. They believe that it is adequate
if girls know how to read and write and higher education is needless
and a waste of money as girls wil'l only work within the household and
never outside. They also consider it against their tradition and
accepted social norms to send their daughters to school once they have
attained puberty. No Aghamudaiyar girl was found to have had
education beyond eighth standard.
The Maravars are said to have been the infantry troops of the
Tamil Kings, but those found in the study area have lost their high
social position because they are very few in number and they do not
own any land. There are 12 Maravar households in the village and
though they call themselves Thevars, they are not treated on a par Page 50 with the Aghamudaiyars. There is no intermarriage between the
Aghamudaiyars and the Maravars.
3.4.3 Chettiar
The Chettiars belong to the trading caste and there are only
eight Chettiar households in Vilangulam but they are second only to
the Thevars in the social hierarchy. This is not only because they
are landowners but also because they are traditional moneylenders. We
found that three Chettiar families owned more than five acres of land
and three families owned between two and five acres. While two
families reported owning less than two acres of land, one other family
was landless.
3.4.4 Velallar
The name Velallar is derived from the term Vellanmai (Vellam or
water plus anmai or management) meaning cultivation or tillage. The
Velallars are the traditional peasant cultivators of this area and are
housed in a cluster next to the Aghamudaiyars. Of the 45 Velallar
households, only five owned more than five acres of land. While two
families reported owning between two and five acres, 28 families (62
per cent) reported owning less than two acres of land each and ten
families (22 per cent) reported owning no land at all. We found that
the Velallars have over the last two decades lost a good part of their
lands partly because of their addiction to alcohol. Though treated
with respect by the lower castes because of the high standing of their
forefathers, the Velallars are now treated by the Aghamudaiyars as
poor relations. Page 51
3.5 The Intermediate Castes
3.5.1 Ambalakarar
Ambalam means an open space or building, where affairs connected with justice are transacted. Ambalakaran denotes the president of the assembly, and one who proclaims the decision of those assembled is an
Ambalan. Defined by the Census of India in 1901 as cultivators and village watchmen, the Ambalakarars have retained their traditional occupation but many of them have switched to fishing, partly because the returns from fishing have increased and because they do not possess much land. Though ranked higher than the lower castes they are treated as a low caste group by the Thevars and the Velallars.
There are 70 Ambalakarar households in the study area and in spite of being the third largest caste group in the village, they do not command respect from the other caste groups becausd they do not possess much land, they freely allow divorce and remarriage, they eat field rats (something looked down upon by the other caste groups) and most of them are addicted to alcohol. Data obtained from the
Ambalakarar households .revealed that only one family owned more than
five acres of land and seven families owned between two and five
acres. While 28 families owned less than two acres of land, 34
families reported that they owned no land. Education is again given
secondary importance and we could find only four males in this caste
who had received secondary education. Page 52
3.5.2 Nadar
The Nadars are the traditional toddy tappers and are found in all the districts of the state. They were originally called Sanars (San: a span; Nar: fibre)that is a noose one span in length, used in climbing palm trees. The title given to a Sanar is Nadan or Nadar.
Of 13 families found in the study area, only two are still continuing their traditional occupation while the rest have switched to agriculture. Data collected from the Nadar households revealed that two of them owned between two and five acres of land, seven owned less than two acres and four of them did not own any land. Originally all the Nadars were Hindus but a considerable number of them have converted to Christianity. Two of the Nadar families in the study area were Christians but they maintain their identity with the Hindu
Nadars and they follow their customary caste practices and mingle freely with the Hindus (Thurston, 1909).
3.5*3 Kallar
According to tradition, the Kallars formed an important and
strategic section of the armies of the Tamil kings and chiefs in
former times. The word Kalian is derived from Kallam meaning theft,
and tradition has it that the Kallars were once a marauding band of
thieves. Originally they occupied a very high position in the social
hierarchy but with the abolition of the old Zamindari system, with the declining fortunes of the Royal families and with the general
deterioration in the dry cultivation areas of Madurai and
Ramanathapuram districts, their living conditions have gone down and
they have slipped down in the social hierarchy especially in Thanjavur
district into which they have have been migrating from Madurai and Page 53
Ramanathapuram districts. There are five Kallar families in the village and four of them are agriculturists while the fifth runs a tea shop. Of the four families depending on agriculture, three had less than two acres of land and one family owned no land.
3.5.4 Konar
The Konars are the traditional shepherds but all the ten families in the village depend on agriculture, as the village Panchayats in the rice growing areas have forbidden ownership of sheep or goats in large numbers. Data on land ownership collected from Konar families revealed that three families owned between two and five acres of land, three families had less than two acres of land while four families owned no land.
3.5.5 Pandaram
The Pandarams are the priests for the non-brahmin castes. They are also said to be the traditional beggars. There are 15 Pandaram
families in the village and only in one case could we observe the continuation of a traditional practice. During the Tamil month of
Marghali (December 15 to January 14) which is considered to be very
inauspicious, one elderly pandaram used to go around the village from midnight till 4 a.m. blowing a conch and reciting Sanskrit verses
which were supposed to drive away the evil spirits. For this service,
the man used to receive a jajmani payment from all the caste groups
including the Pallars. Four of the Pandaram families in the area
reported owning between two and five acres of land, five owned less
than two acres of land each while six families reported owning no land
at all. One Pandaram widow has been selling eatables since the last Page 54 twenty years as the family land was sold on her husband's death.
3.6 The Service Castes
The Kammalars (better known as Asaris), the Vannans and the
Ambattans form the service caste group in this village and, though classified as scheduled castes in the Indian Constitution, they are accorded a social status relatively higher than that accorded to the
Pallars.
3.6.1 Kammalar
The word Kannu means an eye and according to Hindu tradition, when an image is made and its consecration takes place at the temple, the Kammalan who made the image comes forward and carves the eyes of the image. Hence, the name Kammalan is derived from Kannalan (meaning one who gives the eyes). The Kammalars of Tamil Nadu divide themselves into five occupational sections - Thattan (goldsmith),
Kannan (brass-smith), Tacchan (carpenter), Kal-Tacchan (stone mason) and Kollan (blacksmith). Intermarriage between the five sections is allowed except between the goldsmiths and the blacksmiths. The
Kammalars believe that they are the descendents of Viswakarma and hence wear the sacred thread and follow brahminical practices during marriages, funerals, etc.
The Kammalars of this village who are goldsmiths, blacksmiths and carpenters have always been treated with respect by all the other caste groups in the village. Most of them are still continuing their traditional occupations. There is only one goldsmith family and when the head of that household died, his traditional skills went with him.
The son went to secondary school after which he found employment in Page 55 the postal department, discontinuing the traditional occupation.
Moreover, the people now take their gold to the jewellers in the cities. This family owns nearly five acres of land and the income from agriculture and trading in paddy supplements that earned by the son in the postal department. The jajmani payment to this family has been stopped not only because there is no service rendered but also because the family does not feel it proper to accept such payment.
There are 20 households in the village belonging to the blacksmiths and the carpenters and all but six of them are still continuing their traditional occupations apart from farming at the margin. 13 of the households owned less than two acres of land and four households owned between two and five acres, while three households did not own any land. The Kammalar households constitute four per cent of the total number indicating a good demand for their services. The jajmani relationships continue, though with modifications. The blacksmiths get only the small jobs and the bigger jobs are taken to the towns.
They are paid in cash for their services but nevertheless receive grain payment as a token of appreciation. The jajmani relationships with the carpenters is slightly different. Even to this day the villagers' dependence on the carpenters is more than their dependence
on the blacksmiths. The carpenters do all the small jobs, like making
or mending wooden handles of agricultural implements or fixing a
plough, for grain payment while demanding cash for bigger jobs like
repairing carts, making door and window frames, etc. Page 56
3.6*2 Vannan
The Vannans are the washermen and three of the four households in the village are still continuing their traditional occupation. The
Vannans are not only economically and educationally backward but are also considered to be socially inferior as they wash the dirty clothes of the other caste people. They are nevertheless treated well because the higher castes need them to get clothes washed and for certain ceremonial roles. The jajmani payment made to the Vannan is for clothes washed and if anyone wants his clothes pressed the Vannan has to be paid in cash. The jajmani relationships between the Vannan and the higher castes is very strong because of his ceremonial roles which are as follows.
Whenever there is a birth it is the Vannan's duty to wash the clothes of the mother during the period of pollution (11 days). At the end of the period his wife is given a saree, rice, sugar, bananas and vegetables. In addition, the Vannan is given a cash gift of five or ten rupees. When a girl attains puberty the Vannan is sent for and it is his traditional responsibility to inform all the relatives about the event. In return the relatives pay him a rupee or two for bringing the good tidings. The Vannan then has to wash the girl's clothes till the end of the pollution period (16 days). For the purification ceremony on the 16th day the Vannan has to invite all the relatives to attend the function and he has to provide white sarees and flowers to decorate the Pandal, a temporary shed made of bamboo poles and coconut thatch which is large enough to accommodate all the guests, and for the guests to sit and eat. When there is a marriage the Vannan has to decorate the Pandal and make seating arrangements. Page 57
The Vannan is given five kilos of rice and a cash gift of ten rupees
for his role. Apart from this he is entitled to the heads of all the
goats slaughtered for the feast. When there is a death, the Vannan
has to provide a white cloth to prepare the bier, he has to hold a
white cloth over the people who bring water from the pond to bathe the
corpse and he has to erect a cloth curtain to bathe the corpse in
privacy. Following this, he has to spread a cloth in front of the
house for the corpse to be kept in when the relatives offer their last
respects. The Vannan also has to provide a shroud to cover the
corpse. On the 16th day after the death, the Vannan has to touch the
dhotis before the menfolk wear them and make seating arrangements for
the guests to eat. For this ceremonial role the Vannan collects all
the money offered by the relatives when they pay their last respects
and he is given five rupees and some rice along with the clothes of
the deceased person. We also found that every evening the Vannan’s
wife or mother used to visit a certain number of households to collect
food. The food collected was adequate to meet the requirements of the
family. While two Vannan families owned no land and depended on wage
^Labour apart from their traditional occupation, the others owned less
than two acres of land. While two Vannan families are still engaged
in their traditional occupation, the others depend entirely on
agriculture.
3.6.3 Ambattan
The Ambattans are the traditional barbers and like the Vannans
they are considered inferior because of their occupation but are
socially important because of their ceremonial roles. The Ambattan
has no major role when there is a birth or a puberty ceremony or a Page 58 marriage but he comes into his own when there is a death. The
Ambattan acts as the undertaker and he has to bathe the corpse and prepare it for cremation. The higher caste men admitted that they depended on the Ambattan more for this purpose than for getting a shave or a haircut. In fact, one Thevar stated that even if the
Ambattan were to stop hairdressing he would still continue to receive jajmani payment as he is indispensable when there is a death. The
Ambattan women were traditionally responsible for midwifery duties, but with the availibility of modern facilities and a trained midwife in the village, their services are no longer in demand. There are four Ambattan families but only two of them still continue their traditional occupation and we found that every evening one member from these households collected food from the Thevar households. Two of the Ambattan families still continue their traditional occupation while the others have switched over to agriculture. However, all the four families reported owning less than two acres of land each, all of which has been recently acquired and not inherited.
3.7 The Lower castes
3.7.1 Pallar
The name Pallar is said to have derived from the term Pallam, meaning a pit in which low place they were said to be standing when
the castes were originally founded. It is also said to have been
derived from low ground or wet cultivation in which they excel. While
there is a contention that the Pallars are the descendents of a Sudra
and a Brahmin, it is also believed that they were created by Devendra
(one of the Gods in the Hindu pantheon, said to be responsible for
rainfall) for the purpose of labouring on behalf of the Velallars. Page 59
Their common titles are Muppar, Kudumbar and Mannadai, and all the
Pallar families in the study area belong to the Kudumbar sub-caste.
The Pallars are supposed to be Saivites (worshippers of Lord Shiva)
though in reality they worship female village deities (grama devatas)
such as Marriyattal, considered to be the Goddess of small pox. We
found that the Pallars not only consider themselves but are also
treated as being superior to the Paraiyars and the Chakkiliyars as
they do not perform scavenging functions. In the event of a death in
the higher caste households, the Pallars supply the firewood required
but the cremation itself is the responsibility of the Paraiyars. This
was the case even three quarters of a century ago (Thurston, 1909).
There are 117 Pallan households in the village, forming the
largest single caste group, and they are even to this day treated as
untouchables. For instance, no Pallan will ever think of stepping
into a Thevar household. When a Pallan labourer is summoned by a
Thevar landlord, the man is made to stand outside the threshold of the
house. The word Cheri in Tamil means a slum and all the Pallar
households are in the Pallacheri, a cluster located at a distance
acceptable to the other caste groups in the village. Practically all
the households are one room dwellings made of mud walls and thatched
roofs, the only exception being the schoolteacher's house which is
built of bricks and cement.
Data on land ownership collected from the Pallar households
revealed that only five families owned five or more acres of land
each, 13 (11 per cent) families had between two and five acres, 63 (53
per cent) families had less than two acres of land each, while 36 (31
per cent) families did not own any land at all. For a majority of the Page 60
Pallars involved in marginal farming or working as landless labourers, life is little more than being a day-to-day affair depending heavily on employment provided by the Thevar landlords. Traditionally agricultural labourers, very few of the Pallars have taken to other occupations and most of them depend on the landlords of the village to provide employment. Education in this caste group is still of secondary importance and there is only one graduate, and three boys have completed eleven years of schooling. This is so because most of the Pallars do not have enough resources to educate their children beyond primary school. Consequently, even the children who go to school drop out after five years and are subsequently drawn into the labour force. However, it was interesting to find that the only girl in the village who was continuing education beyond secondary school belonged to this caste group. This is because her father was once the village panchayat president and is not averse to educating his daughter and allowing her to work in a city if she can manage to find employment.
3*7.2 Paraiyar
The Paraiyars are said to have derived their name from the word
Parai which means a drum, since most of them act as drummers at marriages, funerals, festivals, etc. This derivation is questioned as the term Paraiyar is said not to be found in ancient Tamil literature; instead, the terms Pulayar and Eyinar were said to have been used.
The Paraiyars are served by their own priests, washermen and barbers.
They find employment as agricultural labourers, grave diggers, village watchmen and scavengers. There are three Paraiyar households in the village and all of them are agricultural labourers owning no land at Page 61 all. The drummers and the scavengers come from the Paracheri which lies outside the village. Widow remarriage is allowed and divorce can be obtained by payment of a fee in the presence of the local head of the caste. The jajmani relationship between the Paraiyars and the higher castes is slowly breaking down because the Paraiyars demand high payments for their duties during funeral ceremonies. Except for the most affluent Aghamudaiyar households, other families have stopped paying jajmani. The name has passed into the English language as
'pariah1, an outcast or one despised.
3.7.3 Chakkiliyar
The Chakkiliyars are the shoemakers of the Tamil districts and
are ranked very low in the social hierarchy along with the Paraiyars.
Even their very approach is considered pollution and they are kept
segregated. There is only one Chakkiliyar household in the village
and agricultural labour is its main occupation. Like the Paraiyars,
the Chakkiliyars worship village deities and divorce and widow
remarriage are freely allowed (Thurston, 1909).
3.7.4 Koravan
The Koravans are a nomadic gypsy tribe found all over the state.
However, of late they have have been settling down to live in one
place and the two families found in the study area have been there for
more than two generations. Both the families are now involved in
agricultural labour as well as in basket making which is their
traditional occupation. Page 62
3.7.5 Christian Pallar
There are 28 families living separately in a hamlet in the northern part of the village who are Catholics by religion. These families once belonged to the Pallar caste group and still call themselves Pallars though with the prefix 'Christian*. They have their own church and priest and do not follow any Hindu customs or practices. Intermarriage between the Hindu and the Christian Pallars is strictly forbidden. However, conversion to Christianity has not altered their social status and like their Hindu counterparts, they are treated as untouchables. Hence they have been included in this category of lower castes. Of the 28 Christian families, 15 owned less than two acres of land each, three families owned between two and five acres and 10 families owned no land.
3.7.6 Muslim
The traditional and major occupation of the Muslims in the area is fishing but there are a few people who have acquired lands and are involved in agriculture as well. The Muslims do not place a high value on education and in none of the 73 households could we find a person who has gone to school beyond eighth standard. However, their economic condition is not bad, because fishing is very remunerative and there is also a considerable amount of emigration to countries in the Middle East. 52 of the Muslim households depended entirely on fishing while 21 families owned land which they had had leased out.
Only one family owning more than five acres of land depended entirely on agriculture because the sons now live in Singapore and the head of the household cultivates the land with hired labour. Page 63
3.8 Caste and Landownership
From the above it is evident that the society in the study area is highly stratified with the Thevars holding dominance over all other caste groups. The emphasis given to land ownership is because any man in this area can hope to claim social status only if he owns land.
Even people who cultivate only land which they have leased in are respected but people who sell their lands are looked down upon and despised. Owning most of the land, the Thevars occupy the position of patrons of the poorer sections of the community. Traditional ties, continuing from generation to generation, have been maintained as this is advantageous to both parties concerned. Not only do the Thevars command social respect and prestige but they also control the village labour market. As Cohn states:
They control others in the village through structured systems of dominance, such as the jajmani system, in which land and its products are redistributed in return for services, both ritual and non-ritual. But it is the land and the land controller who are at the centre of redistribution. The dominant castes frequently have direct control, through monopoly, of access to land for cultivation and building (Cohn, 1971:85).
The influence of the caste system on the demand for and the supply of be wage labour can better^understood when one considers landownership.
The distribution of households according to the amount of land owned
is presented in Table 3.3 Page 64
Table 3.3
Households by Amount of Land Owned
Land Households %
< 2 Acres 194 38.1
2-5 Acres 67 13.2
5+ Acres 66 13.0
Landless 182 35.7
509 100.0
It is evident that the concentration of land ownership in a few
families means that people from 36 per cent of the households owning
no land have to depend on wage labour in agriculture or elsewhere.
This supply of wage labour is augmented by the people from 38 per cent
of the families owning less than two acres of land seeking employment
outside their family farms. This large supply of labour has to be
absorbed by the land owning families. When land ownership was
considered in the context of caste, it was hardly surprising to find
that of the 66 families owning more than five acres of land (Table
3.4), 58 were from the higher castes and two were from the
intermediate castes. Only five families from the lower castes owned
more than five acres of land each. Investigations revealed that most
of this land had been recently acquired by the families and not
inherited. Page 65
Table 3.4
Caste by Landownership
Land Owned - Number of Acres Caste/ Landless < 2 2 - 5 > 5 Community No % No % No % No % N
Higher 21 15.1 38 27.4 22 15.8 58 41.7 139
Thevar 9 10.6 9 10.6 17 20.0 50 58.8 85 Velallar 10 22.2 28 62.3 2 4.4 5 11.1 45 Brahmin 1 100.0 — — - — -— 1 Chettiar 1 12.5 1 12.5 3 37.5 3 37.5 8
Intermediate 52 44.5 46 39.3 17 14.5 2 1.7 117
Ambalakarar 34 48.6 28 40.0 7 10.0 1 1.4 70 Konar 4 40.0 3 30.0 3 30.0 - — 10 Nadar 4 30.8 7 53.9 2 15.4 -— 13 Pandaram 6 40.0 5 33.4 4 26.7 -— 15 Naidu 1 50.0 - — - — 1 50.0 2 Kallar 2 40.0 3 60.0 -— - — 5 Mudaliar 1 50.0 - — 1 50.0 - — 2
Service Castes 5 17.2 19 65.6 5 17.2 29
Kammalar 3 14.3 13 61.9 5 23.8 -— 21 Vannan 2 50.0 2 50.0 - — - — 4 Ambattan - — 4 100.0 - —- — 4
Lower Castes 52 32.3 78 48.5 16 9.9 5 3.1 161
Pallar 36 30.8 63 53.9 13 11.1 5 4.3 117 Koravan 2 100.0 — — - — - — 2 Paraiyar 3 100.0 — — - — - — 3 Chakkiliyar 1 100.0 — — - — -— 1 Christian 10 35.7 15 53.6 3 10.7 — — 28
Muslim 52 71.2 14 19.1 6 8.2 1 1.4 73
All 182 35.7 194 38.1 67 13.2 66 13.0 509 Page 66
However, there has been a significant change in the distribution of land in the area (Table 3.5) when one considers aspects of inheritance and acquisition. While the higher castes and the intermediate castes have been gradually losing land over the generations, the service castes, the lower castes and the Muslims have been acquiring land.
This change has been partly due to the introduction of land reforms and the abolition of bonded labour and partly due to the monetization of the economy which has put purchasing power in the hands of the lower castes. The spread of banking facilities, the commercial nature of agricultural operations and the success of prawn fishing has made it possible for those who were landless to now buy land.
Consequently, the proportion of landless households has decreased as shown in Table 3.6.
Table 3.5
Landownership over Three Generations by Caste Group
Average No. of Acres Owned by
Caste Group Head of Household Father Grandfather N
High 4.91 9.72 12.68 139
Intermediate 0.83 0.87 1.21 117
Service 0.98 0.82 0.77 29
Lower 0.95 0.63 0.40 151
Muslims 0.48 0.47 0.27 73 Page 67
Table 3.6 Proportion of Landless Households over Three Generations by Caste Group
Landless Households * ** *** Cf Caste Group No % No % No /o
High 21 15.1 13 9.4 17 12.2
Intermediate 52 44.4 70 59.8 83 70.9
Service 5 17.2 9 31.0 13 44.8
Lower 52 34.4 72 47.7 105 69.5
Muslims 52 71.2 55 75.3 64 87.7
182 219 282
* - Head of Household
** - Father's generation
*** - Grandfather's generation
Taking into consideration the families depending on agriculture and
the nature of agricultural production, we have divided them into four major categories according to the type of work done.
Landlord: included here are all landowners who employ hired labourers
and are involved only in supervision as well as those landowners who
have leased out all their land and are not actively involved. We
found 56 persons in this category, of whom 50 were from the higher
castes and only three persons were from the intermediate castes.
Cultivator: all those who work only on their own farms or on land
leased in have been included here. Of 67 persons found in this
category, 37 were from the higher castes while 16 were from the
intermediate castes. Page 68
Landed Agricultural Labourer: all those who work not only on their own farms and on land leased in but also on other farms for wages fall into this category. Of 165 persons found in this category, as many as
69 were from the lower castes and 59 were from the intermediate castes.
Landless Labourer: this category includes 408 persons who do not own any land and have to entirely depend on others for employment. as many as 167 persons were from the intermediate castes and 214 were from the lower castes. The relatively high proportion of people from the intermediate castes is partly due to in-migration.
Table 3.7
Caste by Type of Agricultural Work
Caste Group/ Type of Agricultural Work Community Landlord Culti Landed Agl Landless Total vator Labourer Labourer No % No % No % No % No %
Higher Castes 50 43.9 37 32.5 14 12.3 13 11.4 114 16.4
Intermediate Castes 3 1.2 16 6.5 59 24.1 167 68.2 245 35.2
Service Castes -— 5 11.9 23 54.8 14 33.3 42 6.0
Lower castes 1 0.5 8 3.7 69 23.6 214 73.3 292 41.9
Muslims 2 66.7 1 33.3 3 0.4
Total 56 8.0 67 9.6 165 23.7 408 58.6 696 100.0
Thus the economic picture is one of 'peasant stratification' where the landless agricultural labourers of the lower castes form the
lowest stratum in the community and have to depend on the landowners
of the dominant castes for employment (Hayami and Kikuchi, Page 69
1981:99-123). Bardhan finds fron a sample of 150 farms in Thanjavur district that as high as 68 per cent of farm labour days are hired
(Bardhan, 1984:41). Booth and Sundrum find ’that the Census and survey data from India suggest that about 25 per cent of the male labour force in the rural areas was employed as agricultural wage labourers in the early 1970s’ (Booth and Sundrum: 1984:221). Society in the study area is in a stage of transition where even for the people who have small land holdings, work on the family farm is essential, but not sufficient (Boserup, 1965:107-108). There is definitely an ’assault on the system of familial production’ and we found members of the poorer families spending the greater part of their time working for wages (Caldwell, 1982:360-362).
With landownership concentrated in the hands of a few and with the widespread use of high yielding varieties of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, offering one's services in the labour market has become more important than ever and subsistence farming has been
relegated to a secondary position. In fact, for 408 persons in the village there is no alternative. The marginal farmers work in their
own farms mostly in the mornings after which they proceed to work for wages. This is more so in the case of children coming from the poorer
families and to a large extent it is made possible by a reciprocal
exchange of labour between families. However, while the caste system
continues to influence occupational patterns in the agricultural
sector, there have been changes which have otherwise altered the
economic and social structure of society in the area. Page 70
3.9 Economic Change in the Study Area
The village tank has always provided irrigation facilities and
the area has traditionally been rice growing. What then were the changes responsible for economic improvement? The most basic of
changes has been a shift from the wooden plough (in 1963) to the iron
plough, from broadcasting seeds to transplanting seedlings and from a
single cropping to a multiple cropping system. This shift has
occurred only in the last two decades and has resulted in higher
productivity and an increase in the total crop output. This is borne
out by the fact that while the area under rice cultivation in
Thanjavur has remained almost constant, productivity has registered a
dramatic rise with the introduction of high yielding varieties of
seeds. When the bulk of this output is sold (not merely stored for
future consumption), there is a rise in the purchasing power of the
farmers. Moreover, the system of paying only cash wages instead of
grain became effective only in the mid-sixties.
Occupational diversification because of improved agriculture has
broadened the range of economic activities. Ninety-eight persons in
the area reported petty trading as .their only occupation. Petty
trading which includes hawkers and vendors, and owners of small
establishments like grocery stores, teashops and hotels, is of recent
origin. The fact that the number of people depending on such
occupations has increased indicates the level of economic prosperity
in the area.
Increased availability of a wider range of consumer goods and
services has converted the local population from ' producers in a
subsistence economy' to 'consumers in a cash economy'. The surface of Page 71 the coastal road connecting the study area with Thanjavur and
Pattukottai was metalled only in the sixties. Prior to 1979 when a bridge was built, it was difficult to cross the Ambuliyar river during the monsoon. In the sixties there was hardly a bus or two the whole day; in 1983 there was a bus every half hour. Improvement in transport facilities has made the people more mobile and has increased contact with the outside world. This has facilitated agriculture to a great extent. Farmers can now easily visit nearby towns to buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticide or equipment required to ensure unhindered
progress of agricultural operations. Even the sale of the crop has
been made a lot easier and the people in the area now find it easy to
transact business in the towns.
Though the economy of the study area remains largely agrarian,
the outstanding economic change has been in the rapid expansion of the
cash economy and a gradual disappearance of the barter system. Goods
which could previously be acquired in exchange for other goods now
have to be purchased. Moreover, improvement in transport facilities
have made the towns easily accessible and the range of goods available
has increased. The accent now is on cash payment and all goods and
services, except harvesting activities, have to be paid for in cash.
Another important economic change has been in the area of land
ownership. The lower castes have acquired land and are no longer
considered as labourers. The bulk of the land is still owned by the
higher castes but, people from the lower castes are now free to not
only buy land themselves but to offer their services to anyone wishing
to employ them. Even in cases where patron-client relationships exist
and the labourers work for the same landlord as their fathers did,
payment is now in cash. In fact, the cash economy has spread so much Page 72
that all commercial transactions are now converted into monetary
terms. Even indebtedness (as we shall see in chapter 5) is purely monetary in nature and the only commodity borrowed which need not paid
for in cash is fertilizer. This is because the person who sells
fertilizers in the study area is also a paddy merchant and finds it
profitable to accept paddy as payment so that he can profit from
selling the paddy at a later date. Another important economic change
is that the increased availibility of a large number of goods has made
the people more materialistic. People are no longer satisfied with
cotton clothing and want to wear synthetics. Wrist watches,
transistor radios and torches are in great demand in the area and
aspirations to own such goods reflect changing consumer patterns as we
shall see in chapter 5.
3.10 Social Change in the Study Area
While it is true that society in the study area remains
traditional in some aspects, there have a been a series of social
changes which have considerably altered not only the life-style of the
population but the way of thinking as well. The most significant of
these changes has been with regard to education. Even the poorest of
parents consider it necessary to send their children to school.
Education is free and relatively inexpensive at the primary level.
Moreover, the noon meal scheme introduced by the government is acting
as an incentive for the poorer parents to send their children to
school. Even female children are encouraged to go to school so that
they will be able to at least read and write (Table 3.8). Page 73
Table 3.8
Proportional Increase in School Enrolment by Age and Sex
AGE NEVER N OF ENROLLED PRIMARY :SECONDARY 'TERTIARY CASES M F M F M F M F M F
5-9 1.6 12.6 98.4 87.4 - - -- 123 119
10-14 7.6 28.4 58.8 55.8 33.6 15.6 - - 119 102
15-19 15.7 45.0 52.6 41.3 29.5 13.1 2.1 0.6 95 160
ALL 26 116 241 227 69 41 2 1 337 381
From the above table it can be seen that the proportion children going to school has increased significantly over the last decade. While only 52 percent of the males who are currently in the
15-19 age group went to primary school, 98 percent of those who are now in the 5-9 age group attend primary school. Even with regard to females, the proportion attending primary school has increased. It is also clear that a higher proportion of children (both male and female) are now attending secondary school than before. The fact that sixty children regularly attend private tuition classes (paying a fee of five rupees per month) indicates that parents are genuinely concerned about education and no longer treat children’s education as a social formality. Instead, it is now deemed a social necessity to educate one's child. As one respondent reflected in the course of an in-depth
interview:
In this village a man must either be a rich landlord or well educated if he is to command social respect.
Education is gaining popularity because it is the universal feeling in Page 74 the area that a person should at least know how to sign his name on documents and not use a thumb impression as a signature. A pencil and a notebook can be found in most households and even the older people now try to maintain a regular account of their income and expenditure.
Another striking change that has occurred in the area, especially with the establishment of a medical sub-centre in 1962 has been with regard to health services. People in the study area now use traditional home medicine only to provide temporary relief until the sick person can be taken to the doctor. Exposure to the media and to the health facilities available in the Government hospitals has resulted in the people being more concerned with their health. More births are now taking place in hospitals and immunization is considered very important. There has been an appreciable fall in infant and child mortality and the acceptance of family planning methods is becoming increasingly popular as we shall see in the next
chapter.
Apart from this, people belonging to the lower castes have more
freedom now than ever before. They can freely move about in all parts
of the village, they are allowed to enter and worship in temples, they
are represented in the village committee and they are no longer
discriminated against in the schools. The caste barriers which are
very strong within the village completely break down when the people
travel to the nearby towns. A Pallan or a Paraiyan can freely walk
into any store in the towns and buy whatever he needs. It is the
man's purchasing power that matters and not his caste. The fact that
a Pallan was elected as the president of the village committee goes to
show that the lower castes are now asserting themselves in a society Page 75 in which they have been downtrodden for centuries. The important point to be noted here is that while caste plays an important role in certain areas like the type of work done or the place of residence
(for instance, inter-caste marriages are non-existent), a person's
caste affliation has no bearing whatsoever at the family level. For
example, a person's decision to accept a method of family planning is
not in any way influenced by his caste. Such matters are now
considered 'personal' and 'internal' to the family and other members
of his caste do not try to influence his decision. However, this is
not true in the case of the Muslims where any potential acceptor of
family planning methods is likely to face the wrath of his community
members.
Thus, the social situation is one where the general degree of
awareness about matters like health and education has improved. The
caste barriers are slowly breaking down (at the societal level) and
the lower castes are no longer as oppressed as they use to be. If
there is segregation in the residential pattern and the lower castes
are treated as untouchables, it is partly their own doing. As Moffat
(1979:304) accurately puts it:
.... those persons who are, in egalitarian terms, among the most oppressed members of Indian society are also among the truest believers of the system that so oppresses them.
Gough (1973:222-243) and Shivaraman (1973:246-264) speak of a class
struggle and argue that the communist movement has become popular with
the harijans of Thanjavur and that the lower castes are rebelling
against the oppressive treatment meted out to them by the landowing
dominant castes. In our study area we could not find any evidence of
any such movement. On the contrary, the degree of oppression has gone Page 75a
down, the lower castes are allowed to become landowners and those who are landless are as ’loyal and obedient’ as ever to their employers.
In fact, the lower castes have become so used, or socially conditioned, to being treated as untouchables that they would feel uncomfortable and reluctant to enter a higher caste household even if invited (which is unlikely to happen) to do so. As one Pallan respondent remarked: 'when we do not touch a Pariah or enter his household, it is not unreasonable for the Thevars to treat us similarly'. To quote Mencher:
The well-documented tendency, among castes at all levels, to adopt new roles nowadays, in response to the changing socio-economic and political scene, is not necessarily in conflict with the continued emphasis on orthodoxy in ritual and family matters (Mencher, 1970:198).
A change in the pattern of landownership, changes in the methods
of cultivation, expansion of educational facilities and increased
school enrolment, changes in the types and forms of employment
available and the above mentioned social and economic changes have led
to a decline in mortality levels in the study area and have led to an
increased acceptance of contraceptive methods resulting in fertility
decline as we shall see in the next chapter. CHAPTER 4
Fertility, Mortality and Family Planning
4.1 Introduction
The performance of the Indian family planning programme has aroused keen interest nationally and internationally partly because
India is one of the pioneers in the field of family planning and partly because of the variations in the performance level over different periods of time and between the various states in the country. The programme can be considered as one of the greatest human experiments on social change. While in some years (1975-77) the
performance level far exceeded expectations, there have been years
(1977-79) when it fell well short of the target. The four south
Indian states (andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu), with
lower birth and death rates, have performed better than the north
Indian states. What follows is an attempt to trace the origin and
development of the Family Planning Programme in India and to discuss
its performance in the two Tamil Nadu villages investigated in detail.
An attempt to examine the nature and extent of fertility control
would not be complete without a study of the fertility levels. Hence,
in this chapter we will examine the nature and extent of fertility
regulation in the study area in the context of the existing fertility
and mortality levels. When the households in the study area were
first enumerated, it was found that the average household size was
4.37 which is lower than the national average of 5.6 and the state
average of 5.1. One indicator of the fertility level is the
child-woman ratio, and two such ratios were calculated. In the first Page 77 instance, all children aged less than five years and all women aged between 15 and 44 years were considered and this resulted in a ratio of 544 children per 1000 women. Secondly, on dividing the number of children in the 5-9 age group by the number of women in the 20-49 age group we arrived at a ratio of 605 children per 1000 women. A more direct comparison would be between the number of children in the 0-4 age group and the 5-9 age group. While children in the 5-9 age group accounted for 12 per cent of the population, those in the 0-4 age group accounted for only nine per cent of the total population [1].
The drop in numbers is significant when one considers the fact that
those in in the 5-9 age group have been exposed to mortality risks
over a longer period than those in the 0-4 age group. This indicates
a decline in fertility in the recent past, the reasons for which will
be discussed in a later section.
In the study area there were 1119 females of whom 475 were never
married, 528 were currently married, 19 were divorced or separated and
97 were widowed. Of the ever married women, three were aged less than
15 years, 418 were in the 15-44 age group and 223 women were aged over
45 years. The age distribution of ever married women according to
marital status is presented in Table 4.1.
A structured interview schedule was used by the two female
interviewers to survey the households and collect data on fertility
history. In the course of conducting the survey, certain types of
[l]This decline could be due^a decline in fertility, mortality, age misstatement or an underenumeration of the very young. However, at the time of enumeration, care was taken to assess ages as accurately as possible and a headcount of the residents was made to ensure that no resident was excluded from the census especially the very young children. Table -H X! 4-> 2 —I*— X! < Du (0 C o\° * 2 •H \ X! \ XS XJ ) CD X) -H o rH s o O Q W Q 1 w 4-4 0) < o S O (1) 4-1 O c > IH cl) >i M -H D M • S ! XS ) I X) O 1 O 1 \ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 oo r~ oo uo rH r- »—I V rH ncn cn oo r~ Mr~ CM cn CO i—I n rH oO uo t—i • l m CD cn 00 OO n CM CM • • • • 1 cn nnn n cn CM oo uo -cr m M0 00 00 CM CM n uo 1 00 m CD n CO o eg CO oo uo o 000 00 + l l 1 1—l 0o 00 00 m m co C\1 CM CD n OO uo 000 00 oo 0r~ 00 r~ i—i 0o 00 in LO m r- r~ rH 00 r~ CM CM oo CM oo CM 00 o uo r—I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 00 00 CD oo m m i—i i—i r~ m1 CM c-~ m m . ae 78 Page No. of women in Sampling Universe as stated in text. Page 79 married women were excluded from the sampling universe. These were younger women who had recently got married, had never been pregnant and whose further responses were irrelevant to the purposes of the survey. Women who were away at the time of the survey were also excluded. These were largely Pallar women who had temporarily migrated to nearby villages to secure employment. An inspection of the data profile of Pallar women who had managed to secure jobs in the village and those who had to migrate showed no statistically significant difference either in demographic or in socio-economic characteristics. This may seem surprising, but there is a large element of luck in who secures employment in the village and who outside at any given time. Fertility does not appear to be a factor as the women feeding young babies take them to the field, whether it is local or distant employment. As the whole family migrates the few kilometres necessary to find work outside the village, there is no difficulty in problems involved with the sibling care of children in either location. With regard to the older women, the exclusions from the sampling universe were determined more by memory lapse and this was a function of age and physiological impairment, neither of which showed any statistically significant correlation with demographic and socio economic characteristics during their reproductive period. In the circumstances, we felt these exclusions to be analytically justifiable and to present no danger of biasing the subsequent findings. But of those women left in the sampling universe, we managed to secure interviews of 86 percent, and an examination of the reasons for failure to interview demonstrated that such failure arose merely from Page 80 a range of capricious events that were not related to either the demographic or socio-economic characteristics of the women. 4.2 Vital Rates in the Study Area In order to estimate the age specific fertility rates and the total fertility rate in the area, data on vital statistics were collected both retrospectively and through continuous recording during the period of study. A total of 64 births registered during the study period (September 1982-August 1983) yielded a crude birth rate of 28.8 per 1000 population and a total of 33 deaths yielded a crude death rate of 14.8 per thousand population. The crude death rate would have been 13.3 if three persons in in the area had not committed suicide. This figure is very close to that obtained by the Sample Registration Scheme (13.4) in 1979 (Registrar General, India, 1981). A direct estimate of fertility from the births reported revealed a total fertility rate of 3.6. The age distribution of ever married women and the average parity are presented in Table 4.2. Table 4.2 Age Distribution of Ever married Women by Average Parity AGE Ever Married Live Average No. % Births Parity 15-19 27 0.336 24 0.286 20-24 69 0.921 118 1.575 25-29 53 1.000 149 2.811 30-34 46 0.968 154 3.241 35-39 53 1.000 195 3.679 40-44 30 0.965 133 4.278 45+ 77 1.000 321 4.169 Page 81 4.3 Indirect dstimates In view of the small sample size and other possible limitations on the quality of data arising due to response and errors of recall lapse among women in the older age groups, it was felt necessary to use indirect methods of estimation to check on the direct estimates of fertility and mortality levels (Brass and Coale, 1968:88-142). It should be noted here that, in view of possible inaccuracy in reporting exact age and because of small numbers, we decided to treat all women aged 45 years and above as a single age group and exclude them from the indirect estimates. 4.3.1 Fertility The Brass technique for estimating fertility is based on two propositions: the first being that while there is an error in the reporting of the children ever born by the older women, the same is reported with good accuracy by the younger women; the second is that the age pattern of fertility rates obtained from reports of current births is reliable, while the level may be in error. The Brass technique estimates the level of fertility from the mean number of children ever born reported by the younger women. The number of children ever born to women of different ages is compared with the cumulated age specific fertility rates based on recent births, and the ratios of the retrospective to the cumulated current measures for the younger women yield a factor (called P/F ratio) which is applied to the current fertility rates at all ages to adjust the fertility to the level considered reliable. Thus while the level of fertility is estimated by the P/F ratios, the age pattern of fertility is assumed Page 82 to be the same as observed from the current data on births In the estimation of infant and child mortality rates, the proportions of children dead among those ever born are calculated by age groups of women and these cumulative rates are free of the reference period error. Using an implied West Model Life Table and the probability of death before each exact age, the probabilities of infant and child mortality are derived. Owing to the very small number of births (especially in the older age groups), all live births occurring over a period of 23 months were taken into account and an annual rate for 12 months was calculated as the basis for indirect fertility estimation. While a direct estimate of fertility from the births reported revealed a total fertility rate of 3.6 (Table 4.4) the synthetic average parity (Fi) estimated was found to be lower than the average parity reported (Pi). While this indicates an error in the reference period, it may be possible that there has been an under reporting of births especially by the women in the older age groups and when the infants have died immediately after birth. Because of the small sample size, the P/F ratios were found to be very sensitive and the ratio for the 20-24 age group, when used to adjust the level of reported/observed current fertility rates, revealed a total fertility rate of 5.0. However, adjustment of the ratio for the 25-29 age group revealed a total fertility rate of 4.3 which is close to the level reported and can be considered as a reliable estimate of the fertility level*in the area. However, it can be argued that the Brass method is basically an ’adjustment* procedure which assumes constant fertility. Therefore, we decided to use yet another method to obtain estimates of fertility using the child- woman ratio and the expectation of life at birth (Rele, 1967:16). Page 83 In Rele's method, the child-woman ratios of children aged 0-4 related to women aged 15-44 and of children aged 5-9 related to women aged 20-49 are used to estimate the total fertility rates for the two five year periods preceding the survey date. The estimates of TFR are obtained using the following regression equation: TFR = 2.05 (a„ + bnCWR) where TFR is the total fertility rate, CWR is the child-woman ratio and an and bn are the constants to be selected or interpolated from Rele's tables corresponding to any given level of expectation of life. The constants have been tabulated separately for the CWR 0-4/15-44 and 5-9/20-49. The value of the coefficients (a0) and (b^) to be used in the above equations depend on the level of mortality (e®)assumed to exist in the population during the relevant five year periods. From the Tables prepared by Rele, the following extracts are taken, giving the values of coefficients corresponding to e°of 50 and 60, since the mortality levels of the study area are estimated to be between these levels and corresponding TFR values. The coefficients estimated at these two levels of e® for the period 1977-81 (five year period prior to the survey) and 1972-76 (the earlier five year period) and the corresponding TFR values are as follows ; Page 84 Table 4.3 Estimates of Total Fertility Rate Based on Rele's Method Based on CWR of 0-4/15-44 Based on CWR of 5-9/20-49 which yields TFR for 1977-81 which yields TFR for 1972 ej = 50 e* = 60 e o = 50 e* = 60 -0.1529 -0.1645 -0.1574 10.1675 N 3.7375 3.5556 3.8301 3.5967 TFR 3.855 3.628 4.428 4.118 It was observed from the death rates of the area during the study period and the general mortality conditions of the state as a whole that, during the expectation of life at birth for females for the period 1972-76 would have been around 50 years and for 1977-81 around 55 years. At these levels of expectation of life at birth, from the above table, the total fertility rate for 1972-76 is estimated at 4.4 and for 1977-81 at 3.7. Since Rele's method has been proven to be robust for small variations in the mortality assumptions, the above estimates can be considered to be fairly reliable. These estimates suggest that the fertility levels in the population studied have declined in the recent past, especially in view of the fact that the office of the Registrar General, India estimated the total fertility rate for rural Tamil Nadu in 1972 as 4.76 (Registrar General, India, 1976:45-48). 4.3.2 Mortality In the context of the fertility rates discussed above, we will now proceed to make an indirect estimation of mortality in the area. The average parity in the area shows a steady increase by age until Page 85 the 40-44 age group at which point it levels off (Table 4.2). We found that in the case of women in the 15-19 age group, the proportion of children ever born who survived beyond one year was very low (0.478) as they were subject to particularly high mortality partly ascribable to a low age at marriage and an absence of birth spacing (Table 4.5). Nortman has found that ’even at birth order 1, neonatal and infant deaths are over 25 per cent higher for babies of teenagers than for babies of mothers in their twenties' (Nortman, 1974:37). On the other hand, children born to women aged 20-44 years stood a better chance of survival. Children born to women aged 45 years and above had been subject to a relatively high mortality level (0.275). Our finding of high mortality rates in the youngest and the oldest age groups is consistent with the findings of other studies [1]. Using the West Model Life table to arrive at implied infant and child mortality rates, we found that there has been a steady decline in both the infant mortality rate and the child mortality rate - from 0.17 to 0.08 in the case of infant mortality and from 0.22 to 0.11 in the case of child mortality. (Table 4.6). However, because of the small numbers, it was desirable to confirm this declining trend by using another method of indirect estimation, a s Feeney states, the children of the older women have been exposed to the risk of mortality over a longer period of time than those born to the younger women who were exposed to the mortality risks of only the recent past. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the exposure to mortality of each [ljRutstein finds that when the order of birth is considered, children born to women in the youngest and the oldest age groups are subject to excess mortality as the women may not be 'prepared to bear and bring up a child’ or they may be ’physically worn out’ (Rutstein,1983:27-29)• Page 86 group of children (Feeney, 1976:12). Hence, using the data on child survivorship, the age of mother and the mean age of childbearing, we arrived at the infant mortality rates presented in Table 4.7. The estimates derived from this method reveal an increasing trend in mortality as age increases - 75.9 in the case of mothers aged 20-24 compared to 104 in the case of mothers aged 35-39. In other words, children born to the older women have been exposed to higher risks of mortality than those born to the younger women. The rates obtained from this method are consistent with those obtained from the Brass method and confirm the trend of mortality decline. It can be reasonably concluded that there has been a steady decline in mortality in the study area. This drop in infant and child mortality may be attributed at least in part to the fact that both medical and transport facilities have improved over the years and the proportion of people seeking qualified medical attention has been increasing. A case in point is the number of deliveries conducted by trained personnel and the number of births taking place in hospitals (Table 4.8). We found that in spite of a relatively large number of births taking place at home, the number of births taking place in hospitals has been steadily increasing. While there has been a decline in the proportion of births taking place at home - from 89 per cent before 1960 to 62 per cent during 1971-83, the proportion of births taking place in hospitals has increased from 10 per cent before 1960 to 37 per cent during 1971-83. Similarly, the proportion of deliveries conducted by trained personnel has been rising (from 22 per cent before 1960 to 60 per cent during 1971-83) and the proportion of deliveries conducted by untrained people has declined remarkably from 78 per cent before 1960 Page 87 to 39 per cent during 1971-83. Even in the case of live births taking place at home, the proportion of attendance by trained personnel (midwives) has gone up from 13 per cent before 1960 to 37 per cent during 1971-83 (Table 4.9). It has been found that distance acts as an inhibiting factor when people need maternal and child health services (Chandramouli and Guruswamy, 1979:29-33), and this accounts for the high proportion of deliveries taking place at home: people may not have had the time to reach the hospital. Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, transport facilities have improved and the nearest hospital is only ten minutes away by bus. Even going to the hospital in the taluk headquarters (24 Km), to the one at Pattukottai (30 Km) or to the district hospital at Thanjavur (90 Km.) has been made relatively easier by the increased frequency of the bus services: while there is a bus every two hours to the taluk headquarters, there is a bus every 30 minutes to the other towns. We could also observe that expectant mothers are taken to the doctors not just for delivery but even in the first and second trimesters for pre natal services such as immunization with tetanus toxoid. With an improvement in the extent of pre natal and post natal services it follows that the infants are exposed to lower risks of mortality. However, the decline in mortality is not merely the simple result of 'a progressive increase in the supply of doctors and their medicines'. As Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell argued 'the decline in mortality is, then, part of the political, social and economic revolution' (Caldwell et al., 1983:204). Parents are becoming increasingly aware and concerned about immunization services for their Page 88 children. One frequent complaint from mothers in the study area was that the Government had stopped providing primary vaccination to prevent smallpox and we had to explain that it was no longer considered necessary. What was interesting was to find that with regard to the health of the children, the mothers were increasingly the main decision-makers and this has helped to reduce infant and child mortality. As Caldwell writes: authorization of health treatment is one of those areas of decision making where there has been fairly rapid transition during the last 20 or 30 years in terms of the oldest generation ceding power to the younger married generation, with regard not only to the latter’s own health but also that of their children’ (Caldwell et al., 1983:200). Thus, it is not just a case of the women going to hospitals for deliveries, an overall improvement in the services available and an increase in the number of people seeking such services for themselves and for their children. Rather, parents no longer associate sickness with tradition and religion (except chicken pox and measles) and are prepared to seek modern medical services no matter what the cost [2]. Society in the area has undergone a transition and even the uneducated among the villagers prefer modern medicine to traditional cures. One of the shops in the area had a stock of ingredients for the preparation of Ayurvedic medicine as well as a stock of analgesic tablets. The shopkeeper reported that, while there was a regular demand for the tablets, no one seemed to be interested in buying the ingredients. Indeed, the use of Ayurvedic medicine has become rare [2]Caldwell has found in another area in south India the same kind of transformation 'secularizing many aspects of social life and tending to remove medical explanations and cures from the area of Theology'(Caldwell et al., 1983:205). Page 89 and people resort to such treatment only in emergencies during the night as a stop-gap measure until they can take the patient to the hospital. This transformation is partly due to the fact that practitioners of traditional medicine are dwindling in numbers and because people no longer seem to be convinced about the efficacy of such medicine. One Harijan in the study area reported losing more than half the land he owned because treatment for his daughter's respiratory illness cost him Rs. 6000. He originally mortgaged the land but has since given up hope of redeeming it. In the course of an interview he admitted that his economic position had worsened but he did not regret losing the land as this had enabled him to save his daughter's life. This change in parental attitude which is the result of a social transformation (female children are no longer considered to be relatively unimportant) has helped a great deal in reducing infant mortality. 4.4 Marriage and Sterility An important factor considered as a proximate determinant of fertility is age at marriage. On examining the mean age at marriage we found that, while the male age at marriage has been falling, the female age at marriage has not increased sufficiently to exert a significant effect on fertility decline (Table 4.10). The singulate mean age at marriage which provides a measure of the average number of person-years spent remaining single was 19.5 years for males and 16.61 years for females (Agarwala, 1962:200-202). Therefore, we decided to examine cases of primary and secondary sterility to see if they had had any effect on fertility decline in the area. ( Page 90 Of the 355 women from whom fertility data were collected, 33 had never been pregnant (Table 4.11). While 23 of these women were in the 15-24 age group and could not be considered to be sterile, ten women were in the higher age groups and could be considered to be cases of primary sterility. This led us to an analysis of secondary sterility and it was found that 55 per cent of the interviewed women had an open birth interval of more than seven years. Even in the 15-24 age group there were 26 women in this category and in the 25-44 age group there were 94 women who had an open birth interval of more than seven years. It was interesting to find that in only 11 cases where the interval was more than seven years had the couples adopted sterilization. Thus, the high degree of apparent secondary sterility arose from reasons other than the adoption of sterilization. The decline in fertility rates can be attributed not only to the existence of a relatively high proportion of secondary sterility but also to a steady decline in infant and child mortality which has led to the adoption of methods of fertility regulation. The nature and extent of fertility regulation, the reasons for such a regulation, the decision-making process and the role of the Governmental and private agencies will be discussed in the next section. To set the general background, a brief history of the family planning programme in the state will be presented. Page 91 4.5 Family Planning 4.5.1 History of Family Planning in Tamil Nadu In 1932 the Senate of the Madras University accepted the proposal that its medical school should provide instructions in contraception and in the following year birth control clinics were opened in the Madras Presidency (now mostly Tamil Nadu) . The success of the family planning movement, at this stage, depended mainly on the import of contraceptives if they were to be employed as there was no internal production and consequently the emphasis was on the rhythm method. During the Second World War all imports were stopped and the movement suffered a setback. The establishment of the Planning Commission by the Government in 1950 led to the appointment of a committee to report on population growth and family planning, and in 1952 the Planning Commission recommended that advice on family planning be made an integral part of the service of Government Hospitals and Public Health Agencies (Raina, 1960:178-180). The first family planning incentive scheme was introduced by the Government of Madras in 1956 to promote the acceptance of vasectomies (Repetto, 1968:8-16, Rogers, 1971:242). Since then, different types of incentive schemes have been experimented with (Ridker, 1969:11-15, 1971:150-52). The approach during the first two plan periods was essentially 'clinical’, but during the Third Five Year Plan period (1961-66), there was a change in the strategy and the Government of India launched the 'extension' approach which sought to provide family planning services through an extensive network of Primary Health Centres (PHC) and subcentres in the rural areas (Baskara Rao, 1976:4). An intensive motivational programme was introduced to advise couples Page 92 on family planning methods and available services. Extension educators and family planning health assistants were appointed in each PHC to meet people individually and in groups to impart knowledge on available contraceptive techniques and to provide guidance to potential acceptors. The year 1966 saw the establishment of a fully fledged Government Department of Family Planning and since then the programme has been ’time-bound’ and ’target-oriented’. There was a concerted effort to popularize the IUD which had been successful in several other countries. The IUD used was the Lippes Loop and soon there was a fall in the demand as a result of complications, excessive bleeding and backache being the most frequently cited problems; and a lack of effective follow up services. By 1969 the emphasis has been shifted back to sterilization and the introduction of mass vasectomy camps throughout the states, originating with the vasectomy camp in Ernakulam in Kerala in 1971, led to a sharp increase in vasectomies during 1970-72 (Krishnakumar, 1972:6-13). When the provision of maternal and child health services was linked to family planning, female sterilization was given more importance and has since then been the method advocated by the family planning programme. In short, the family planning programme can be said to have gone through three distinct phases. During the first phase the approach was purely clinical and efforts were limited to providing family planning advice and services only to those who voluntarily sought such services. In the second phase, the programme effort was intensified and there was systematic motivation along with incentives to encourage couples to accept sterilization. What started as a voluntary Page 93 sterilization programme later had an element of coercion built into it with Government officials and village leaders playing an active part in working for the success of the mass vasectomy camps organized by the Government. There were two major reasons for the involvement of non-medical personnel in motivational efforts. Firstly, the officials organizing the mass camps felt that the doctors and para,_medical workers alone could not motivate an adequate number of people to make the camps a success. Secondly, it was felt that the programme could achieve greater success with the co-operation of other Government departments and a division of labour - the doctors and the para medical staff would be responsible only for the actual provision of services while officials of other Government departments who were in frequent contact with the people, and by whom people were more likely to be persuaded, would be responsible for motivating potential acceptors and delivering the 'cases' to the doorsteps of the service centres for sterilization. Thus, the involvement of all Government departments which started with the advent of the mass vasectomy camps reached its peak during the Emergency period in 1975-77 when forced sterilizations were carried out in most of the Indian states (Peterson, 1981:352-355). In the general election of 1977, sterilization was a key issue and the resentment of the people towards force led to the Government being voted out of power. The programme entered its third phase when the new Government decided that people should not be forced and the welfare aspect of the programme should be emphasized. Even the doctors were reluctant to conduct sterilizations as they feared that the people would later complain. As a result there was a steep decline in the number of sterilizations conducted and the programme suffered a setback. This Page 94 period of inactivity did not last long, and in 1930 a change in the Government saw the family planning programme being given its due priority, though with certain changes. It was decided that instead of coercing people, the voluntary nature of the programme should be emphasized and educational efforts should be intensified. At present, sterilization facilities are regularly made available in all the Primary Health Centres in rural areas and in the Government Hospitals, maternity homes and family welfare planning centres in urban areas. Efforts are also being made to encourage younger couples with fewer children to accept sterilization. However, it was realized that sterilization alone could not solve the problem and conventional methods like the IUD and the condom were necessary to protect couples in the younger age groups. Hence, the drive to provide such conventional contraceptives has been intensified. Insertion of IUDs is encouraged for the purpose of child spacing and condoms are distributed by the field workers. With the replacement of the Lippes Loop with the Copper T there has been a resurgence of the IUD as a popular method, and, during 1984, over two million IUDs were inserted in the country. Nevertheless, the accent is on female sterilization, and to the officials and the field workers in charge of programme implementation, it is the achievement of tubectomy targets that really matters most. For instance, at each Primary Health Centre there is a monthly conference to evaluate the work progress during the previous month and to plan for the month ahead. On numerous occasions during these conferences, the author has witnessed field workers being punished solely on the grounds that they had failed to fulfill the tubectomy targets assigned to them: non-payment of allowances or threats of transfer to a distant and undesirable location being the Page 95 most common sanctions. The field workers, on the other hand, try to ensure that they are listed as motivators of even the persons from their areas who volunteer for sterilization. 4.5.2 Family Planning in the Study Area On the basis of the different phases the Family Planning Programme has passed through, acceptors in the study area can be broadly divided into the following categories: (1) Those who sought such services from private individuals because the Governmental effort was limited and continue to do so because of the social stigma attached to the method they use [3]. (2) Those who were coerced to adopt family planning methods when the Governmental efforts were intensified. (3) Those who voluntarily went first to the Government Centres for family planning services. (4) Those who initially went to private individuals but have since been motivated, either by themselves or by others, to accept family planning services provided by Government hospitals and health centres. [3] Though induced abortion may not be considered as a family planning method, it is regarded by people in the area as a method to contain family size and is resorted to by acceptors in this category. Page 96 4.5.3 The Voluntary Approach In the study area, both in-depth interviews and informal discussions with respondents revealed that induced abortion as a method of fertility regulation has not only been a very popular method but also the only one available in the past when other methods had not yet been popularized. S.Chandrasekar wrote: References to induced abortions are found in ancient Hindu texts from the Rig-Veda, the Kathaka Samhita, the Taittreya Aranyaka down to the Dharma Sutras and later Smritis. Some references are also found in the later epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (c. 500 BC-AD 500). The following reference in the Mahabharata suggests the Hindu attitude of the period toward abortion:'...letting a woman's Rtu[fertile period] go to waste was a sin tantamount to embryo murder'. That almost all ancient Hindu writers and law-givers refer to induced abortion and condemn it as a serious sin reveals the prevalence of induced abortion even then. Thus the problem has been with us for some four thousand years and more (Chandrasekar, 1972:44). In 1951, a Fertility and Attitude Survey carried out in certain small villages in Karnataka obtained an abortion rate of 41 per 1000 pregnancies (The Mysore Population Study, 1961:236). Another study of six rural communities in Maharashtra obtained an abortion rate of 25 per 1000 pregnancies (Dhandekar, 1959:2). During 1960-63 the Institute of Rural Health and Family Planning conducted a study on the incidence of abortion in a community of weavers in Madurai district and found an induced abortion rate of 30.5 per 1000 live births. Thus the incidence of abortion is not peculiar to the study area but is a part of a countrywide phenomenon. Though reliable data on induced abortions in the past were hard to come by, the respondents in course of time freely reported abortions they had had in the recent past. The information supported the assessment by Caldwell and Caldwell: Page 97 Traditional abortion, mostly employing oral abortifacients, was practised before the World War II almost solely to hide conceptions which should not have occured, before marriage or, among Hindus, during the first months of marriage before the ceremony permitting the consummation of the union. In the last quarter of a century, the demand has slowly increased in order to contain •family size and in order to hide extra-marital relations in marriages where sexual relations have entirely or largely ceased (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1984:113). The Government of India enacted the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1971 which has liberalized the laws on abortion, and facilities for the medical termination of pregnancies (MTP) are made freely available in approved Government hospitals (Baskara Rao, 1976:5). According to this act, a woman can seek abortion on the grounds of contraception failure. In practice, however, abortions are conducted freely without too many questions being asked. But, people in the study area go only to private agencies for abortions. These private agencies are registered medical practitioners in the towns and a trained nurse who illegally conducts abortions in a nearby village. 28 women were reported to have had a total of 45 induced abortions and all of them had gone to either of these agencies and not to the Government Hospitals. The reasons for this are as follows. Firstly, while the use of abortion as a method of birth control is fairly widespread in the area, there is still some social stigma as it has traditionally been used to terminate illegitimate pregnancies. Abortion facilities may be freely available in Government Hospitals but records are maintained there. On the other hand, the private agencies neither ask questions nor maintain records, thereby ensuring complete secrecy. Secondly, abortions are felt to be safe as both the private doctors and the trained nurse use modern methods to conduct Page 98 abortions, and there has been no case of complication or mortality. Apart from this, women seeking abortions are also assured by their experienced neighbours about the safety of the method. Abortion as a method of birth control was found to be very popular in the study area and one woman had undergone four induced abortions because she was satisfied with the method and did not want to undergo surgery. Twelve respondents reported that they decided to opt for induced abortions as the pregnancies would have 'interfered with their work during the peak season' and would have resulted in a loss of income. Five respondents reported that they had to resort to induced abortion because of the failure of contraception. While one respondent reported that she had had a pregnancy terminated because she was asthmatic and found it difficult to carry it to term, another reported that she had done so as she found it very embarrassing to be pregnant when she had a married daughter. In neighbouring Karnataka State, the Government has provided necessary equipment to all approved hospitals and has initiated a programme for the lady doctors to be trained in conducting abortions. But this has yet to happen in Tamil Nadu, and this is another reason why the people have to resort to private doctors and nurses for such services. 4.5.4 The Role of Governmental Institutions There is a medical subcentre in the study area and a trained midwife has been stationed there since 1964. This subcentre was built by the Panchayat Union and the midwife was appointed and paid by the taluk office till October 1982 when the subcentre was taken over by the health department and adminstratively merged with a Primary Health Centre (PHC) located in a village about eight kilometres away. In Page 99 November 1982 the Medical Officer of the PHC visited the village with other para medical personnel and held a meeting with the villagers to promote family planning acceptance. Following this, a lady health visitor and a health inspector visited the village to compile a list of children who required immunization. Apart from this, there was no other visit by the PHC either to provide health services or to ensure that couples accepted family planning methods. All the motivational efforts came from the midwife who either conducted the deliveries or accompanied the women when they went to the hospital. The midwife posted in this area has been serving the population since the establishment of the centre and has built up a good rapport with all the villagers. The villagers themselves consider her to be a part of the village, and when she was transferred to another subcentre the village leaders made representations to the authorities with the result that her transfer was cancelled. The villagers have come to trust the midwife and her motivational efforts do not go unheeded. The midwife herself was full of praise for the people who had taken her advice but felt that more people would come forward to accept sterilization if her own efforts had some support from the other staff of the PHC. In the course of an interview, the midwife admitted that there would be a marginal drop in her income if she conducted fewer deliveries as she receives a nominal cash gift from the parents for each delivery she conducts. But, ’having seen the people suffer because of repeated childbirths and having known them very well for a number of years’, she is prepared to forgo the cash gifts if she is successful in motivating them as every sterilization in the area will only improve her work record. She also reported that during the early stages of the sterilization programme, Page 100 she had to pay an 'additional incentive' from her own pocket in order to motivate couples and attain her sterilization target. Now the couples voluntarily seek her assistance and she does not have to pay them anything. The fact that all the 47 sterilizations were performed in Government hospitals goes to prove that people are not dissatisfied with the services provided by the Government and they do not wish to incur an expenditure of about 300 rupees on a sterilization in a private hospital. While 12 vasectomies and five tubectomies were performed at Peravurani, the Taluk headquarters, 24 kilometres away in special camps organized by the Government, 23 tubectomies were performed at Pattukottai, a town 30 kilometres away . It should be noted that most of the people in the study area visit this town regularly not only for marketing but also for medical services provided by the Government hospital and private clinics. Only five acceptors underwent laparoscopy at the medical college hospital in Tanjore (90 kilometres away). It was found that no person from the study area had ever visited the PHC either for health or for family planning services. This was partly because of the efficient transport services which provide easy access to facilities available in the towns and also because the people of the area preferred to consult doctors whom they had regularly been visiting. It was also found that there was no distribution of contraceptives like condoms from the PHC or the subcentre as the five acceptors of this method, due to cultural inhibitions, preferred to purchase them in the towns rather than ask the midwife. Two of the acceptors felt that while they would consider accepting contraceptives if offered by a male health worker, they could not think of accepting them from the midwife, let alone asking Page 101 her for contraceptives. Investigations about family planning acceptance in the two villages studied (Table 4.12) revealed that sterilization was the most popular method (United Nations, 1982: 173). There were 34 tubectomy acceptors and 13 vasectomy acceptors. In contrast, only seven couples were using the condom, seven couples were using oral pills, while there was only one case of IUD use. It was also found that three couples had used the condom in the past while three other couples had used oral pills. There was only one case of past use of the IUD. It was interesting to find that while four of the past users had since opted for sterilization, the others reported that they did not feel the need to do so as in each case there was an open birth interval of more than eight years. A chronological list of all sterilization acceptors (Table 4.13) revealed that the first case of family planning acceptance was in the year 1964. In that year a landlord belonging to the dominant peasant caste went to Madras and had himself sterilized. Discussing the circumstances which prompted him to go for sterilization, he reported that he discovered after his marriage, which was arranged by his parents, that his wife was mentally retarded. He was apprehensive of having a child but nevertheless decided to have one as he did not want to stay childless and there was pressure from his parents. A male child was born and the man did not want to take any more risks. He told his relatives that he was going to Madras on a short holiday, and while in Madras, he went to the Government hospital and had himself sterilized in the family planning clinic. This was a case of voluntary acceptance and the acceptor was the sole decision maker. In Page 102 fact, he revealed that, even after 19 years, his parents still do not know about his sterilization. Following this, there were nine other cases of vasectomy which were conducted in special mass camps (1972-74) organized in the Taluk headquarters. Apart from a cash incentive of 150 rupees, these acceptors were promised half an acre of land each by the village headman and Government officials. They received the cash but no land. Five of these acceptors reported that had they known that they would not get any land, they would not have agreed to undergo sterilization. The fact that they had been ’deceived’ brought about a feeling of resentment. As a result, forced sterilizations were resisted later during the Emergency period (1975-77) during which only five sterilizations were conducted including three cases where the acceptors had volunteered for tubectomy. There was one IUD insertion in 1973 but use was discontinued after one year because of complications. There was a clear shift in the pattern of acceptance between 1980 andA83 when there was one vasectomy, which took place only because the wife was medically unfit for sterilization, but 27 tubectomies. The pace of this shift from male to female sterilization which began with the integration of maternal and child health services and family planning, was further accelerated with the main thrust of the programme effort being directed towards female sterilization. In the Eighties, while the number of vasectomy acceptors has declined sharply, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of tubectomy acceptors. Apart from this, it was interesting to find other methods, such as the condom and the pill, gaining popularity as well: five couples were using the condom and three other couples were using the pill. However, there was only one IUD insertion (in 1981) Page 103 and people in the area were still afraid of complications. 4.3.5 Reasons for Acceptance of Family Planning Of the 13 vasectomy acceptors, nine reported coercion by village leaders and Government officials as the primary reason for acceptance while three others reported that they had decided to accept vasectomy because they felt that they had too many children. Speaking of coercion, it must be noted that only people belonging to the lower caste groups and who were economically disadvantaged were coerced to accept sterilization. Six of these acceptors were cultivating land which belonged to the Government while the others had built dwellings on similar land. In all these cases they were promised that they would be given ownership rights if they underwent sterilization. There was also a threat that they would be evicted from their houses and the land they were cultivating if they refused to accept sterilization. Similarly, teachers working in Government schools were told that the annual increment in their salary would be withheld if they did not motivate at least one person to undergo sterilization. A schoolteacher living in the study area, belonging to a scheduled caste, found it difficult to motivate anyone not only from the higher castes but from his own caste group. Moreover, he felt that he had no moral right to coerce anyone before adopting a family planning method himself. After discussing the matter with his wife, he had himself sterilized and thereby met the official requirement. On the other hand, of 34 tubectomy acceptors, 24 cited the cost of children (education, clothes and medical expenses) as the primary reason for acceptance. Five persons reported that they had decided to accept as they did not have enough land: not only to provide for Page 104 children but also to avoid further fragmentation. These acceptors also came forward with the explanation that they would have lost social respect and acceptability .if they had continued begetting children without any thought about their welfare. In three other cases, the health of the wife was given as the major reason: two women could deliver only through Caesarean sections while the third woman was found to be anaemic and unfit for childbearing. Three couples were advised by doctors of the consequences of another pregnancy and they decided in favour of sterilization. More people now desire small families and are willing to limit the number of their children. Of 28 sterilizations in the study area since 1980, 13 acceptors had only two living children, 12 acceptors had three living children and only three acceptors had four or more living children. This is supported by our finding that, of the 27 women who underwent sterilization since 1980, 19 were in the 15-24 age group and five were in the 25-34 age group while only three women were more than 35 years old, which partly explains the drop in the child-woman ratio mentioned earlier. People report satisfaction with two living children and do not want a third or a fourth child. In Karnataka it is a common sight to find a vehicle from the PHCs coming to villages to take women to the service centre for sterilization. When they are discharged from the hospital or the PHC, transport is again arranged by the service centre. In our study area, we found no such arrangement and all the acceptors made their own transport arrangements. When questioned about this, they replied that they did not mind taking a bus as going in for sterilization was in their own interest. In fact, even the incentive of 100 rupees provided to all sterilization acceptors is no longer of any real significance, partly Page 105 due to inflation, as the money is usually spent before the acceptors return home. This reflects a change in the attitude of the people who are now more interested in regulating fertility than in economic fringe benefits. 4.5.6 The Decision-Makers Any attempt to examine the decision making process must take into account the fact that, in many instances, individual preferences or choices are combined to reach a joint decision. Of the 63 cases of family planning acceptance, it was found that in 32 cases the decision to accept was jointly arrived at by both the husband and the wife. Husbands alone made the decision in three instances and wives alone were responsible for making the decision in 13 instances. This pattern of joint decision-making and wives alone making the decisions was hardly surprising as it was found in the study area that with a high rate of participation in the labour force, women are increasingly participating in the decision making process [4]. This is further strengthened by the fact that the family system is based on village and kin endogamy. The traditional and cultural patterns existing are such that the different castes live in separate clusters and cross-caste marriages are non-existent and strongly discouraged. Marriages between close relatives are most common, especially between cross-cousins or between a man and his sister's [4]CF.Blood and Wolfe's resource theory view that each individual's relative power is determined by the relative resources each spouse brings to the marriage (Blood and Wolfe, 1960) Page 106 daughter. After marriage, a girl lives only a few yards away from her parental home and her status in her husband’s home remains largely unchanged. As Dyson and Moore point out, 'women interact with their natal kin.... and there is less need to repress and resocialize females in their affinal home' (Dyson and Moore, 1983:45). A similar finding has been reported by Shariff in Karnataka (Shariff, 1984:275-277) In fact, three acceptors reported that the decision was made by the wife and her parents. Vlassoff reports from a village study conducted in Maharashtra that: Subservient attitudes were widely expressed concerning husband-wife relations, yet there were indications of change even here. For example, most women a approved of conversations between husbands and wives when no one else was present, and some broke traditional taboos concerning eating together, especially when removed from the watchful eyes of village neighbours. Overall, however, male-female segregation was observed rather rigidly, especially among younger couples (Vlassoff:1982:401). During the course of an in-depth interview, a respondent belonging to the dominant caste group in the village admitted: 'in this village our women often make the important decisions and we husbands are used only to communicate or implement the decisions'. There were many instances when we could observe husbands bowing to the wishes of the wives. In fact, it was the husbands who were sometimes 'subservient'. Apart from this, male-female segregation could be found only at the societal level. This was done more to 'protect the women’ than to keep married partners apart. With regard to eating, we could observe that it was only in the higher castes was there any segregation of the sexes. Among the lower castes, it was quite normal and socially acceptable for the husband and wife to eat together. The relatively high social status accorded to women has considerably expanded the scope of their participation in decision-making. Page 107 Eleven acceptors reported that the decision-makers were village leaders and government officials while only one acceptor reported that the decision was made by the doctor. An analysis of the pattern of decision-making by method of acceptance revealed that in most of the vasectomy cases the decision was made either by the husbands alone or by the village leaders and government officials. This was in the early seventies (1972-74) when the mass camps were introduced and there was sustained persuasion from the leaders and officials to promote acceptance. This was resented by the villagers and consequently there was a drop in acceptance until 1979. It must be noted that during the Emergency (1975-77), while people were forced to accept sterilization throughout most states, there was very little force used in Tamil Nadu. This apparently was because of the reaction to forced sterilization in the earlier years. However, these forced sterilizations made the population more familiar with the Family Planning Programme and, as a result, the demand for sterilization started rising steeply. Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell reported a similar finding in Karnataka (Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell, 1982:713). In fact, since the inception of the programme only 19 persons had accepted sterilization until 1979. In the next two years (1980,81) there were eight sterilizations, and in the years 1982 and 83 there were twenty sterilizations. Thus, of the 47 sterilization cases found in the study area, 28 took place between 1980 and 1983, and most of these recent acceptors have not only made the decision by themselves but have also done so with fewer living children. Page 108 4.6 Summary Fertility levels in the study area appear to be low and declining steadily. The infant mortality rate and the child mortality rate appear to be declining as well. Female sterilization is becoming increasingly popular and the age at sterilization is decreasing. There has been a definite rise in the demand for sterilization and couples with fewer living children are accepting family planning methods. There is also a considerable demand for induced abortion in the study area. The Government Family Planning Programme has been responsible for providing all the facilities required for sterilization. The midwife based in the study area has been largely responsible for motivating couples to accept sterilization. But, apart from a solitary visit to conduct a meeting, the role of the other PHC personnel has been minimal. There has been no effort to promote actively the use of the IUD and there is no distribution of condoms or the pill as envisaged in the programme. The increase in the rate of acceptance suggests that there is a 'felt need' for family planning methods. But, as Dyson and Crook correctly point out, 'the programme is currently failing to completely meet the need largely because of defects in its design' (Dyson and Crook, 1984:8). In other words, spacing methods are not adequately promoted. While two persons reported that they had to resort to induced abortions because they had exhausted their supplies of the condom and could not go to the town to buy fresh supplies, one respondent reported that it would be cheaper to terminate a pregnancy than to regularly buy pills. Provision of MTP facilities has yet to gain ground and there there has been no governmental effort in the area to remove the social stigma attached to the method and to make such a service freely available. In the Page 109 absence of governmental intervention, the private agencies described earlier have been responsible for the provision of such services and this practice is bound to continue unless the government moves in a big way to provide comprehensive service facilities instead of concentrating mainly on female sterilization. The increasing rate of acceptance in recent years not only reflects a change in attitude but also proves that the educational efforts during the previous decades have begun paying off. Villagers are now aware of the need to regulate fertility and the methods available. The demand for family planning services is bound to increase at a faster rate and what remains is for the Government to ensure the provision of adequate service facilities. 4.7 Implications An increase in the acceptance rate and an increase in the number of people having fewer children is explained not only by the fact that people have been exposed more to the family planning programme in recent years and that it has now become socially acceptable and desirable to regulate fertility but also to a considerable extent by the prevailing activity patterns in the area. Now, how do activity patterns influence people’s decision to regulate fertility ? It has been the traditional belief that in subsistence economies where production is labour intensive, there is an 'advantage in numbers'. In other words, with a large number of children a family's capacity to contribute to the labour force increases and high fertility is desirable. However, this 'advantage' holds good only if the demand for labour exceeds the supply. In an area where in spite of intensive wet rice cultivation, the seasonal fluctuation in the demand for Page 110 labour is not able to absorb the available supply, a family’s income-earning capacity is determined not by the number of children who can work but by the opportunities available. Booth and Sundrum have found that in the less developed countries, agriculture has been shedding labour, particularly to services rather than to industries. In a situation where the landless cannot find employment in the agricultural sector and have to resort to petty trading, vending, etc., productivity is bound to be low and and there is a likelihood of large- scale unemployment. In such a situation, the younger children and those who are aged may not be able to produce as much as they consume. When having a large number of children, instead of being an asset, becomes a liability, parents tend to rethink the number of children they can afford and this results in a change in attitude and leads to fertility regulation. As Easterlin points out, "if ’population pressure' alters production, consumption or demographic conditions in 'society', it must work through the individuals and families whose behaviour and experience change in these respects" (Easterlin,1971:1669). If this is true, it should be reflected by the activity patterns of the people and by the proportion of time they spend on productive activities and by their consumption patterns. Aspects deserving further investigation, which we will examine in the chapters that follow. *"Ö» 9» X- 3 * 1 -O OJ LO NJ NJ r - * 1 > * r$ 1 O cn O Ln O U r 1 OQ ft) 03 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 fD os < H* 1 4> OJ OJ NJ NJ r-* 1 H- H* r t 1 4N vo 4> v o -O' vO 1 i-l O r r 1 1 r r c 3 “ 1 1 s : Z 3 “ CO CO 1 r-* 1 O O CO 1 Ln O' O' vO 00 O' 1 B • VC r t 1 "V NJ n j NJ vO o 1 fD O r l fD fD 1 1 3 r h (0 3 3 1 1 3 r t O 1 1 O r t 1 t—1 OJ r-* 1 Z r t r r 1 u> U ) NJ ►—* I—* r - 1 1 X- O r r fD 1 1 • CD CL 1 1 CL r-* r - • 1 NJ 1 X- o FertilityLevels in the Study Area \ 3 1 NJ Ln 4> CO U> NJ 1 X- r h CL r r 1 1 (D 1 1 t o r r r r 1 U> 4 ^ NJ 1 H» Table to P A > C CL CO p 3“ A 3 p p p p to p P 2 p O P p A to O 3 X p m rt PI P A rr P O 3 (to v< PI 1 1 1 I 1 | 1 1 1 1 1 I 1 i t 1 1 1 1 i I 1 1 1 1 ' 1 i-h i-h 1 A A 1 O 1 to to i 3- 1 pn rr 1 rt P4 P4 1 to to o P* P* 1 3 3 1 r> r> t rr 1 td td 1 rt 1 O 1 3 1 to to A A 1 to to n T3 T3 1 00 C C 1 TJ TJ 1 > 1 A A 1 n OQ OQ 1 O > 1 3* 00 00 3* 1 P P4 (to 1 rr O 1 > A A 1 to to I O O 1 W W P 1 X X p cr A i P 1 03 P 03 1 o to i A A O 1 H P 1 X* a to a to i A O 1 to to t I (to (to 3 3 P 1 P O 1 p rr 1 < < P I co co C C t 1 It O 1 00 00 Ö 1 to to > 1 to to < I »t »t A 1 P t 1 rr 2 O 1 P O 1 (to 1 t O 1 r| r| P 1 A A 3 1 W W < to 1 A 1 t 1 to to t i P (to | < t P A 1 3 1 3 1 < < P 1 it P 1 cn cn C 3" 1 00 00 O 1 3* 3* A 1 to 1 03 rr < | p tr1 i v< v< t tP 1 A 1 1 2 S to 1 o' 1 it A 1 (to 1 t 52 I M M < 1 A 1 1 CTQ CTQ 1 * p UN o o tu tu UN -> 1 o ON 00 UJ UJ ON it rr I to I—4 tu t i i-4* UJ "4 I—3 4 I—3 UN tu o VO o VO VO VO VO O' tu I—4 o o o o o 00 •• VO "4 00 00 1 •• p •»4 p UN UN tu tu o O VO o p O' P p p 00 -p* vO 1 O' tu tu p to 0 UJ ~o UJ o ••• 00 o o O' l-4 O -O o 00 VO 1 I—* p • tU I—1 o 00 o o p 00 vO UJ VO UN tU tU UN n UN p p UJ v_n o •••• 00 vO VO PP O' o •••• U -P» UN O 00 •• 1 • P ■P- tU u> o VO O' 00 UJ tU P o ■P* Un O' .o vO 0 u> u> o p r-* • ^4 ■vj ^4 o o VO o p 00 o to 00 • o 1 • UJ vO ''J P o O' o o O t—* ON p p I—4 UN vO u> un uj vO UJ Un * 1—* •••• Un I—1 tU 00 • o o o -o 00 P t— ON p 00 Ui -> tU • O 1 CO • -O 00 tU "4 o vO ON UN I—1 tU p uj U) p o UJ -o- •c- S> 0 n * * * * U o o o tU tu • UN o "4 ■C" p • VO ON 1—1 o O o u> UJ tu p tU uj "U •u •p- ¥ * “ l - 1 p to P P rr A A to to 3 o rr O X A C rr rr A o' to rr l O - 1 p A 3 to to € 3 i-l A A A * CL P 3 P A n I c A 3 C 3 O to C O 5 P i-h A 3 A O C_i. A p P A O X tO =r A A 3 tO P 03 C O to w A tO ** Not calculated because it is not a five year age group Page 113 Table 4.6 Probabilities of Infant and Child Mortality Implied by Indirect Mortality Estimates Derived from Women Aged 20-44 and a West Pattern of Mortality Age of iqO li Implied west Model Implied Child Life Table 11 1Q0 15 5q0 2 0.099 90,100 .15(15)+.85(17) 91,777 0.082 88,429 0.11 3 0.137 86,300 .31(13)+.69(15) 88,917 0.111 83,864 0.16 5 0.153 84,700 .77(13)+.23(15) 87,697 0.123 81,875 0.18 10 0.177 82,300 .41(11)+.59(13) 85,856 0.141 78,909 0.21 15 0.182 81,800 .54(11)+.46(13) 82,941 0.170 78,338 0.22 Table 4.7 Infant Mortality Rate Estimated from Child Survivorship Data, Age of Mother and Mean Age at Childbearing Age Infant Mortality Rate Years Prior to Census 20-24 75.9 3.1 25-29 94.6 5.2 30-34 96.2 7.5 35-39 104.3 10.1 40-44 82.4 13.3 Page 114 Table 4.8 Live Births by Place of Birth and Attendant at Birth Place Attendant Period Home Hospital Untrained Trained N N % N % N % N % < 1960 245 89.7 28 10.3 213 78.0 60 22.0 273 1961-70 258 86.0 42 14.0 185 61.7 115 38.3 300 1971-83 326 62.7 194 37.3 206 39.6 314 60.4 520 Table 4.9 Live Births Taking Place at Home by Attendant at Delivery Period Delivery Attendent Trained Untrained NO % NO % <1960 32 13.0 213 87.0 1961-1970 73 28.4 185 71.6 1970-1983 121 37.0 205 63.0 Page 115 Table 4.10 Mean Age at Marriage in the Study Area Age Husband Wife 15-19 18.66 16.96 20-24 20.06 16.79 25-29 21.97 17.64 30-34 22.29 16.26 35-39 23.24 16.54 40-44 23.94 17.06 21.69 16.87 Table 4.11 Primary and Secondary Sterility in the Study Area AGE NO PS SS 15-24 96 23 26 25-34 99 5 35 35-44 83 3 59 45+ 77 2 75 PS = No live births SS = Open Birth Interval of more than 8 years Table 4.12 Contraceptive Use in the Study Area Method Current Use Past Use Condom 7 3 IUD 1 1 Oral Pill 7 3 Vasectomy 13 - Tubectomy 34 - Total 62 7 Table 4.13 Sterilizations in the Study Area Period Vasectomy Tubectomy 1964 1 — 1972-74 9 — 1975-77 2 3 1978-79 _ 4 1980-83 1 27 CHAPTER 5 MONETIZATION OF THE ECONOMY 5.1 Changes in Consumer Aspirations and Consumption Patterns 5.1.1 Consumers in a Village Economy As argued earlier (see chapter 3), there have been a series of interwoven social and economic changes wthe study area and large families are now considered as an economic burden. A rise in productivity levels, better prices for agricultural products and increasing employment opportunities outside agriculture have resulted in a rapidly growing demand for non-agricultural products (Boserup, 1981:122). The penetration of the market economy into the rural areas, ’monetization of daily life’ and changing consumer aspirations have led to a general feeling that the cost of living has increased. Not to think in terms of monetary costs when contemplating raising children is now considered abnormal, and even illiterate villagers now appear to be convinced that having more children means more costs. This perceived increase in the cost of living is largely the result of the 'rapid expansion of the cash economy’ and the 'monetization of daily life’. This is because the availability of goods and services has increased substantially and has led to the substitution of store bought goods for home made goods as well as to aspirations for goods previously unavailable. As Knodel, Havanon and Pramularatana (1984:305) point out: ’Increased availability of consumer items and the desire to acquire them create a situation in which having another child and purchasing goods may be perceived as alternatives'. However, if purchasing goods is considered as an alternative to having Page 118 another child, a more important and often decisive alternative is the ability to earn a monetary income. A couple may not want to purchase goods in the immediate future but may decide against having another child in order to ensure that the woman’s ability to earn wages (especially during the peak season) remains unaffected (Schultz, 1974:S4-S6). Mueller states that 'child-rearing need not interfere with market work' because relatives and older children are available for such work (Mueller, 1982:82). But, in the study area we found that such help is not always available as the older siblings were at school and relatives and friends were away working. It is true that a mother can find someone to look after her child for a few hours but not on a regular basis. In other words, even people with little or no formal education are aware of opportunity costs. For instance, one respondent who had had an induced abortion stated: the abortion cost me only two hundred rupees, whereas if I had decided to have the child I would have lost more than a thousand rupees as the pregnancy would have prevented me from working in our field and on others' fields. But, when it comes to purchasing goods, the thought of the additional expenditure involved in raising another child may itself influence parents to either postpone or prevent the birth of an additional child. While parents can hope to obtain economic benefits only long after the birth of a child, the costs of rearing the child are immediate. Moreover, changing value systems leave parents wondering whether they can expect any economic benefits from children. As Mueller states: Educational requirements and costs are changing, as are the various ways in which governments subside children,or perhaps penalize large families economically. The future stream of costs and benefits to be derived from children can therefore only be guessed at by parents. The economic potential of future offspring (and thus their ability to Page 119 give economic assistance) and even their sex are further elements of uncertainty (Mueller, 1972:177). This situation of weighing alternatives has come about because the people can no longer consider themselves as exclusively self-sufficient home producers but rather as consumers in a cash economy. There is not a single household in the study area which can be considered as entirely self-sufficient. It is true that most of the households are self-sufficient to the extent they produce their requirements of rice or fish. But, even to cook rice or fish they require certain other basic necessities like oil, salt, chillies, matches, etc., all of which have to be bought. For instance, the traditional practice of keeping a communal fire burning all the time was discontinued in the early fifties due to the increasing scarcity of firewood and households had no option but to buy matches. In the face of stiff competition from modern mills, the traditional oil crushers have disappeared and cooking oil has to be now bought from stores. This means that every household needs a minimum amount of cash to meet daily requirements. The old system of barter has given way to cash transactions and goods like tamarind and pulses which could previously be procured in exchange for paddy now have to be bought in stores. This change has come about because it is more convenient to sell produce for cash than finding someone who is willing to barter. Changing consumption patterns have also increased the number of goods which are considered as daily necessities. For instance, one old respondent belonging to the lower castes reported that while thirty years ago he had no daily expenses, now he needs a minimum of 30 paise everyday for a cup of tea in the morning. He said that the Page 120 availability of tea in the shops is a very strong temptation which he does not want to resist. This cup of tea means a monthly expenditure of nine rupees which is slightly less than five percent of what he earns. The temptation to drink, a cup of tea every morning becomes all the more stronger when one considers the fact that the tea shops are the most popular meeting places where people freely discuss crops and weather, they carry out financial transactions, settle disputes or simply exchange gossip and discuss local politics. In fact, for many people the cup of tea is only of secondary importance. It is to meet friends that they go the tea shops and once they are there a cup of tea becomes inevitable. The fact that the three tea shops in Vilangulam sell not less than one hundred cups of tea each every day indicates the popularity of tea drinking. In the early sixties when the head of one Pandaram household died, his enterprising wife sold the land and took to preparing and selling Idlies (steamed rice cakes). Customers from all castes come to her house every morning to take away Idlies and having Idlies for breakfast is a habit which even the lower castes have picked up from the higher castes as a part of the process of sanskritization (Srinivas, 1966:6). The fact is that one can buy Idlies or tea only with cash and no other form of payment is accepted. Another consumer item which involves a regular expenditure is smoking. Though a majority of smokers in the area still persist with beedies (locally made cigarettes), the younger men now smoke cigarettes which are relatively more expensive. Smoking cigarettes is not only considered as a symbol of social status but also a refined way of smoking. While it is only the men who smoke, chewing betel is widespread and is a ’necessity' for many men and women in the area. Page 121 In addition to these daily requirements, when one takes into account periodic expenditures on clothes, visits to the nearby towns, going to a movie, eating in a hotel [1], travel costs, expenses during festivals and other unforeseen costs like medical expenses, the cash requirements of a household become considerable. In the face of mounting expenditure and a certain limitation in employment opportunities and wage levels, parents are becoming increasingly aware that having a large number of children is no longer economically viable if they are to improve or even maintain a certain minimum standard of living. 5.1.2 The Demands of Children Children now demand and receive more attention than before. During our observation of activities in one household we found that one doting father had to bribe his son to go to school on time. After giving his son 20 paise, the father turned around and told us that such a thing happened fairly regularly when his son knew he had money. He told us that his own parents used to beat him and drag him to school but 'times have changed' and he could not do the same to his son. He did not mind giving his son money as he was sure that the boy will spend it on 'sweets and not beedies'. He went on to add that while he could refuse to give money, he did not want to do so because he did not want to deny his son the pleasure of buying sweets like [ljHotels in south Indian towns are eating places where snacks and beverages are served at moderate prices which even people with low or middle incomes can afford to pay. Page 122 of manyAhis schoolmates. Parents are not only concerned about the health needs of their children but want to see them properly dressed and attending school if possible. Though education is free in the government school, parents still have to spend money on books and private tution fees as we shall see in later section. In addition to this, children demand and receive small amounts of spending money to buy sweets and toys. All the shops in the study area make sure that they never run out of a stock of sweets, biscuits, marbles and other goods demanded by children. It is common to see a five or six year old running to the nearest shop with ten or twenty paise to buy things. Often parents find that the easiest way to ’get rid of disturbing children’ is to give them some money and ask them to go buy something in the shop and then go to play. Invariably most of the children in the study area receive money not only from parents but also from visiting relatives and indulgent uncles and grandparents. It is a south Indian tradition that one does not visit a relative with ’empty hands’. Usually fruits or clothes or agricultural produce are taken as gifts. When one visits a household where there are young children, it is customary to take a packet of biscuits or toys. However, visiting relatives who may not have had the time to shop for gifts usually give the children some money. This practice of giving money has become popular because it is not only convenient for the visiting relative but is also desired by the children. The amount of money given to children is usually too small to be appropriated by the parents and is spent by the children themselves. When one boy receives a rupee from a visiting relative, the boy next door puts pressure on his parents for some money so that he can buy things as well. Page 123 In short, consumerism has become an important feature of daily life in the study area. In the past, the consumption levels of even the affluent villagers were limited in the sense that there were no shops in the villages and transport facilities to the towns were not as developed as they are now. As Mamdani says, ’changing agricultural technology' has resulted in 'increased contacts with the outside world' (Mamdani, 1972:63). A show of wealth in the past consisted of landownership, a big house and possession of gold. However, mere landownership or a big house are no longer sufficient to establish social status. The emphasis has now shifted to spending on consumer items such as wristwatches and transistor radios which can be easily displayed. In other words, 'conspicuous consumption' has become necessary to maintain and improve social status and as Nag states, 'consumption of goods and services (other than children)' is being used as a 'symbol of social status' (Nag, 1981:276). Rajendran, a respondent belonging to one of the richest families in the area ridiculed his uncle and called him a miser and a 'useless fellow' because he would not spend any money either on himself or his family members. As Rajendran stated: 'What is the use of my uncle earning so much money if he cannot spend at least a part of it to be more comfortable'. What was interesting was that many others in the area (both relatives and non-relatives) agreed with Rajendran's assessment of his uncle. This does not mean that people are becoming spendthrifts. While a miser is looked down upon, excessive spending is also discouraged. The accent is on 'controlled' or discreet spending whenever it is considered necessary. Moreover, in the past, the range of goods available was limited. On the other hand, presently, even villagers who do not have money have to resort to Page 124 borrowing in order to meet certain expenses. To illustrate this point let us consider the matter of gifts on certain occasions. In the study area each household has a list of gifts received on occasions such as marriages, puberty ceremonies and ear piercing ceremonies. Except from close relatives, all other gifts are usually in the form of cash. Suppose A has given Rs 100 to B on the occasion of his son’s wedding, B has to give not less than Rs 100 when he attends a wedding or a puberty ceremony in A ’s house. Even if B does not have the cash, he has to borrow the money to fulfil his social obligation. There is also the custom of announcing these gifts over a public address system so that everyone knows who has given what. This puts pressure on the people attending the wedding and they have no alternative but to give a matching sum of money. It should be noted that while giving gifts has been a traditional and time honoured practice, cash gifts are relatively recent in origin but are most preferred because they help to maintain an accurate balance between what was received and what has to be given. It might be argued that under this condition it may be economically disadvantageous for parents to have a small number of children. But, it is not so because of the balance maintained in the flow of cash between households which does not depend on the number of children. Moreover, we could not find any parent who had decided in favour of a large number of children in anticipation of receiving such gifts. 5.1.3 The Importance of Cash The important role that cash plays in the lives of the villagers can be better understood when one considers the aged in the area who are illiterate. They cannot sign their own names but they can count Page 125 and keep an accurate account of cash. For instance, those who receive old age pensions know exactly how auch they get and they make sure that when they hand out money to buy a bus ticket or a cup of tea, they are not shortchanged. Apart from this, they plan their expenses in such a way that the pension lasts an entire month. Even the older women (though they do it less frequently than others) are no longer afraid to commute to the town for purchases. In other words, people (of all ages) are so constantly exposed to cash transactions that there is not a single person in the area who was unable to think in terms of cash. The women visit the town by themselves (usually in groups) and are prepared to bargain with the shopkeepers if they think prices are unfair. Often they seem to know where they can buy things at the cheapest price possible and make sure they get get a good deal for the money they spend. During the lean season when there is relatively little agricultural activity, groups of men gather regularly to play cards and all gambling is in cash. While in the past only the affluent villagers indulged in gambling (cart races), even the poorer villagers now play cards and prefer cash to settle gambling debts. The economy has become so thoroughly monetized that cash transactions have become the norm and are most preferred. Consider the following case study: Rajamanikam is aged 27 years and he inherited two thirds of an acre of land from his father. As he felt that he could not manage to lead a decent life cultivating the land, he sold the land to his brother and set up a petty shop. He decided to sell his land because (a) he did not have an inclination for agricultural work and (b) he felt that he could not maintain a decent standard of living with the Page 126 land he had. When asked what he meant by a decent standard of living, his reply was that he should be in a position to educate his children as long as they wanted to study, have a few possessions like a wrist watch and a transistor (which he considers necessities), be able to go and 'have a nice time' in the town at least once a month, buy good quality clothes for his wife and his children, and above all, not be permanently in debt like many others around him. He reports that with his wife's help he is able to manage the shop well and business is usually brisk. The income he earns from the shop is more than what he would have got from his land and he is sure of an income every month. He admits that it was risky for him to open a petty shop when there were already two others in the village, but he felt that since his shop (the front part of his house) is located next to the school, he could count on the children to patronize his shop regularly. His reasoning was accurate and he regularly has to stock sweets, marbles and other small toys. But he admitted that though business was good, the margin of profit was not as much as he originally thought would be. Therefore, he decided to invest money on four bicycles and this investment (he had to borrow 650 rupees from a bank) proved to be a tremendous boost to his earnings as the bicycles are in great demand and many times, customers come to hire bicycles and find that they have to wait. The rental charges are 30 paise per hour or two rupees for a whole day. Usually the bicycles are hired out for a whole day and Rajamanikam said that he earns about eight rupees per day from his bicycles. He spends about 50 rupees a month to maintain the bicycles in running condition (this money is spent on replacing tyres) and he does most of the repair work himself. He said that he has no problems in paying 78 rupees a year as interest and was confident that he could Page 127 repay the entire loan within a year. He has no apprehensions about the success of his business as he is convinced that even if more people decide to open shops like his, there will always be people wanting to buy things and his bicycles will always be in demand. His neighbour has a tea shop but does not sell beedies or cigarettes as he is against smoking. Rajamanikam says that his neighbour’s principles have helped him further as beedies and cigarettes are in good demand. He says that even if people stop smoking, they will never stop chewing and he can be sure that his stock of betel leaves, nut and chewing tobacco will never remain unsold. Our observation of activities in this household revealed that both the husband and the wife help each other out in managing the shop, in domestic work and in taking care of the children. When the husband makes his weekly trips to the town to replenish stocks, the wife manages the shop till he returns. Rajamanikam has two brothers living nearby but they never offer any assistance and he feels it reasonable because he does not help them in their agricultural operations. When asked whether he would (in the future) seek his son's help, Rajamanikam replied that he would never do so and even if his son wanted to help him, he would ask him to go to school instead. Coming to the matter of getting his wife sterilized, he reported that both he and his wife had had ' a long chat' when she found that she was pregnant for the second time. They felt that they had to do something about it but deferred taking a decision before the birth of their second child, as the first was a girl. He admitted that he would have reluctantly opted for a third child had the second also been a girl. But, when it turned out to be a male child, he had no hesitation in sending his wife to the hospital for sterilization. He Page 128 reported that he was worried about the prospects of having three children as 'the prices of practically all goods were going up'. His statement about depending on the school children for regular business also reveals that children have small amounts of money to buy things. This indicates that children are becoming bolder in demanding money from parents and more importantly, there has been a change in parental attitudes. Parents are becoming more indulgent than before. In Rajamanikam's case it is his exposure to the 'good things in life' and the changing consumption patterns of his family that led him to not only change his occupation but also decide to limit his family size. Once the decision was made, getting his wife sterilized was relatively easy as adequate facilities were available at the hospitals. While Rajamanikam is one of the few shopkeepers in the area, the in-depth interview brought out two things clearly. The first is that young parents like him are ambitious and keen to improve their standard of living. The second is that people in the village are not merely producers of agricultural products but consumers of non-agricultural products as well. Consumer aspirations for non-agricultural products is indicated by the fact that 283 households (55.6 percent) owned a radio. Most of these are transistor radios which require a regular supply of batteries. More than half the households (60*9 percent) owned a torch which is considered as a necessity by the menfolk who guard the paddy fields in the night. There were 91 bicycles in the area - a popular form of transport. Possession of stainless steel vessels and plates has become a symbol of social status, especially among the women. 340 (66 percent) households in the area reported (with pride) that they use stainless steel vessels and plates regularly and not ones made of aluminium. Page 129 Another consumer item which most men aspire to possess is a wristwatch. 243 (47 percent) of the households reported owning at least one wristwatch. The interesting thing is that even illiterates want automatic watches made in Japan (an automatic Seiko or Citizen watch with a gold plated strap being most popular). Hobson reports a similar finding in Karnataka where repondents were interested in buying wristwatches and transistor radios (Hobson, 1979:239). It is common for a farmer to work in the fields in a loincloth and then change into a synthetic shirt, wear a wristwatch, take a bus to the town and go to the movies. However, if purchase of a wristwatch, a radio or a bicycle is usually considered as a one time investment, there are a number of other consumer items which involve a regular recurring expenditure. Expenses in the study area are determined by a person’s ability to earn an income and by his capacity to borrow money. In the next two sections we will examine income by age and sex, the sources of income and the extent of indebtedness in the area before proceeding to discuss expenditure patterns in the area. 5.2 Income by Age and Sex In a rural agrarian economy where many of the households derive an income from the production of grain, income can mean either of the following. Household Income: to which all or some of the family members contribute by working on the family farm. Individual Income: which is earned by individuals without the assistance of the other members of the family. This kind of income is Page 130 earned by those in non-agricultural jobs and by those (mostly landless) who do farm work for wages. When information on income was obtained, the income reported by the head of the household in the land owning families fell into the first category, and it was not possible to measure the contributions of the different members of the family. In nuclear households where the children were either at school or too young to work, household income usually consisted of the earnings of the husband and wife. In the landowning Thevar families, where all agricultural production was carried out entirely by the head of the household with hired labourers and no contribution from the other members of the family, income was reported as that of the head of the household. In view of the above, we decided to limit our analysis of income only to cases where it could be attributed to the efforts of an individual as it would help us to better understand the capacity of women, children and the aged to earn an income by offering their services in the market. Reliable data on income and expenditure on items like clothes, education, travel and medicine could be collected only from about 1426 or 64 percent of the population studied. This was because some of the respondents could not recall their income and expenditure while a few others did not know how much the other members of the family had earned or spent. The strength of the micro-approach lies in the fact that the investigator can be selective in the sense that it is possible to collect meaningful data from relatively fewer respondents instead of collecting data routinely from the entire population without checking the accuracy of the respondents' reports. It needs Page 131 to be mentioned here that the figures related to income and expenditure are close approximates and not exact figures. Nevertheless, a good number of the respondents could tell us exactly how much they had spent on clothing and medical expenses. While certain items of expenditure were related to the needs of the entire family, others were related to the needs of individuals. It should be noted that while data on income could be collected without any difficulty from landless households, the same was not the case in households which owned land and produced grain. However, the respondents could accurately recall the amount of grain they had sold and the price at which they sold it. There was little difficulty in converting grain into cash. This conversion was done in the following manner. With regard to grain already sold, the exact sale price was noted. With regard to unsold grain, the average price for the year was taken into consideration (the average price of a sixty kilo bag of paddy was 110 rupees and the average price of a fifty kilo bag of peanuts was 320 rupees), as mentioned earlier, only incomes earned by individuals have been taken into consideration. The amount of income earned by males and females in different age groups is presented in table 5.1. Page 132 Table 5-1 Percentage Distribution of Annual Income By Age and Sex Age No ANNUAL INCOME (in rupees) Group Income <1000 1000-1999 2000-2999 3000-3999 4000-4999 5000+ N Males 5-9 98.7 1.3 160 10-14 81.3 12.5 6.2 — — —— 80 15-49 18.2 15.1 14.8 7.1 10.8 8.2 25.9 352 50-59 8-8 7.4 23.5 10.3 11.8 10.3 27.9 68 60+ 34.5 19.0 10.3 3.4 3.4 12.1 17.2 58 Females 5-9 99.5 0.5 187 10-14 70.1 26-9 3.0 — — — — 67 15-49 55.5 35.4 5.2 2.2 0.6 0.3 0.8 362 50-59 64.2 24.5 1.9 1.9 1.9 — 5.7 53 60+ 66-7 23.1 5.1 — 2.6 2.6 — 39 Page 133 It can be seen from the above table that there are a considerable number of males who reportedly earned an income of more than 5,000 rupees. With the exception of the schoolteachers and the lower caste families owning more than five acres of land, people in this income group were from the landowning Thevar caste. The women reporting incomes of more than 5,000 rupees were widows belonging to the Thevar caste who were cultivating the land with hired labourers. Males in the age group 5-9 earned no income except in two instances where a nine year old had earned 250 rupees and an eight year old had earned 150 rupees. In both the cases, the boys had lifted seedlings during the planting season and had participated in harvesting activities. In the 10-14 age group there were five instances where boys had earned incomes of more than 1,000 rupees. However, 99 percent of the males in the 5-9 age group and 70 percent of those in the 10-14 age group earned no income. The significant finding was that there were relatively few males aged over 50 years who reported no income. This indicates that there are sources of income for even the aged. However, it appears that women aged above 60 years earn less than their male counterparts. 5.3 Indebtedness in the Study Area One index of consumerism and monetization in a rural area is the degree of indebtedness. The extent to which the economy of the study area has become monetized can be gauged from the fact that 279 or 54 percent of the households have 379 outstanding debts which have been incurred for a variety of reasons. In the following section we will examine the reasons for this indebtedness and the sources from which money can be obtained. Page 134 Table 5.2 Average Amount of Indebtedness (in rupees) By Reasons Reason Number of Total Amount Average Loans Borrowed Amount Agriculture 113 217,810 1928 Marriage (1) 63 151,315 2402 Medical 41 45,080 1100 Family Needs 77 33,584 436 Investment 67 125,550 1874 Other (2) 36 42,250 1174 (1) Includes expenses on puberty ceremonies, ear piercing ceremonies and funeral ceremonies. (2) Includes expenses on pilgrimages, payment of court fees and fines, house repair, repayment of old loans and gambling debts. 5.3.1 Why honey is Borrowed The primary reason for borrowing appears to be agriculture. 113 loans were obtained to meet expenses related to cultivation (purchase of fertilizers and payment of labourers being the most frequently cited reasons). These debts are usually incurred at the beginning of the agricultural season and are usually repaid after harvest. It was found that these households had borrowed a total of 217,810 rupees had been borrowed at an average of 1,927 rupees each from the banks in the Page 135 nearby towns and from the landlords of the area who also perform moneylending functions. Next to agriculture, social and familial obligations such as marriages, funeral ceremonies, puberty ceremonies and ear piercing ceremonies were reported as reasons for indebtedness. Sixty three households in the area had borrowed money for such purposes. While in 16 cases money was borrowed to celebrate a son's wedding, in 15 other cases it was for a daughter's wedding. However, the amount borrowed for daughters' weddings is substantially more than for sons' weddings. This is because of the importance given to gold in the area. One Muslim family had to borrow 8,000 rupees in order to buy gold for the daughter. Even among the lower caste groups, marriage expenses are considerable and cannot be avoided. One Pallar respondent borrowed 1,500 rupees from a Thevar landlord to celebrate his eldest son's wedding. His second son had to work as a Pannaiyal (contracted labourer) for a period of one year to clear the debt. The average amount borrowed to meet such expenses is 2,402 rupees. The increasing popularity of modern medical treatment is yet another reason for people in the area to resort to borrowing. 41 households had borrowed money to meet expenses such as payment to doctors and purchase of medicine. It should be noted that a part of the borrowed money is also spent on transport and food costs of family members or relatives attending the sick person. However, money is borrowed primarily to procure treatment and a major part of it is indeed spent on doctors' fees and pharmaceutical costs. It was interesting to find that in twenty of these cases, money had been borrowed to procure health services for the wife. One respondent Page 136 reported that as his wife had to be hospitalized for two weeks he had to borrow 700 rupees. Another respondent reported that both he and his wife wanted to terminate a pregnancy which occurred during the busy season and he had to borrow 500 rupees. The abortion cost 350 rupees as it was induced in the fourth month of pregnancy. The rest of the money was spent on ’tonic and other medicines’ prescribed by the doctor and on transport and other sundry expenses in the town. While in three cases money was borrowed because of a son's illness, in four other cases it was because of a daughter's illness. In one such case (which happened during the study period) a nine year old girl fell from a tamarind tree and sustained severe head injuries. She was promptly taken by bus to the nearest hospital and from there by taxi to the district hospital at Thanjavur where she underwent surgery. The parents, who had no money at the time, could raise a loan of about 1,000 rupees from relatives and a Thevar landlord in the village and subsequently another loan of 2,000 rupees to meet expenses. Fortunately, the girl survived and months later the parents told us that they were happy they could save their daughter’s life and never once had any second thoughts about having to borrow money to do it. Apart from this, another major reason for people borrowing money was related to investment. Nine respondents reported that they had outstanding debts because they had bought land. Usually when a piece of land is up for sale, people may not have adequate money to purchase it but they go in for a loan as the opportunity is considered too good to miss. The spread of banking services is another factor which has contributed to the borrowing of substantial sums of money. The Indian Overseas Bank located in Peravurani and Perumagular had a new policy which was aimed at increasing credit facilities extended to rural Page 137 areas. Therefore, the officials of the bank visited the village and promoted a scheme which enabled villagers to procure loans for the purchase of buffaloes. The buffaloes are in fact purchased by the bank and delivered to the customers. Proceeds from the daily sale of milk goes towards repayment until such time the loan is fully cleared. The villagers are not allowed to sell the buffalos until the loan has been fully repayed and a bank official regularly visits the village to make sure that none of the buffalos are sold. This scheme has proved to be very popular and there are 23 people in the study area who have procured such loans. Apart from this, six others have borrowed money to buy cattle required to plough the fields. While one landlord has procured a loan of more than 100,000 rupees to buy a tractor, another has procured 40, 000 rupees to open a fertilizer shop in the village. Ten other persons in the village borrowed money because they had to get their carts repaired. If people in Vilangulam borrow money for agricultural purposes, the Muslims of Senthalaivayal do so to invest in boats and fishing nets. Prawn fishing has become so commercially attractive in the area that one private agency from Thanjavur has opened an office in Senthalaivayal. The agency advances loans to the fishermen who have to buy boats and synthetic nets to catch prawns. The daily catch of prawns is collected by the agency as repayment and this scheme has also proved to be popular as the fishermen not only find financial assistance but have no worries about selling their catch of prawns. It was also interesting to find that 77 households in the area had to borrow money to meet ’family expenses’. This category included 16 households where money was borrowed to buy clothes and 57 Page 138 households where borrowing was necessitated by the daily requirements of the households. While two respondents reported that they had to borrow money because they had to buy jewels (gold) for their daughters, one respondent borrowed 150 rupees to buy a transistor radio which a neighbour wanted to sell. We found that people in the area had borrowed money for a variety of other reasons. In two cases money was borrowed to meet the educational expenses (hostel fees) of sons and in eleven cases borrowing was resorted to because houses had to be built or repaired. Seven people in the area who are periodically arrested for illicitly brewing liquor reported that they had to borrow money to meet the ’police and court expenses'. One farmer in the village who went against the directive of the village committee and irrigated his peanut field found that he had to borrow 150 rupees to pay a fine which was imposed on him. He later reported that though he had to borrow, he was glad to pay the fine as he otherwise would have lost at least 2,000 rupees. Five respondents reported that they had to borrow money to repay gambling debts. Thus, from the above it can be seen that the economy has been monetized to a considerable extent and there is a considerable amount of cash flow in the area. What is important is not that the villagers are able to borrow but that there are sources from which cash can be obtained with very little difficulty. Page 139 5.3.2 Sources of Borrowing The major source of all borrowings in the area is the bank. Both the Indian Overseas Bank and the State Bank of India accept land or gold as collateral and people in the area can obtain a loan within 30 minutes if they have some gold to offer. People who have no land or gold to offer as collateral have to resort to the moneylenders in the village who accept even brass vessels as collateral but charge a relatively high rate of interest. While loans obtained from the banks are mainly used for investment in agriculture or for the purchase of land and livestock, loans obtained from the village lenders are used for a variety of purposes. In spite of the high rate of interest they charge, the village lenders are popular because they are easily accessible and can be approached for a loan no matter what time of day it is. Most of the small loans are obtained free of interest from friends and relatives. Such loans are easiest to obtain as they are instances of mutual help. Now, if people can borrow considerable amounts of money for a variety of reasons , they can do so only if they are confident about their capacity to repay loans procured. The villagers do not take kindly to a man who fails to repay a debt and there is hardly anyone who has failed to do so (especially if the loan is obtained from within the village). The overall economic development of the area can in part be attributed to one type of institutional change, the banking system. The local branch of the Indian Overseas Bank at Perumagalur was opened in 1979 and the branch of the State Bank of India at Peravurani in 1975. Thus, it is only in the recent past that the banks have made a contribution to an increase in the amount of cash flow in the area. A Page 140 shift in banking policies towards extension of credit to the rural areas has improved the liquidity of the farmers. This spread of banking facilities has, in the process of increasing the cash flow, encouraged cash transactions. However, if people in the area have stopped bartering, they are still a long way from dealing with cheques which are rarely used and in many places not accepted. The result is that cash has become the sole medium of all transactions in everyday life and has had an effect on attitudinal change and social change especially with regard to parental perception about the value of children. When people are in constant need of money, they tend to become cost-conscious and tend to think of the costs of rearing a child, whether the income earning capacity of the mother is likely to be affected and whether it is desirable to have an additional child. Table 5.3 Loans Obtained for Various Reasons By Source Reason S 0 U R C E Banks Village Lenders Relatives Friends Agriculture 58 40 8 7 Marriage (1) 14 27 11 10 Medical 3 21 8 8 Family Needs 6 27 23 21 Investment 37 7 3 4 Other (2) 4 11 3 16 N 142 133 56 66 (1) Includes expenses on puberty ceremonies, ear piercing and funeral ceremonies. (2) Includes expenses on pilgrimages, payment of court fees and fines, house repair, repayment of old loans and gambling debts. Page 141 Table 5.4 Expenditure on Education By Age and Sex ^ge Education- Annual Expenditure N of Group < 50 50-99 100-199 200-299 300+ Cases Males 5-9 70.0 22.9 5.7 — 1.4 70 10-14 59.2 32.7 4.1 2.0 2.0 49 15+ 20.0 60.0 20.0 — 5 Females 5-9 72.0 20.0 6.7 — — 75 10-14 46.7 33.3 20.0 — — 15 15+ — — — (1) 1 As can be seen from the table, the expenditure on education of children in the 5-9 age group is minimal and it was only in one case that a Thevar landlord spent more than 300 rupees every month to educate his son. This was because the boy was attending school in Pattukottai and was living with relatives. While it does not cost much to provide primary education, the expenses rise when children want to study beyond the 8th grade. Continuing secondary education means travel to Perumagular and the cost of books and stationery goes up. Moreover, as mentioned earlier (see chapter 3) parents and such Page 142 children spend on private tuition in the village. A matriculate bachelor who has migrated into the village from Kerala is a professional tutor and is very popular in the village. He has sixty students who regularly attend his classes and pay a monthly fee of five rupees each as well as a token payment of a few kilos of paddy at the time of harvest. Compared to the amount spent on educating male children, that spent on educating female children was found to be relatively small. This is because of the persisting traditional attitude which does not encourage parents to send unmarried girls to a school outside the village. There was only one instance where a girl belonging to the Pallar caste was allowed to continue with higher secondary education. Her father (who was once the village president) reported that he found the girl to be as good at studies as his sons and he did not want to deny her an opportunity to get educated though he had to spend more than 600 rupees every year to cover her travel costs and expenses on books. While education is relatively inexpensive, clothing is not (see Table 5*5). People in the study area usually purchase clothes once a year to celebrate Pongal, the harvest festival (on January 14th or 15th) which is considered most important in rural Tamil Nadu. New clothes are a must for this festival and people even borrow money to buy clothes if they have not already harvested their crop. The range of clothes that are now available in the towns has contributed to increased spending. One respondent summed up the prevailing attitudes of the people when he said: I am satisfied with a cotton shirt and a cotton dhoti but my wife wants to wear a nylon sari when she visits the town or goes to a function in a relative's house. My son wants to Page 143 wear a terylene shirt when he goes to the town to see a movie. When others around us are wearing good clothes, I cannot deny my wife and children good clothes and all this is costing me more money. Yet another respondent reported that while he spent only 25 rupees on clothes for his youngest child (aged two years), he had to spend 65 % rupees on his daughter's clothes because she (aged seven) insisted on synthetic clothes. It should be mentioned here that while cotton clothes are used for everyday wear, synthetics are preferred for social occasions. Table 5.5 Proportion of Expenditure on Clothes By Age and Sex (in rupees) Age Clothes - Annual Expenditure N of Group < 50 50-99 100-199' 200-299 300+ Average Cases Males 5-9 1.9 30.0 43.1 0.6 3.1 78 160 10-14 1.3 7.5 37.5 7.5 6.3 113 80 15-49 1.1 4.3 13.6 29.3 22.2 193 352 50-59 — 16.2 41.2 13.2 5.9 108 68 60+ 11.1 20.7 36.2 6.9 3.4 94 58 Females 5-9 1.6 28.3 39.0 6.4 3.7 84 187 10-14 — 4.5 23.9 16.4 6.0 139 67 15-49 0.6 1.9 13.0 35.6 18.8 202 362 50-59 — 5.7 34.0 13.2 8.2 137 53 60+ 5-1 2.6 33.3 15.4 7.7 122 39 Page 144 It is clear from the table that it is only the old people who do not spend much on clothes; they are relatively conservative about their clothes and many continue to wear cotton. Moreover, those receiving old age pensions receive two sets of free clothes from the government and do not have to spend money on clothes. as mentioned earlier, an important reason for people borrowing money is to procure health services. Though health services are free in the Primary Health Centre, the people of the study area go either to the Government hospitals or to private medical practitioners in Peravurani or Pattukottai for the following reasons: Firstly, The Primary Health Centre (PHC) is not conveniently located, the PHC personnel do not visit the village and hardly anyone in the area knows the doctor there. On the other hand, the doctors in the towns are familiar with the health problems and it is easier to go to the towns because of convenient transport facilities. Arumugham, a respondent aged above 60 years reported that he had been visiting the same doctor in Pattukottai for the last twenty years and would not think of going to any other doctor. The concept of having a ’family doctor' is gaining popularity and people do not mind spending money to procure treatment from a known and trusted doctor. The second reason is that pharmaceuticals are easily available in the towns and it is possible to combine shopping with a visit to the doctor. Yet another reason for people going to the hospitals in the towns is that they are aware of the facilities available. One respondent reported that while he had no doubts about the ability of the midwife to conduct deliveries, he would feel comfortable and secure if his wife went to a hospital instead as more facilities were available there to cope with Page 145 unforeseen complications. Thus, all these factors have contributed to increased spending on medical services. The annual expenditure on such services by age and sex is given in Table 5.6 Table 5-6 Expenditure on Health Services By Age and Sex Age Health Services Annual Expenditure N of Group None < 100 100-199 200-399 400-999 1000+ Cases Males 5-9 48.8 25.6 13.1 7.5 4.4 0.6 160 10-14 68.8 11.3 11.3 3.8 1.3 3.8 80 15-49 47.2 21.0 14.8 10.8 4.9 1.4 352 50-59 41.2 14.7 16.2 26.2 4.4 5.9 68 60+ 44.8 19.0 10.3 13.7 8.6 3.4 58 Females 5-9 45.5 31.6 12.8 8.0 1.1 1.1 187 10-14 59.1 26.9 4.5 6.0 — 3.0 67 15-49 33.1 21.8 15.5 16.9 8.6 4.1 362 50-59 41.5 34.0 9.4 7.6 7.6 — 53 60+ 41.0 28.2 10.3 15.4 — — 39 It can be seen from the above table that expenditure on health services is more for females than for males. In all the age groups the proportion of women reporting no expense is lower than in the case of men. A relatively high expenditure on women is partly due to the Page 146 fact that there has been an increase in the proportion of deliveries taking place in hospitals (see chapter 4). Expenditure on health services is high also because of the reliance of the people on modern medical treatment and the decline of Ayurvedic and traditional home medicine. One shopkeeper in the area reported that his stock of ingredients required for the preparation of home medicine remains unsold while he has to regularly replenish his stock of pain killing tablets such as Aspro and Novalgin. We could observe a change in the attitudes of the people in the study area regarding sickness and treatment. For instance, a man with a headache is now likely to go to the nearest shop and buy a tablet rather than go without one. People are willing to borrow money (even at the cost of losing their land) in order to procure medical treatment for their family members. npart from the expenses on education and clothes, most of the respondents reported a monthly expenditure on personal needs such as tea, cigarettes or beedies, betel leaves and nut and visits to the town. While the very young (both males and females) do not have any such expenses, the older men reported spending money regularly on alcohol and beedies while older women reported spending money on chewing betel. The younger men visit the town more frequently than the women and incur expenses on travel, food in a hotel and a visit to the movie. Thus, from the above it is evident that the economy of the area has been extensively monetized and people are now regarding themselves as consumers. Monetary considerations are present in all important decisions and have played a considerable role in influencing parents Page 147 to change their line of thought about matters such as family size and merits and demerits of having a large number of children. Monetization has also led to a diversification of activity patterns and to a shift in the types of activities undertaken by people of different ages. The degree of monetization and a shift in activity patterns have significantly influenced fertility control decisions and have led to an increased acceptance of family planning methods (as seen in chapter 4). However, it is necessary to understand the nature of the labour market in the area and how it operates before one can examine how activity patterns influence acceptance of fertility control methods. Therefore, in the next chapter we will describe the labour market and examine how activities vary according to age and sex and according to various seasons before proceeding to establish a relationship between activity patterns and fertility control. CHAPTER 6 THE ANNUAL CYCLE OF ACTIVITY AND THE LABOUR MARKET 6.1 The annual Cycle of Activity If the economy of the area has been so thoroughly monetized, it is largely because the nature of agricultural operations has changed and rice is considered not merely as a food crop but also as a cash crop. The entire output of the peanut crop is sold and even children are prevented from consuming any part of it. The introduction of high yielding varieties has made it possible for most landowning families to grow a surplus of grain which is sold in the market. Even landless families find it possible to earn enough grain (during the harvesting season) to see them through a good part of the year. In fact, less than ten percent of the households in the area reported that they had exhausted their stock of grain before the crop was harvested and had to borrow grain from friends or relatives. What was significant was that even the poorest families in the area consumed rice and were not forced to shift to coarser grains like ragi (Indian finger millet). The fact that landless families can manage without shifting to consumption of coarser grains indicates availability of employment opportunities which is the result of improved agricultural techniques and the availability of irrigation facilities. In dry farming areas only one crop is grown during a year and the demand for labour remains at a low level except for a period of three to four months and there is not much variation in activity patterns during most of the year. But, in irrigated areas where more than one crop is grown, the demand for labour is influenced by the seasonality Page 149 of the cropping pattern and consequently, the activity patterns of both adults and children vary according to the type of agricultural operations undertaken during different seasons. For instance, in the early sixties when the farmers started growing peanuts as a second crop the demand for female labour went up considerably. An attempt to examine variations in activity patterns is possible only if one understands the annual cycle of activity and the structure of the labour market. In a South Indian village while activities such as taking care of livestock, accumulating manure for the fields, etc. have to be necessarily performed throughout the year certain agricultural activities are purely cyclical and seasonal by nature. Due to the small size of holdings (see Chapter 3), wet rice cultivation is labour intensive and there is a high level of agricultural activity during the season of wet rice cultivation. Given the time of year and the type of crop grown, certain activities have to be undertaken and completed without any postponement. We could observe women planting seedlings in spite of heavy rain because they had to move on to another field the next day. When the sluice gates of the main reservoir were opened for the first time in the year, the fields had to be ploughed. In the following section we will describe the annual cycle of activity in the study area before proceeding to examine the nature of the labour market and seasonal variations in activity according to age and sex using data collected through direct observation of activities in fifty selected households and a retrospective survey of 230 households. na cd OQ fD K-> Ul o v> * T3 B S' oi n o» n a» n n»* ■3 3 C 3 C 3 C <0 3 H- Q. rr 3 rt 5 n m » M» rr Ü Ol 3 2 s *3- 30 rn 00 M» M» ft ^ °° ►- rr 00 £ rr oo O M. 00 ►-* ^ 3 O CD ft & o* 3 0> • 3 a. 5 g N- ? C O *< a. rr n o* ft nt, 5* H- 3^ ft rr» ft CL n* 3^ a. ft ft S' 3 n, H- 5 ir 00 rr 7 5» ►— r* • ft J 2, M* r-* n— 3* ft ft M» a. ff a £ ft g* n| g* CD g* 1 rr ? 3 Q. oo sr a. 2 1 h-» ® ft • ? s* CD CD CD s o nIr nt» B C- Ü ff ft ? O O > n rr CD nt n ft *< s rr rr i a. rr ft ft b* *■< I £ i < r** V-* 3» I 3 2 ft ft ft rr CD ff CD 0 S' 1 2 2, «S' ~ CO 2. 2 3 Q. 1 £ c/> ft > M* ft 01 <* 3» M» 3 rr Q. ft O CD C rr 2 00 00 n s- re lOJ 3 b : to 3 9 3 OQ CW OQ a. 3 Q. 2 « rr n H- 3 n n 3 . c > 00 OQ «4. ® >— CL OQ OQ *5 * 3 ►«* 3 n i 2 rr 03 ro CL o o Ä TO rr B o r« H- 2 M* c »— ® 3 ►p 3^ S OQ rr rr a. § ►** «1 O M« ►—* ® 3 ® ro *—• ä 1 n 5 ►- . o % 3* O o s H» n r ft rr M o CL » 3 r» Q. ft) r OQ rr - n rr O >—• H- ® a ® ft> o re 3 n ft) n m . OQ I n M. a. f H*“ n a rD 3 fT rr rr H- ® r c ® r& U 1 OQ _ B ® a. »1 CL O ® 3 3 fD H- r> o o L - >—• i ® i » 8 3 0O I M» M* C . a g 3 rr n M n 9Q OQ >-* a. H- CD S’ rr >-»■ ® • a o ® =r►- ►- OQ 5 1? v< 3 > ® *"* !T M» ji » I ft) . a a* 2 OQ ’S H* * r c ® I * OQ £ j % . a I ro *< *< s ’S CL 2 3 v< fi ®" S n • 3* * a OQ *3 z ® <0 OQ OQ <3 fi n rr « ® s r c ? - H * a OQ OQ OQ * o . s 3 H* B ® 2 >-* 3* H • OQ » s T 3 2 3 ® T * r 3 u 09 W 6.2 The Labour Market The labour market in the area has undergone a transition along with the changes in the methods of cultivation. The metnod of cultivation in the area is a blend of the ancient and the modern. The wooden plough is very much in use (though with an iron tip) and only one landlord uses his tractor to plough his fields. Use of tractors for ploughing is not feasible because the holdings are very small . If ploughing remains traditional, the seeds used are the latest hybrid strains (IR 20 and IR 50 developed by the International Rice Research Institute at Manila) and both sowing and planting are done in a systematic manner. The use of fertilizers and pesticides is universal and the dosages prescribed by the officials of the Department of Agriculture (based at the Taluk headquarters at Peravurani) are applied. Even farmers owning less than an acre of land use fertilizers and pesticides. If a farmer does not have the money to buy fertilizer from the co-operative society, he can obtain fertilizer as a loan from the shop owned by a Thevar landlord and pay at a later date either in cash or in grain. Weeding the fields is done manually in the traditional manner. All harvesting tasks are done manually and the grain is stored outside the houses in bins made of straw. Thus, apart from the widespread use of better seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, and a change from the broadcasting method of sowing seeds directly to the method of transplanting seedlings, agricultural operations in the area have remained traditional in the sense that they are still labour intensive and there has been no mechanization. While the area under cultivation has remained the same, an improvement in productivity levels has led to an increase in the demand for Page 153 labour. the most important change in the agricultural process is that it has been increasingly commercialized and the farmers in the area look, upon it not only as a source of keeping their families fed but also as a source of earning a monetary income. This process of agriculture being looked upon as a commercial operation has led to changes in the ways in which labour is hired (as we will see in a later section) and the importance given to agricultural activities. 6-2.1 The Non-Agricultural Sector While the demand for labour in the agricultural sector of the market is seasonal, the demand in the non-agricultural sector remains fairly constant except for jobs such as building and repair (houses and roads) which are mostly undertaken during the summer months when there is little or no agricultural activity. Nevertheless, non-agricultural jobs provide employment opportunities to a considerable.number of people throughout the year enabling them to earn a regular income in cash. The age-wise distribution of workers according to primary occupation is presented in Table 6.2. A worker is defined as one who is fairly regularly involved in economic activities which result in an income. Women who stay at home and are responsible for household maintenance are also included as workers. This is because a number of domestic activities directly or indirectly support the production process and persons involved in such activities cannot be considered as non-workers. Table 6.2 Age-wise Distribution of Workers and Non-Workers by Sex Type of Work r\ge Group <10 10-14 15-49 50-59 60+ N Males Income Earning Work Agriculture — 32 356 66 33 487 Fishing — 5 69 4 2 80 Salaried Work —— 39 4 — 43 Petty Trading — — 36 10 15 61 Service Occupation — 2 22 4 4 32 Sub-total — 39 522 88 54 703 Housework 12 10 — — 7 29 N of Workers 12 49 522 88 61 732 Non-Workers 217 70 5 6 72 370 N of Persons 229 119 527 94 133 1102 Females Income Earning Work Agriculture — 31 241 27 21 320 Fishing — — — — — — Salaried Work —— 3 1 — 4 Petty Trading — — 13 12 12 37 Service Occupation — — 1 1 — 2 Sub-total — 31 258 41 33 363 Housework 27 32 323 22 17 421 N of Workers 27 63 581 63 50 784 Non-Workers 217 39 12 16 51 335 N of Persons 244 102 593 79 101 1119 Page 155 All the 80 males who depend on fishing do so because it is their traditional occupation and because of the money they earn. It is true that the they retain a part of the catch every day for domestic consumption, but it is more for the money than to consume fish that they are involved in this occupation. If fishing has been a traditional occupation, there are other jobs which are now available because of the monetization of the economy and are fairly recent. For instance, the co-operative society employs four people, the tea shops employ ten persons, the toll gate at the newly constructed bridge employs two persons, the provision stores employ six people. Similarly, 61 males and 37 females depend on petty trading and vending for their livelihood. Three persons are employed by the post office and the schools provide employment to fifteen people. None of the persons who are salaried employees are any longer involved in agricultural activities. But some activities which are not physically demanding like vending food, vegetables, milk, fish, etc. are undertaken by the old people. Moreover, with the younger persons moving over to non- agricultural jobs, the aged can easily find employment in the agricultural sector. Thus, commercialization of agriculture has not only brought about overall improvement in the economy but has also led to a diversification of activities thereby enabling the aged to find employment and manage by themselves instead of depending on their children for everyday economic support (as we shall see in the next chapter). Page 156 6*2.2. The Agricultural Sector In spite of a proliferation of non-agricultural jobs in the recent past, a majority of the families in the study area depend on agriculture for their livelihood. As many as 487 males (44 per cent) and 320 females (28 per cent) reported agriculture as their major source of income. Agriculture remains the backbone of the production system and is still of utmost importance to the people in the area. However, it should be noted that in agrarian South India, there are many types of production units. As Alaev writes: The small peasant household based on personal labour of the householder was but one type of production unit in agriculture. Widespread to some extent were also two other types, i.e. the large peasant household with the householder taking some part in the work but mainly dependent on the regular inflow of additional labour; and the type in which the householder directed the work of labourers dependent on him and attached to the land (Alaev,1982:229-30). Describing the agrarian structure in south India in the nineteenth century, Dharma Kumar (1983:209) states that ’in the Tamil districts labourers were bought, sold and gifted’. However, this is no longer true and while labourers can be contracted to work for a landlord over an extended period of time, usually one year, they cannot be ’bought, sold and gifted’. In the labour market existing in the study area, hired labour can be divided into two broad categories according to the period of employment and the method of payment. On the one hand, labourers of both sexes are hired and paid on a daily basis to meet the demands of specific agricultural operations. On the other hand, male workers are hired and paid on a yearly basis and both the terms of employment and the payment are different (Dasgupta, 1977:6-13; Thorner and Thorner, 1957:84-96). Page 157 We found in the study area that boys and men work, as adaiyals (adai meaning farm) and pannaiyals (pannai meaning dairy) and it is necessary to examine the terms of employment of these workers in order to have a proper understanding of the labour market. Adaiyals employed by the landowners have to present themselves for work whenever the employers demand it. For every working day they are paid four rupees and are provided with two meals. On the days when their services are not required by the employers, they are free either to work on their own farms or to work elsewhere for wages. The pannaiyals are not as fortunate as the adaiyals to the extent that they have to be always available for work. They have to live with their employers (usually in the cowsheds) and have to do all sorts of odd jobs no matter what time of day it is. A wage of Rs. 600 a year (or 1.7 rupees a day) is paid for the services of a pannaiyal. It is largely due to indebtedness that this system of contracting labour is continuing. If a man wants to borrow money from a Thevar landlord and has no collateral, he offers the services of his son as a pannaiyal. Another reason is that people migrating into the village from the neighbouring dry farming district of Ramanathapuram go in for this type of employment as it provides a considerable amount of security. All the 32 adaiyals in the study area were adult males and most of them had previously worked for the same landlords as pannaiyals. Conversion of employment status from that of a pannaiyal to adaiyal is usually a reward for loyal and satisfactory services. Loyalty to the employer is of vital importance in obtaining such employment and usually extends to political and social support for the employer (as long as the labourer's caste is not adversely affected). A Thevar landlord reported that he found it convenient to employ his adaiyal's Page 158 son as a pannaiyal as he could be assured of good services. The concept of bonded labour has been a part of the Indian economy for centuries and it is only in the recent past that the government made it illegal to employ such labour. Nevertheless, the practice continues, though with modifications and refinements. h.N.Srinivas writes: a poor man contracts to serve a wealthy man for one to three years. The terms of the service, including the wages to be paid by the master, are usually reduced to writing. The master advances at the beginning of the service, a certain sum of money to the servant or his guardian and this is worked off by the servant. Usually no interest is charged on the advance unless the servant tries to run away or otherwise break the contract. The sum paid is exclusive of food and clothing, which it is the master's duty to provide. Frequently, before the period of the service runs out, the servant or the guardian borrows another sum of money and thus prolongs the service. Formerly, it was not unknown for a man to spend all his working life between ten and seventy years of age in the service of one master. This situation however, is no longer true after the enactment of the 'Tenants and Pannaiyals Protection Act' in 1953 by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The Act has made it difficult for the landowners to keep a man permanently in bondage and it has eased the terms of employment for the labourers. We found that the unwritten contract is now valid for only one year at the end of which the employer is free to hire somebody else and the labourer is free to offer his services elsewhere. Even the monetary advance made by the employer is restricted to what the labourer can earn during the period. If the labourer needs more money, it is advanced as a loan on which a nominal interest is charged. However, in case a loan is advanced, there is a moral obligation on the part of the labourer to continue working for the same landlord until the loan has been entirely worked off. Page 159 Thus, labour is no longer ’bonded* but 'contracted* and, in tneory, a landlord does not ’own’ such a labourer. but in practice he has almost total control over his labourer's life and this is one of the reasons agricultural labourers now prefer to offer their services on a ’casual’ and daily basis for cash wages as it provides them with a certain degree of independence which they would not otherwise have. The demand for casual labour starts when the fields are manured before the rains set in. The poorer farmers do this by themselves and it is only those owning more than about two acres of land who hire labourers for this purpose. A wage of six rupees a day is paid, irrespective of the age and sex of the labourer. It should be noted here that meals are provided only to contract workers who are hired throughout the year and not to casual workerswho are hired for specific operations which indicates the impersonal nature of the employer-employee relationship. However, it should be noted that only children above age ten are employed. Following this time, there is a period when only adult males can find employmentwhen the fields are ploughed and the bunds are strengthened. If he takes his own plough and bullocks, a farmer receives a wage of 20 rupees for a day's work, but only seven rupees if he goes without plough and bullocks. For the job of strengthening the bund, a man is paid five rupees a day. Once the fields are ready for planting seedlings, the demand for labour goes up and the seedlings are lifted from the nurseries. This is usually done in the early morning hours (in order to facilitate planting) and even the small farmers hire labourers to do this job- One rupee is paid for every bundle (two handfuls) of seedlings lifted. On average it is possible for a person to earn 15 rupees a day lifting seedlings. It usually takes about five person days to lift seedlings Page 160 enough to plant an acre. A frequent complaint by employers was that the labourers were cheating them by reducing the size of the bundles. But, as one labourer said: 'how can I reduce the size of the bundle when the man (employer) is always standing there inspecting the progress of the work?' The bundles are placed in rows by the men who transport the seedlings from the nurseries and the women do the planting. When hired labourers are required, word is sent through an ’agent' and it is his or her responsibility to bring the required number of people. Planting an acre usually takes about 15 to 18 person days of labour and five or six women are employed to plant seedlings in one acre of land over three days and each woman is paid six rupees a day. We found that this activity is performed only by females. Girls are inducted when they are about eleven or twelve years old. Initially they go planting with their mothers or other relatives, and only after they acquire skill and experience are they sent independently. Once the planting work is completed the level of female employment goes down and it is usually the males who apply fertilizers. The task of spraying pesticides is entrusted to four men in the village who operate power sprayers at the rate of 45 rupees an acre. The use of fertilizers and pesticides is universal and we could not find a single farmer who had not employed them. Weeding the paddy fields which was reportedly a family affair in the past now requires hired labourers. This change is attributed to the widespread use of fertilizers. Both males and females are used for this task and a wage of five rupees a day is paid. Page 161 Harvesting the paddy crop is divided into three stages. After reaping, the crop is tied in bundles and carted or carried home. In front of the households the ground is cleaned and prepared for threshing which is done by the males with the females handing them the bundles to be threshed. Once threshing is completed, the grain is winnowed by the men and stored, by workers of both sexes, in bins made of straw. Meanwhile, the hay is spread on the floor by the women and trampling is done by the males using teams of bullocks. as this is a monotonous job which requires neither skill nor any great deal of physical effort, even boys between seven and ten years are employed. After the last of the grain is extracted, the hay is ricked, by both men and women, and allowed to dry before it is stacked. Building the grain bins and the hay stacks requires a certain amount of skill and is done only by men who are experienced. We observed that while children above age ten were used as helpers on their own farms, they were not hired to work on other farms except for trampling. It was interesting to find that while all other activities related to paddy cultivation are paid for in cash, all harvesting activities have to be paid for in grain (hencher, 1978:208)- There are many reasons for this peculiarity. Firstly, the employers , with their cash reserves at a low level, find it convenient to pay in grain; although a few of the very big farmers confessed that they would be glad to pay in cash and store the grain for sale during the lean season at higher prices. Secondly, the labourers will not accept anything but grain as payment because they can store the grain either for consumption or sale during the lean season. Finally, it is a traditional practice for every farmer in the area to share his grain with others. We found that apart from the grain given as wages, a Page 162 small amount (one kilo) is given to meet the smoking and chewing needs of the worker (male or female). Even the children are given small gifts of grain which they usually sell to the shopkeepers and in turn buy sweets and toys. It was interesting to find that the children refuse to barter the grain for sweets or marbles and insist on selling it for cash. For reaping and threshing, the males are given 7.5 kilos paddy for a day’s work while the females are paid 5.5 kilos. This is because the male workload is thought to be more strenuous than the female workload. But, as we could observe, female activities are as strenuous as male activities and this sex discrimination in payment is primarily resorted to as a means of paying out less grain. For all other harvesting activities, both males and females are paid 5*5 kilos of grain. Immediately after the paddy crop is harvested, the fields suitable for peanut cultivation are ploughed and sowing takes place. The demand for hired labour at this stage is less than it is for paddy cultivation as only about two thirds of the total acreage is suitable for growing peanuts. Certain lowlying fields are considered to be too moist for peanut cultivation but not wet enough for a second rice crop. Once sowing is completed, there is a lull in the demand for hired labour until it is necessary to hoe the fields. Females are hired to do this job and a wage of five rupees is paid for a day’s work. Both males and females are hired to harvest the crop and the wage rate remains the same. The tasks of sorting the peanuts, removing them from the shells and cleaning them are done by the women and children. Harvesting the peanut crop is always paid for in cash Page 163 and the labourers are not allowed to demand payment in nuts. This is for two reasons; the grower prefers to keep the crop himself and secondly as there is relatively more unemployment he can always find some who will accept cash payment. Once tne peanut crop is harvested, there is very little agricultural activity and the demand for wage labour goes down. During the dry summer months of April, May and June, activities are tree cutting for firewood, deepening or desilting irrigation canals, mending agricultural implements, trading in livestock and other supportive functions which help the farmers to prepare for the onset of ^the busy season. Thus, the types of agricultural activities undertaken in the study area vary according to three distinct seasons: [1] The Peak Season: the period between September and January is when intensive wet rice cultivation takes place and the demand for all forms of labour is very high. [2] The Mild Season: the period between February and April when there is no wet rice cultivation but a peanut crop is cultivated. [3] The Lean Season: the period between flay and August when no crops are cultivated. Direct observation of activities in the study area during these different seasons yielded 27 different categories of activities which, for the convenience of analysis, have been collapsed into five major categories (see Appendix I for a detailed list of activities). In the following section we will attempt to examine variations in activity Page 164 patterns during the different seasons according to age and sex. It should be noted here that we are dealing with primary activities undertaken during the the 16 hour period of observation (from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.) The different types of activities have been collapsed into five main categories as follows: Productive Activities: included here are all agricultural activities which directly result in income earning production and those which are directly related to them. All non-agricultural activities which result in an income are also included here. Though teaching in a school is an educational by nature, it has been included in this category because the teachers in the area consider it to be primarily a source of monetary income. Domestic Activities: this category includes all activities related to household maintenance usually attended to by the women and female children. Child care has also been included here. Though most of the activities in this category can be considered to be productive, they have been categorized separately in order to examine the activity patterns of the women and children. Educational Activities: this category is mainly related to attending school, attending private tuition classes and study sessions at home in the evenings and on holidays. Social and Cultural Activities: there are a number of activities in the study area which people have to undertake to fulfil social obligations. For instance, a person invited to attend a wedding cannot easily abstain from doing so (for fear of insulting the host). Not only is attending a relative’s funeral important but also Page 165 attendance at the rituals that follow. a. person cannot walk away from a neighbour who wants to have a chat. Apart from this, there are a number of cultural activities in which people participate. Practically all the people in the study area participated in the annual village festival (which lasted ten days in April). Leisure Time Activities: included here are all activities which are undertaken because of personal needs such as sleeping, resting, bathing, eating and washing as well as activities like playing, gambling, talking to friends or neighbours when there is no other work. Table 6-3 Number of Persons Whose Activities Were Covered By Direct Observation and Retrospective Survey Age Group Observed Reported Males Females Persons Males Females Persons 5-9 32 34 66 47 72 119 10-14 29 27 56 54 57 111 15-49 64 69 133 233 255 488 50-59 10 4 14 51 27 78 60+ 7 4 11 55 34 89 ALL AGES 142 138 280 440 445 885 6-3 Activities of Children In the following sections we will examine the seasonal variations in the activity patterns of both males and females of different ages and then proceed to examine how the activity patterns of males compare with those of females and how the activity patterns vary according to the different seasons. When examining variations in activity patterns (especially activities of children), it is important to distinguish between those children who go to school and those who do not. This is Page 166 because school going children are normally left alone to concentrate on their involved in farm work as those who do not go to school. Apart from this, children who are not old enough for farm work are often entrusted with work around the home such as taking care of siblings. Even children who are involved in farm work may be employed only to perform specific activities and their activity patterns may vary from that of of their parents. The seasonal variations in the activities of children aged between five and fourteen years which were directly observed are presented in Table 6.4. Page 167 Table 6-4 Seasonal Variations in the Activities of School Going and Non-school Going Children - average No. of Hours Per 16 Hour Day - Direct Observation Activity/Age 5-9 10-14 In School Not In School In School Not In School M FMF M FM F Peak Season Productive 0.9 0.5 1.9 1.5 1.2 1.3 3.9 3.2 Domestic 0.0 1.9 1.3 2.7 0.5 2.1 1.6 4.1 Sub-total 0.9 2.4 3.2 4.2 1.7 3.4 5.5 7.3 Education 4.5 4.0 0.0 0.0 4.1 4.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.3 0.0 0.4 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.7 0.4 Leisure 10.3 9.6 12.4 11.6 9.8 8.4 9.8 8.3 N of Days 30 50 5 15 40 20 25 25 N of Persons 6 10 1 3 8 4 5 5 Mild Season Productive 0.7 0.9 1.4 1.4 0.9 1.2 3.6 3.2 Domestic 0.0 1.5 1.9 2.9 0.4 2.2 2.3 4.5 Sub-total 0.7 2.4 3.3 4.3 1.3 3.4 5.9 7.7 Education 5.6 4.1 0.0 0.0 4.7 4.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.4 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.9 1.2 0.9 Leisure 9.3 9.3 12.3 11.5 9.5 7.7 11.3 7.4 N of Days 60 55 10 25 25 15 10 30 N of Persons 12 11 2 5 5 3 2 6 Lean Season Productive 0.2 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.7 0.6 2.1 1.2 Domestic 0.3 2.1 1.5 2.2 0.4 2.2 1.9 3.3 Sub-total 0.5 2.2 2.0 2.5 1.1 2.8 4.0 4.5 Education 4.5 3.5 0.0 0.0 3.5 3.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.9 0.6 1.2 0.8 1.2 1.1 1.4 1.2 Leisure 10.1 9.7 12.8 12.7 10.2 9.1 10.6 10.3 N of Days 40 25 15 10 30 15 15 30 N of Persons 8 5 3 2 6 3 3 6 Page 168 It is evident that, in both the 5-9 and 10-14 age groups, schoolgoing children are less involved in productive and domestic activities than those who do not go to school. But, they do contribute to such activities before they go to school or after they return from school in the afternoon. For instance, Radhakrishnan, a thirteen year old, used to help his father run the tea shop in the mornings before going to school. On returning from school he used to go to the fields to scrape grass for the cow. However, his father used to insist on regular school attendence and at no time could the boy stay away from school using work as an excuse. Similarly female children assist mothers in domestic activities before and after school. It can be seen from the table that boys spent more time on educational activities than girls. This is because the parents insist that the boys do some reading and writing in the evenings while the girls are usually asked to help in cooking activities. There seems to be a definite preferential treatment given to boys’ education (see chapter 3). It can also be seen that during the lean season (when there is not much agricultural activity), the time spent on educational activities declines. The reason for this is that the schools are closed during the months of May and June for the summer vacations and we could observe relatively little educational activity. The time spent on such activities during the lean season is mainly taken up by private tuition classes. Page 169 During the peak season we found that the average number of hours per day spent on productive activities increases with age. When school going children are considered, there is an increase from 0.9 hours in the 5-9 age group to 1.2 hours in the 10-14 age group in the case of males and an increase from 0.5 hours to 1.5 hours in the case of females. Conversely, the time spent on leisure activities declines sharply from 10.3 hours in the 5-9 age group to 9.2 hours in the 10-14 age group in the case of males and from 12.4 hours to 11.6 hours in the case of females. However, both male and female children who go to school spent considerably less time on productive activities than those who do not go to school. Boys in the 10-14 age group spent more time on productive activities because they are involved in agricultural operations such as lifting seedlings, weeding, reaping and trampling, and because they are usually entrusted with the job of taking care of livestock. During the peak season all the paddy fields are fenced in order to prevent cattle from destroying the crop. Consequently, the cattle have to be driven to uncultivated land further away for grazing. We could observe Sunderraj, a twelve year old, leaving home at seven in the morning with the cattle and returning at three in the afternoon. He had to do this to make sure that the cattle did not damage anyone's paddy crop. Similarly, girls in the 10-14 age group are involved in planting seedlings, weeding and in harvesting activities, apart from this, girls in this age group spent a considerable amount of their time on domestic activities. These findings indicate that both boys and girls in the 10-14 age group are more actively involved in productive and domestic activities than those in the younger age group. Children of both sexes in the 10-14 age group spent a considerable amount of time on domestic Page 170 activities primarily to enable mothers to work, away from home and because they are given domestic jobs like gathering and cutting firewood in the case of boys and cooking, washing dishes and clothes and taking care of siblings in the case of girls (Dube: 1981:201). We could observe Neelakantan, a ten year old, doing all the cooking because both his parents and his elder brother were away working. Children in the 5-9 age group spend more time on leisure activities because they are allowed to play for longer hours than those in the next age group. During the season when the peanut crop is cultivated we found that boys and girls in the 5-9 age group were less involved in productive activities than in educational activities, girls in the 10-14 age group spent more time on productive activities than boys in the same age group, ns mentioned earlier, this is because peanut cultivation involves more work for females than males. This indicates not only selectivity but also a decline in the demand for labour. On examining the types of activities undertaken during the lean season we found that, in the case of males, while the level of involvement in productive tasks is very low in the younger age groups, the time spent on educational activities is also low. Conversely, the time spent on social activities increases (the village festival being largely responsible for this increase). However, both in the case of school going children and those who do not go to school, the amount of time spent on productive activities is much lower when compared to the other seasons. Page 171 To summarize our observations, children who go to school contribute much less to the production process than those who do not. With an increasing rate of school enrolment this contribution is likely to decline further. However, the fact remains that children do play a supportive role to the extent they take care of domestic activities and free the parents to work away from home. Predictably, the amount of time spent by children in the 10-14 age group is higher than that spent by those in the younger age group because of a drop in school attendence. While we could observe that children do make a contribution to productive and domestic work, what was reported by parents during the retrospective surveys was different in the sense that parents tended to downplay the productive roles of their children. The variations in the activity patterns of children aged between five and fourteen years as reported by the parents are presented in Table 6*5 Page 172 Table 6-5 Seasonal Variations in the activities of School Going and Non-school Going Children - Average No. of Hours Per 16 Hour Day - Retrospective Survey Activity 5-9 10- 14 In School Not In School In School Not In School M FMF MFMF Peak Season Productive 0.6 0.3 1.5 1.3 1.3 1.2 3.3 3.4 Domestic 0.0 2.1 0.9 2.1 0.4 1.7 1.2 3.9 Sub-total 0.6 2.4 2.4 3.4 1.7 2.9 4.5 7.3 Education 4.7 4.5 0.0 0.0 4.5 4.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.1 0.0 0.4 0.1 0.6 0.4 0.9 0.5 Leisure 10.6 9.1 13.2 12.5 9.2 8.7 10.6 8.2 Mild Season Productive 0.3 0.4 1.3 1.9 0.9 1.4 3.1 3.5 Domestic 0.0 1.6 1.2 2.3 0.6 2.2 1.9 3.6 Sub-total 0.3 2.0 2.5 4.2 1.5 3.6 5.0 7.1 Education 4.5 4.5 0.0 0.0 4.5 4.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.6 0.8 0.7 Leisure 10.8 9.3 13.3 11.4 9.4 7.8 10.2 8.2 Lean Season Productive 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.4 2.1 1.4 Domestic 0.3 1.2 1.2 2.3 0.9 1.9 1.2 2.3 Sub-total 0.3 1.2 1.6 2.6 1.4 2.3 3.3 3.7 Education 4.3 4.0 0.0 0.0 3.7 3.0 0.0 0.0 Social 0.6 0.5 0.9 0.8 1.5 1.2 1.4 1.6 Leisure 10.8 10.3 13.5 12.6 10.8 11.8 11.3 10.7 N of days 495 705 210 375 450 210 360 645 N of persons 33 47 14 25 30 . 14 24 43 Page 173 It is evident from the above table that the activities of children as reported by parents are very similar to what we could observe. Children who go to school spent less time on productive activities than those who did not. However, even children who were not in school were reported as spending less time on productive activities than they did on leisure activities. During one of our periodic visits to the household we found one father telling us that his son spent 'all his time playing with his friends' while he was telling the son to go to the shop and buy a box of matches. There was definitely a tendency on the part of parents to understate the value of children's contributions. This is because an errand like shopping is not considered to be serious productive work which can earn money. More often than not, such small tasks which children perform go unnoticed by parents. Goldstein and Oldham say that 'work is defined by children as activity undertaken principally to obtain money' (Golcftein and Oldham, 1979:92). In the study area not only do the children feel this way but the parents do as well. A person who 'works' is one who 'earns money'. The importance given to a monetary income is such that many activities which children perform are not considered productive because of an absence of a tangible return. This feeling among parents that children are not productive is further strengthened by the costs they have to incur in rearing children (see chapter 5). 6.4 Activities of Adults If children contribute little to productive activities (at least according to what the parents report) what do those in the older age groups do ? How much time do those over 15 years of age spend on productive activities ? What is the contribution of the elderly to Page 174 productive activities ? The seasonal variations in the activities (which were directly observed) of males and females aged 15 years and above are presented in Table 6*6. Table 6.6 Seasonal Variations In the Activities of Persons Aged 15 Years and Above - Average No. of Hours Per 16 Hour Day - Direct Observation Type of Age Group Activity 15'-49 50-59 60+ M F MF MF Peak. Season Productive 7.4 5.3 6.0 3.8 4.7 3.6 Domestic 0.6 4.1 0.4 3.6 0.3 3.0 Sub-total 9.0 9.4 6.4 7.4 5.2 6.6 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 1.2 0.7 0.8 1.3 0.7 1.2 Leisure 6.8 5.9 8.8 7.9 10.3 8.2 N of Days 14 145 15 5 20 10 N of Persons 2 29 3 1 4 2 Mild Season Productive 6.9 5.6 5.3 3.6 4.3 2.6 Domestic 0.7 3.8 0.5 2.4 0.4 2.2 Sub-total 7.6 9.4 5.8 6.0 4.7 4.8 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 1.3 1.2 0.9 1.4 0.9 1.3 Leisure 7.0 5.3 9.3 8.6 10.4 9.8 N of Days 100 115 25 10 10 5 N of Persons 20 23 5 2 2 1 Lean Season Productive 4.4 3.8 3.9 3.2 3.4 2.3 Domestic 1.0 3.6 0.4 2.3 0.3 2.6 Sub-total 5.4 7.4 * 4.3 5.5 3.7 4.9 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 2.8 2.7 1.7 1.0 1.8 2.0 Leisure 7.8 5.9 10.1 9.5 10.5 9.1 N of Days 75 85 10 5 5 5 N of Persons 15 17 2 1 1 1 Page 175 It is evident from the above table that both males and females in the 15-49 age group spent more time on productive activities than those in the older age groups. However, the interesting finding was that males in the older age groups (50 years and above) were more actively involved in productive activities than those aged below 15 years. On the other hand they also spent more time on leisure activities than the younger males. This is because they spend less time on domestic work and spend no time on educational activities. For instance, we could observe one father telling his son to feed the livestock while he himself was relaxing under a shady tree smoking a beedi. Adult males are able to spend more time on leisure because they delegate certain responsibilities to the younger males. Males in the 15-49 age group spent more time on productive activities during the peak season than during the mild season. On the other hand, females spent more time on productive activities during the mild season they they did during the peak season. As can be seen from the table, female participation in the labour force during the mild season is slightly higher Aduring the peak season. As stated earlier, this is largely because of peanut cultivation. On examining the types of activities undertaken during the lean season we found that, in the case of males, while the level of involvement in productive tasks is very low, males aged beyond 50 were less involved in productive activities and spent a good part of their time on leisure time activities. However, there is a noticeable decline in the time spent on productive activities during the lean season by males of all ages. Page 176 There is more time spent on social and cultural activities in the older age groups as it is males in these age groups who usually attend marriages or funerals, visit relatives or friends or socialize with friends in the tea shops or toddy shops. We found that females spent more time than males on domestic activities and subsequently have less time for leisure than the males. While men in the study area are seldom involved in cooking or washing, the women not only work on the farms but are also responsible for a variety of domestic activities including child care (Birdsall and McGreevey, 1983:5). It was only in households where the children were too young to be of any assistance that we could find husbands taking care of the children in order to free the wives for other domestic functions. DeVanzo and Lee report a similar finding in Malaysia (Devanzo and Lee, 1983:87). As can be seen from the table, female participation in the labour force during the mild season is almost as high as that during the peak season. As stated earlier, this is largely because of peanut cultivation. During the lean season we found that like their male counterparts, we observed women going from house to house buying small amounts of paddy which they later sold for a small profit. Women belonging to the lower castes could be observed shifting to work as labourers on construction sites. But the fact is that female participation in productive activities is at a relatively low level because of an unavailability of employment on the farms. Thus, we could observe that those aged 15 years and above were responsible for much of the productive activity that took place during the various seasons. To verify our findings we examined the variations in activity patterns using data collected through the Page 177 retrospective survey, the findings of which are presented in Table 6.7. Table 6.7 Seasonal Variations in the Activities of Persons Aged 15 Years and Above - Average No. of Hours Per 16 Hour Day - Retrospective Survey Type of Age Group Activity 15-49 50-5>9 60+ M FM F M F Peak Season Productive 7.9 5.6 6.2 4.3 4.9 3.5 Domestic 0.9 4.3 0.3 3.7 0.4 3.0 Sub-total 8.8 9.9 6.5 8.0 5.3 6.5 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 1.4 0.7 0.9 1.2 1.2 1.4 Leisure 5.8 5.4 8.6 6.8 9.5 8.1 Mild Season Productive 7.0 6.2 5.2 4.5 3.7 2.8 Domestic 0.7 3.6 0.2 2.7 0.3 2.2 Sub-total 7.7 9.8 5.4 7.2 4.0 5.0 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 1.4 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.3 Leisure 6.9 5.2 9.4 7.4 10.5 9.7 Lean Season Females Productive 4.7 3.3 3.6 3.4 3.1 2.5 Domestic 0.9 4.2 0.6 2.9 0.4 2.6 Sub-total 5.6 7.5 4.2 6.3 3.5 5.1 Educational 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Social 3.0 2.9 1.8 1.0 1.9 2.0 Leisure 7.4 5.6 10.0 8.7 10.6 8.9 N of Days 3495 3825 765 4055 825 510 N of Persons 233 255 51 27 55 34 Page 178 As we found in the case of those less than 15 years of age, the activities reported were slightly different from what we could observe. Parents, in the process of downplaying their children’s roles tended to overstate their own productive roles. The amount of time reportedly spent on productive activities was higher than what we obtained through direct observation. In contrast to what we could observe, husbands reported that they spent more time ’helping their wives’ in domestic activities. While this was true of households where the children were too young to help, domestic activities were mostly left to the women. In one lower caste household, the wife refuted her husband’s report that he had spent time helping her. For a good five minutes we were silent spectators in an arguement between the spouses and finally the husband admitted that he had reported spending more time on domestic activities than he actually did. These instances were, nevertheless, rare and the quality of the data was not affected. However, with regard to the seasonal variations, our findings from the retrospective survey were similar to what we found through our direct observation. There was reportedly less productive activity during the lean season than during the other seasons. another finding of significance was that the contribution of the elderly to productive activities was not understated. In fact many respondents were happy to report that their aged parents were of 'great help' and 'support'. This not only confirmed our observations but also indicated that the elderly are not as inactive as they are often made out to be. In fact the elderly are becoming less dependent on their children for 'old age support as we shall see in the next chapter. Page 179 6*5 Activities of Males and Females - A Comparison When the activities of both sexes were considered we found that, during the peak season males spent more time than females on productive activities. But females, on the other hand, had less time for leisure than males . This is because they spent a considerable amount of time on domestic activities and less time on socio-cultural activities than males. Another interesting finding was that girls going to school spent almost as much time as boys on educational activities. This is partly due to boys being involved in agricultural activities and in tending livestock as well as a drop in school attendance by boys during the peak season. When the activities of both males and females during the mild season were compared, we found that males are primarily involved in productive, and socio-cultural activities while females are primarily involved in productive and domestic activities. We also found that males aged beyond 50 years are more actively involved in the labour force than females in the same age group. During the lean season we found female participation in productive activities at a lower level than that of males. Consequently, females could spend almost as much time as males on socio-cultural activities. The higher level of male participation in productive activities during this season is due to the fact that while there were not many jobs which required female participation, males had to deepen the irrigation canals, mend agricultural implements and perform other such supportive functions in preparation for the onset of the busy season. In the younger age groups, both males and females spent more time on educational activities than on productive Page 180 activities. 6.6 Activities During the Various Seasons - A Comparison When the activity patterns of the different seasons are compared, it is evident that while males spend more time on productive activities during the peak season than during the mild season, they still have jobs to do during the lean season. On the other hand, females spent more time on productive activities during the mild season as the degree of their participation in the cultivation of the peanut crop is higher than in wet rice cultivation. Similarly, both boys and girls in the younger age groups, especially in the 10-14 age group, are more actively involved in productive activities - boys in wet rice cultivation during the peak season and girls in peanut cultivation during the mild season - than they are during the lean season. Once the peanut crop is harvested, males and females of all ages have a greater amount of time to spend on socio-cultural activities and on leisure time activities. In the last two weeks of the month of April there is a temple festival during which period all other activity comes to a halt and the entire population participates in the celebration. Males and females of all ages participated in the dusk to dawn festivities. During the rest of the lean season, the more enterprising people switched to non-agricultural jobs like construction work, road repair, trading in paddy, vending fish or vegetables and other such occupations while the others spent their time going to movies, playing cards or in seemingly endless hours of gossip in the tea shops, in the toddy shop or in a neighbour’s house. Even the women had opportunites to visit the town and see a movie or Page 181 spend endless hours gossiping with their neighbours. Though one has to agree with Vlassoff when she says that: The daily routine for most village girls consisted in household chores and, in certain seasons, field work. These monotonous tasks, often enumerated as ’washing dishes, scrubbing clothes, spreading cowdung, cooking and cleaning’, pointed to an absence of social and recreational outlets for adolescent females (Vlassoff, 1980:429). we could observe that even adolescent girls were not discouraged from making periodic visits to the town. Moreover, the women and girls in the area convert the task of 'scrubbing clothes' or ’washing dishes' in the ponds into a lengthy gossip session with friends. During the summer months we were (initially) surprised to find girls volunteering to walk to the seashore to fetch drinking water from pits dug in the sand. Though it meant a four kilometre trek (half of it with a heavy brass pot filled with water) the girls enjoyed it because they could get away from being tied down to chores at home and could spend at least a couple of hours with their friends. The point is that social change has made it possible for women and girls to be bold and assertive. Apart from this parental attitudes H-cti/e. also changed and female children are given independence and freedom of movement in spite of the persistence of certain traditional values. Thus, while the demand for labour is seasonal, there are employment opportunities during a good part of the year. The introduction of the peanut crop in the area has not only contributed to a rise in farm output but has also increased the employment opportunities available for women. While labour is still contracted out, the majority of those who work for others do so on a daily basis and for cash wages, «.s Cain and Mozumder state, wages are determined in an impersonal manner according to the ability of a person to Page 182 perforin a specified Cask (Cain and Mozumder, 1981:248). Though a number of households depend on non-agricultural jobs for a livelihood, a majority of the households in the area depend on agriculture. Given the nature of the labour market and the type of agricultural operations, children contribute less to the family income than people in the older age groups. Apart from this, the demand for labour is high except during the lean season and the cash wages are attractive enough to induce women to work away from the household as much as possible so that they do not forgo a monetary income. The nature of activities in the area is such that it plays an important role in influencing parents to decide on family size and fertility regulation as we shall see in the next chapter. CHAPTER 7 ACTIVITY PATTERNS AND FERTILITY CONTROL 7.1 Activity Patterns in User and Non User Households Having established that there are seasonal variations in activity patterns according to age and sex, we will now proceed to examine whether there is any variation in activity patterns in households using contraceptives and those where no contraceptive has been used. The average number of hours per day ( 16 hour period) spent by males in different age groups on different types of activities in user and non-user households which were directly observed is presented in Table 7.1. In the present study use is defined as 'current use of contraception by any partner in marriage', the word contraception implying only use of terminal methods such as vasectomy and tubectomy and temporary methods such as condom, IUD and oral pills. Page 184 Table 7.1 Direct Observation - Average Number of Hours Per Day (16 hour day) Spent on Different Types of Activities According to Age and Contraceptive Use Type of Age Group Activity 5-9 10-1.4 15-49 50- 59 60+ IX NA A NA A NA A NA tx NA Males Productive 1.0 2.0 3.6 4.2 7.1 5.7 7.4 4. 6 5.6 3.7 Educational 4.5 2.0 2.7 1.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Domestic 1.0 0.5 1.2 0.9 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.4 Social 0.4 0.4 1.2 0.6 1.1 1.3 0.7 0.9 1.0 0.3 Leisure Time 9.1 11.1 7.3 9.1 7.1 8.5 7.4 10.2 9.2 11.6 N of Days 65 95 40 105 100 220 20 30 5 30 N of Persons 13 19 8 21 20 44 4 6 1 6 Females Productive 0.9 1.1 1.8 3.6 4.3 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.8 3.4 Educational 2.2 1.5 1.3 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Domestic 1.9 2.6 4.0 4.3 4.3 5.8 0.0 1.6 4.0 4.2 Social 0.1 0.3 0.6 0.4 0.8 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Leisure Time 10.9 9.5 8.3 6.9 6 • 6 6 • 6 0.0 14.4 8.2 8.4 N of Days 50 120 45 90 120 225 20 5 15 N of Persons 10 24 9 18 24 45 — 4 1 3 A - Contraceptive User Households NA - Non User Households Page 185 Our findings fron direct observation given in table 7.1 indicate that as a result of the importance given to primary education, children in the 5-9 age group spent most of their time going to school or on leisure time activities such as playing. But there is more emphasis on primary education in the user households than in non-user households. For instance, male children in the user households spent 4.52 hours a day on educational activities compared to only 2 hours a day spent by children in the non-user households. The time spent by female children of this age group on educational activities is less than that spent by male children, though even in this case female children from the acceptor households spent relatively more time on educational activities than those in the non-user households. However, the female children in this age group appear to have less time for activities such as playing because they are involved in domestic work. There is a decline in the amount of time spent by children on educational activity in the 10-14 age group compared to the 5-9 age group; but children of this age group from the user households do spent more time on educational activities than those from the non-user households, indicating that parents who have accepted family planning methods show a continued interest in their children's education. However, in both user and non-user households, there is a drop in the time spent on education in the 10-14 age group. This is consistent , with our earlier finding that children who tend to drop out of school are drawn into the work force. Page 186 Males aged between 15 and 49 years in the user households spent more time on productive activities than males in the same age group from the non- user households. Further, it was interesting to find that participation in productive activities continues to rise with age till the 50-59 age group and only in the age group 60 and above is there any decline. Males aged 60 and above spent more time on productive activities than those in the 5-9 and 10-14 age groups. This indicates that while the older males are able to involve themselves in productive activities, there has been a shift in the activity patterns of the younger male children who are now spending more time on education than on productive activities. The average number of hours spent on leisure time activities and in attending to personal needs decreases with age and it is only in the 60+ age group that males spent as much time on such activities as those in the 5-9 age group. This is because the younger boys are allowed to play for longer hours and the aged are allowed to rest for longer hours. Another finding is that males in all age groups except the 60 + age group spent relatively little time on domestic activities. However, those in the user households spent more time on such activities than those in the non-user households. Thus, our findings from direct observation indicate that in the user households, children spent more time for education than in the non-user households. This may be due to the fact that the older males work, more, earn more and are able able to provide both time and resources for the younger children to go to school. Page 187 Interestingly, what was reported by the respondents in the retrospective survey was very close to what was obtained fron direct observation. Though the respondents reported spending less time on productive activities and more on leisure time activities, the pattern is similar to that directly observed. Boys in the user households reportedly spent more time on education and less time on productive activities than those in the non-user households while older males spend more time on productive activities (Table 7.2) Page 188 Table 7.2 Retrospective Survey - Average Number of Hours Per Day (16 Hour Day) Spent on Different Types of Activities According to Age and Contraceptive Use Type of Age Group —4 'tjr—*4 o Activity 5-9 i 14 15-49 50-59 60+ A NA NA A Na A NA a NA Males Productive 0.9 1.3 2.7 4.4 7.1 6 • 6 6.8 5.2 5.5 4.3 Educational 4.1 2.2 3.3 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Domestic 0.5 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.3 0.0 0.1 Social 0.1 0.1 0.6 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.4 0.7 0.5 0.5 Leisure Time 10.4 12.2 9.0 9.7 7.6 8.3 8.2 9.8 10.0 11.1 Person Days 240 465 225 615 615 2850 105 660 60 765 Persons 16 31 15 41 41 190 7 44 4 51 Females Productive 0.7 1.7 2.3 2.4 4.0 2.7 4.4 3.2 5.5 2.6 Educational 3.4 1.7 1.1 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Domestic 1.7 1.4 3.5 3.2 4.4 4.3 4.2 2.6 4.3 1.6 Social 0.5 0.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.9 1.0 2.4 1.5 0.8 Leisure Time 9.7 10.7 6.9 7.7 5.8 7.1 6.4 7.8 4.7 11.0 Person Days 255 825 195 660 675 3150 15 390 30 480 Persons 17 55 13 44 45 210 1 26 2 32 A - Contraceptive User Households NA - Non User Households Page 189 An analysis of Che activity patterns of females in the user and non-user households revealed a similar trend. Females in the younger age groups were observed to be spending more time on education than on productive activities. While females of all ages spent less time on productive activities than males, they also spent less time on leisure. This is because they had to perform domestic duties on which a considerable proportion of their time was spent. However, the significant finding is that persons aged over 60 spent more time on productive activities than those in the 5-9 and 10-14 age groups. 7.2 Statistical Analysis of Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use The use of modern methods of contraception by a couple in a rural and agrarian society such as Vilangulam is determined by a host of factors at the individual level, at the village level and at the state level through the various policies and programmes of the Government. In the present research work, which is essentially a micro-demographic analysis of factors affecting contraceptive acceptance, only factors at the individual or household level and the community or caste level can be considered for analysis. The analysis was carried out with the objective of determining whether the income or economic activity of an individual (husband or wife) determines significantly the level of contraceptive use, controlling for factors such as age, caste or occupation of the individual. Such an analysis is attempted by the well known method of multiple classification analysis. The tecnnique of multiple classification analysis (MCA) has been widely used in demographic research in recent years. It is the same as multiple regression analysis, using categorical variables as predictors. It assumes an additive model in which the predictors can Page 190 be in the interval scale or dummy variables (Andrews, Morgan, Sonquist and Klen, 1973:6). The dependent variable has to be in the interval scale or a binary scale. The problem of multi-collinearity among the predictors is also circumvented in this technique, but the findings are sensitive to the presence of interaction among the variables. It is particularly suited to the type of data collected in demographic studies wherein information on many variables, such as caste, is collected in the categorical scale and information on the dependent variable is in a binary scale or in the form of a dummy variable such as currently using contraception or not. The input data format and the interpretation of findings are quite simple and straightforward in this method of analysis. «.s mentioned earlier, the dependent variable is 'current use of contraception by any partner in marriage', the word contraception implying only use of terminal methods such as vasectomy and tubectomy and temporary methods such as condom, IUD and oral pills. Since the main objective of our analysis was to determine factors associated with contraceptive use for the purpose of fertility control or limitation, the analysis is confined only to users of the above methods. The analysis is done separately for currently married men and women (with the wives in the reproductive age group 15-44) with the following covariates and predictors. The analysis was carried out using age as a covariate and the factors considered to influence family planning use, as the following: 1. Caste (Cas) taken at four levels (1) The higher castes (2) The intermediate castes Page 191 (3) The service castes (4) The scheduled castes 2. Occupation (Oc) taken at two levels (1) Agricultural occupations (2) Non agricultural occupations 3. Four activity Variables (Pro) (Dom) (Soc) and (LT) each taken at fourp -levels in terms of the percentage of time spent. [ Productive, Domestic, Social and Leisure Time ] (1) Less than 25 percent of the reported time (2) Between 25 and 49 percent of the reported time (3) Between 50 and 75 percent of the reported time (4) More than 75 percent of the reported time 4. Per-Capita Income (INC) taken at four levels (1) Less than 500 Rupees (2) between 500 and 999 Rupees (3) Between 1000 and 1999 Rupees (4) More than 2000 Rupees From the above system of classification of variables, it can be noticed that while the covariate (age) is in a continuous scale, the other factors are in a categorical scale. Since there was a problem of multi-collinearity among the four activity variables in the sense that that the activity variables taken are correlated (a person who had spent time on one would not have had time for others), it was decided to assess the impact of these factors separately one at a time controlling for the three other basic factors, age, caste and Page 192 per-capita income. It should also be mentioned that educational activity was not included in the list of predictors as most of the people in the area have a uniformly low level of education and educational status as a predictor had no significant impact on the dependent variable, contraceptive use, based on the analysis given in chapter 4. Firstly, in order to test whether there is any interaction among the predictor variables, an analysis of variance considering all two way interactions was conducted for the husbands and the results are presented in Table 7.3; Page 193 Table 7.3 Analysis of Variance VI - Contraceptive Use by V4 - Caste Group V14 - Per-Capita Income of Household V6 - Occupation of Husband with V5 age of Wife Sum of Mean Signif Source of variation Squares df Square F of F Main effects 9.982 7 1.426 8.■ 323 0.000 V4 0.203 3 0.068 0 ..394 0.757 V14 8.099 3 2.700 15..756 0.000 V6 0.000 1 0.000 0 ..000 0.996 Covariates 0.011 1 0.011 o ..066 0.797 V 5 0.011 1 0.011 o ..066 0.797 2-way interactions 3.064 15 0.204 1..192 0.282 V4 V14 2.070 9 0.230 1 ..343 0.218 V4 V6 0.250 3 0.083 o ..487 0.692 V14 V6 0.537 3 0.179 1 .045 0.374 Explained 13.057 23 0.568 3.313 0.000 Residual 29.128 170 0.171 From the above table it can be seen that none of the interactions are significant even at ten per cent level and among the 'main effects' only the factor of 'income' is highly significant even at one per cent level: the effect of income cannot be attributed to the presence of the other factors in the analysis. Hence the application of MCA was considered to be relevant in this case and the results obtained without addition of any activity variables for husbands are presented in Table 7.4 Page 194 Table 7.4 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-capita Income (V14) and Occupation (V6) Grand mean = 0.32 Adjusted for adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev'n Beta Dev’n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.03 0.03 2 47 -0.00 0.03 0.03 3 20 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 4 64 -0.12 -0.04 -0.04 0.21 0.07 0.07 V14 M C r— 1 O 1 62 -0.22 1 -0.21 i o "-j 2 73 o -0.07 -0.07 3 36 0.29 0.28 0.28 4 23 0.38 0.37 0.37 0.48 0.46 0.46 V6 1 140 -0.01 0 . 0 0 - 0 . 0 0 o o o 2 54 0.01 1 0 . 0 0 0.02 0 . 0 0 0 . 0 0 Multiple R squared .237 .237 Multiple R .486 .487 Page 195 It can be seen from Table 7.4 that 32 percent of the couples covered by the retrospective survey are currently using contraception. Among the gross effects of the three predictors measured in terms of eta values (equivalent to ordinary regression co-efficients), the maximum is that of 'income' 0.48, measured in terms of deviation from the mean proportion using contraceptives which is 0.32. Even after adjusting for the effect of the covariate and the other two predictors the effect of income (measured in terms of beta values or the partial regression co-efficients) turns out to be almost the same 0.46* On the other hand, the predictors caste and occupation do not seem to have significant effects on contraceptive use even though their gross effects are substantial. In other words, their effect on contraceptive use seems to be due to their influence on income (as judged from the difference between the eta and beta values). It can be seen that the percentage of variance explained in contraceptive use by the three factors is 23.7 percent. The surprising finding from Tables 7.3 and 7.4 is that age of wife, which is used as a covariate, had no influence in determining the level of contraceptive use. This is explained partly by the fact that sterilization is the most popular method and all couples with two or more children become equally eligible for acceptance of this method under the Government programme. Even the younger couples (after they have a minimum of two children) are as likely to accept the method as other couples. The findings of a similar analysis of variance for the wives (Table 7.5) are consistent with those observed in the analysis of husbands. The predictor 'income' has a significant effect while the other predictors 'age of wife', 'caste' and 'occupation' have no significant effect even at ten percent level. Therefore, we applied Page 196 the multiple classification analysis technique, the results of which are presented in Table 7.6. Table 7.5 Analysis of Variance VI - Contraceptive Use by V4 - Caste V14 - Per-Capita Income of Household V6 - Occupation of Wife with V5 - Age of Wife Sum of Mean Signif Source of variation Squares df Square F of F Main effects 10.292 7 1.470 8.960 0.000 V4 0.405 3 0.135 0.822 0.483 V14 8.432 3 2.811 17.128 0.000 V6 0.144 1 0.144 0.878 0.350 Covariates 0.034 1 0.034 0.205 0.651 V5 0.034 1 0.034 0.205 0.651 2-way interactions 3.964 15 0.264 1.611 0.075 V4 V14 1.458 9 0.162 0.988 0.452 V4 V6 0.809 3 0.270 1.643 0.181 V14 V6 0.685 3 0.228 1.391 0.247 Explained 14.290 23 0.621 3.786 0.000 Residual 27.896 170 0.164 Total 42.186 193 0.219 Page 197 Table 7.6 Multiple Classification nnalysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-capita Income (V14) and Occupation (V6) Grand mean 0.32 adjusted for Adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Lable + category N Dev’n Eta Dev’n Beta Dev'n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.05 0.05 2 47 o o o 0.03 0.03 T 0 o - - 1 i 1 1 i—1 o o 3 20 o o N5 i o 4 64 -0.12 o -0.07 * ►—1 ►—1 1— 0.21 o 0.11 V14 CNJ T o - - 1 1 61 -0.22 -0.21 1 o o 00 oo 0 o 1 1 i o 2 74 o 00 3 37 0.28 0.27 0.27 4 22 0.41 0.40 0.41 0.48 0.47 0.47 V6 1 89 -0.05 0.03 0.03 2 105 0.04 -0.03 -0.03 0.10 0.07 0.07 Multiple R squared .244 .245 Multiple R .494 .495 Page 198 It can be seen from from the above table that among the gross effects of the predictors, that of 'income' is again the maximum. This effect turns out to be significant even after adjusting for the effects of the covariate and the two other predictors. The two other predictors, 'caste' and 'occupation' do not seem to have any significant net effect (beta) and the relatively high gross effect (eta) they have is due to their influence on income as judged from the above analysis. having found that income had a significant effect on contraceptive use, our next step was to introduce the proportion of time spent on productive activities by the husbands into the analysis to study how the activity pattern influences contraceptive use after having adjusted for age, caste, occupation and income. as a first step the findings of the analysis of variance (for husbands) are presented in Table (7.7). Page 199 Table 7.7 Analysis of Variance VI - Contraceptive Use by V4 - Caste V14 - Per-Capita Income V9 - Productive activities of Husbands with V5 - Age of Wife Sum of Mean Signif Source of variation Squares df Square * of F Main effects 14.043 9 1.560 10.183 0.000 V4 0.206 o 0.069 0.448 0.719 V14 5.813 3 1.938 12.646 0.000 V9 4.061 3 1.354 8.834 0.000 Covariates 0.101 1 0.101 0.661 0.417 V5 0.101 1 0.101 0.661 0.417 Explained 14.144 10 1.414 9.231 0.000 Residual 28.041 183 0.153 Total 42.186 193 0.219 From the above table it can be seen that among the main effects , both the predictors 'income* and 'productive activities' are highly significant even at one percent level, while the effects of the other predictors, 'age of wife' and 'caste', are not significant even at ten percent level. While the effect of the predictor variable 'occupation' was not significant, the effect of the activity variable is. The results of the multiple classification analysis with the proportion of time spent on productive activities by the husbands as a predictor are presented in Table 7.8 Page 200 Table 7.8 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V4), Per-Capita Income (V14) and Productive Activity (V9) Grand mean = 0.32 Adjusted for Adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents 4- covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev’n Beta Lev’n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.04 0.03 2 47 -0.00 0.02 0.02 3 20 -0.02 -0.01 -0.01 4 64 -0.12 -0.05 -0.04 0.21 0.07 0.07 V14 1 62 -0.22 -0.21 -0.21 2 73 -0.07 -0.04 -0.04 3 36 0.29 0.22 0.22 4 23 0.38 0.34 0.34 0.48 0.41 0.41 V9 1 14 -0.25 -0.25 -0.27 2 47 -0.19 -0.18 -0.18 3 100 0.01 0.04 0.04 4 33 0.35 0.23 0.24 0.39 0.32 0.33 Multiple R squared .333 .335 Multiple R .577 .579 Page 201 It is evident from the above table that the gross effects of the predictor ’income' on contraceptive use remains the maximum at 0.48 and even after adjustment for the covariate and other factors, it goes down marginally to 0.41. However, it was interesting to find that the gross effect (eta) of the predictor 'productive activities' is 0.39 almost as high as that of income - and the net (beta) effect is 0.33. Further, there is a significant increase in the proportion using contraception with a rise in the proportion of time spent on productive activities, cunong couples with the husband spending less than 25 percent of the reported time on productive activities (category 1), the proportion using contraception after adjusting for the other factors is 0.05 (0.32 - 0.27), between 25 and 50 percent of the time in productive activities the proportion is 0.14 (0.32 0.18), between 50 and 75 percent of the time on productive activities the proportion is 0.36 (0.32 + 0.04) and over 75 percent of the time on productive activities the proportion is 0.56 (0.32 + 0.24). The implication of this finding is that greater involvement in terms of higher proportion of time spent on productive activities has a significant and positive effect on contraceptive use even after controlling for per-capita income. The percentage of variance explained in contraceptive use is 33.5 which is significantly higher than it was when 'occupation' was used as a predictor in the place of 'productive activities'. This indicates that the proportion of time spent on productive activities has a significant impact on contraceptive use, an effect independently significant even after controlling for the factors of caste and income. Having found that the productive activities of husbands has a significant effect on contraceptive use, our next step was to examine if the productive Page 202 activities of the wives had a similar effect. The results of the analysis of variance using the productive activities of wives are presented in Table 7.9 Table 7.9 Analysis of Variance VI - Contraceptive Use by V4 - Caste V14 - Per-capita Income V9 - Productive activities of Wife with V5 - Age of Wife Sum of Mean Signif Source of variation Squares df Square F of F Main effects 12.703 9 1.411 8.761 0.000 V4 0.434 3 0.145 0.898 0.443 V14 7.067 3 2.356 14.622 0.000 V9 2.555 3 0.852 5.287 0.002 Covariates 0.000 1 0.000 0.000 0.998 V5 0.000 1 0.000 0.000 0.999 Explained 12.703 10 1.270 7.885 0.000 Residual 29.482 183 0.161 Total 42.186 193 0.219 It can be seen from the above table that, as in the case of husbands both income and the time spent on productive activities have a significant effect on contraceptive use while the co-variate (age) and the caste group do not have any effect even at the ten percent level. The results of the multiple classification analysis using the time spent by wives on productive activities are presented in Table 7.10. Page 203 Table 7.10 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with the Predictors of Caste (V6),, Per-capita Income (V14) and Productive activities (V9) Grand mean 0.32 Adjusted for Adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev' n Beta Dev’n Beta V 4 63 0.12 0.04 0.04 47 -0.00 0.05 0.05 20 -0.02 -0.05 -0.05 64 -0.12 -0.06 -0.06 0.21 0.10 0.10 V14 61 -0.22 -0.20 -0.20 74 -0.08 -0.06 -0.06 37 0.28 0.23 0.23 22 0.41 0.38 0.38 0.48 0.44 0.44 4 -0.32 -0.41 -0.41 150 •0.06 -0.04 -0.04 33 0.23 0.19 0.19 7 0.39 0.26 0.26 0.30 0.25 0.25 Multiple R squared .301 .301 Multiple R • 549 • 549 It is evident from the above table that the predictor 'income’ has the maximum effect of 0.48 and after adjusting for the other factors such as age and caste, the effect on contraceptive use remains practically the same at 0*44. Similarly, the unadjusted effect of the time spent on productive activities is 0.30 and even after adjustment for the three other factors including 'income' remains high at 0.25. The percent of variance explained in contraceptive use is 30.1 which is similar to the result obtained when the time spent on productive activities by husbands was used in the analysis. Page 204 In short, it is clear from the above analysis that, in the case of both husbands and wives, the two factors which have significant effects on contraceptive use are income and the proportion of time spent on productive activities. It is interesting to find that activity patterns exercise an independent effect on contraceptive use. The higher the proportion of time spent on productive activities by the couple, the greater is the chance of the couple using a modern method of contraception. If the time spent on productive activities has a positive and significant impact on acceptance, it should follow that other activity variables such as time spent on domestic or social and leisure time activities should have a negative impact. In order to validate this point, as the next step in our analysis, we introduced the proportion of time spent on domestic activities by husbands as a predictor and the results of the multiple classification analysis are presented in Table 7.11 Page 205 Table 7.11 Multiple Classification Analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14) and Domestic Activities (Vll) Grand mean = 0.32 adjusted for Adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev' n Beta Dev' n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.03 0.03 2 47 -0.00 0.04 0.04 3 20 -0.02 -0.03 -0.03 4 64 -0.12 -0.05 -0.05 0.21 0.08 0.08 V14 1 62 -0.22 -0.20 -0.20 i 2 73 o o -0.07 -0.07 3 36 0.29 0.27 0.27 4 23 0.38 0.33 0.33 0.48 0.44 0.44 Vll 1 42 -0.15 -0.11 -0.11 2 106 0.10 0.06 0.06 i o "-4 3 32 o -0.03 -0.03 4 14 -0.11 -0.09 -0.10 0.23 0.16 0.16 Multiple R squared • 261 .261 Multiple R .511 .511 Prom this table it can be seen that while both the predictors 'income' and ’domestic activities' continue to have a significant effect, the effect of the predictor 'domestic activities' is barely significant at ten percent level. The effects of the other predictors 'age of wife' and 'caste' remain insignificant even at ten percent level. The effects of the predictor 'domestic activities' (of wives) on contraceptive use using multiple classification analysis are presented in table 7.12. Page 206 Table 7.12 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14) and Domestic activities (Vll) Grand mean = 0.32 Adjusted for Adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev' n beta Dev' n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.03 0.03 2 47 -0.00 0.04 0.04 20 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 4 64 -0.12 -0.05 -0.05 0.21 0.09 0.09 V14 1 61 -0.22 -0.19 -0.19 2 74 -0.08 -0.08 -0.08 3 37 0.28 0.25 0.25 4 22 0.41 0.37 0.37 0.48 0.43 0.43 Vll 1 5 -0.32 -0.25 -0.26 2 113 -0.08 -0.05 -0.05 3 74 0.15 0.10 0.11 4 2 -0.32 -0.35 -0.34 0.28 0.20 0.20 Multiple R squared .279 .279 Multiple R .528 .528 It is evident from the above table that the proportion of time spent on domestic activities by wives as a predictor seems to have a significant effect on the contraceptive use, though not at the same level as ’productive activities'. Except at level 2, the effect of this predictor is negative, implying that, the higher the level of domestic activity, the lower is the probability of contraceptive use. The percent of variance explained in using contraceptives is 28*7 which is considerably lower than the percent explained by the inclusion of 'productive activities' as the predictor as explained in Page 207 table 7.10. The time spent on 'productive activities' seems to have a greater explanatory power on the acceptance of contraceptive methods. In order to validate this, we introduced the proportion of time spent on social and cultural activities by the husbands as the activity predictor and the results of the multiple classification analysis are presented in table 7.13. Page 208 Table 7-13 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14) and Social Activities (V12) Grand mean = 0.32 adjusted for adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev’n Eta Dev' n Beta Dev ’ n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.02 0.02 2 47 -0.00 0.02 0.02 3 20 -0.02 -0.00 -0.00 4 64 -0.12 -0.03 -0.03 0.21 0.05 0.05 V14 1 62 -0.22 -0.23 -0.23 2 73 -0.07 -0.05 -0.05 3 36 0.29 0.27 0.27 4 23 0.38 0.36 0.36 0.48 0.46 0.46 V12 1 11 0.23 0.17 0.17 2 146 -0.00 0.00 0.00 3 25 0.04 0.02 0.02 4 12 -0.24 -0.24 -0.24 0.17 0.16 0.16 Multiple R squared .259 .260 Multiple R .509 .509 From this table it is clear that while the predictor ’income’ continues to have a significant effect, the effects of the other predictors ’age of wife’, ’caste' and 'social and cultural activities' are not significant even at ten percent level. The results of the multiple classification analysis reveal that both the gross effect and the net effect of the proportion of time spent on such activities on contraceptive use is not significant. The percentage of variance in contraceptive use is 25*9 which is significantly lower than when the time spent on productive activities was included as a predictor. The Page 209 results of the multiple classification analysis using the time by wives on social and cultural activities as the activity predictor are presented in table 7.14. Table 7.14 Multiple Classification analysis of Contraceptive Use with Predictors of Caste (V6), Per-Capita Income (V14) and Social Activities (V12) Grand mean = 0.32 adjusted for adjusted for independents Unadjusted independents + covariates Variable + category N Dev'n Eta Dev ’ n beta Dev’n Beta V4 1 63 0.12 0.01 0.01 2 47 -0.00 0.03 0.03 3 20 -0.02 -0.01 -0.01 4 64 -0.12 -0.03 -0.03 0.21 0.05 0.05 V14 1 61 -0.22 -0.22 -0.22 2 74 -0.08 -0.07 -0.07 3 37 0.28 0.26 0.26 4 22 0.41 0.40 0.41 0.48 0.47 0.48 V12 1 19 0.05 0.03 0.03 2 129 -0.00 0.00 0.01 3 20 0.13 0.10 0.10 4 26 -0.13 -0.12 -0.13 0.14 0.12 0.12 Multiple R squared .254 .255 Multiple R .504 .505 From this table it is clear that, as in the case of husbands, the predictor ’income* continues to have a significant effect while the effects of the other predictors ’age of wife’, ’caste’ and 'social and cultural activities’ are not significant even at ten percent level. The results of the multiple classification analysis reveal that both the gross effect and the net effect of the proportion of time spent by Page 210 wives on such activities on contraceptive use is not significant. The percentage of variance in contraceptive use is 25.4 which is significantly lower than when the time spent on productive activities was included as a predictor. Thus, the findings from the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the multiple classification analysis(MCA) discussed above clearly indicate that the predictors of 'income* and the proportion of time spent on 'productive activities' have a significant effect on the use of contraceptives. The other variables such as caste and age of wife do not have any significant impact and the other activity variables such as the proportion of time spent on domestic or social and cultural activities do have a significant effect but of a lower magnitude than 'productive activities'. The time spent on 'productive activities' has an independent statistically significant effect on the use of contraceptives even after controlling for 'income'. 7.3 A Micro Level Analysis of the Relationship Between Contraceptive Use, Income and Activities While the association between contraceptive use, income and the time spent on productive activities is established by a multiple classification analysis, it is not possible to statistically establish unequivocally that contraceptive use was influenced by income and the activity patterns and not vice versa. It can be argued that the per-capita income of a household is bound to rise if family size is limited and parents with fewer children may find more time for productive activities. Further, according to the procedure adopted in data collection, the activities recorded during the study period could not have influenced past behaviour related to contraception. To Page 211 statistically establish such a cause-effect relationship one would need to collect data on a longitudinal basis on income, contraceptive status and activity patterns. While it is possible to collect retrospective data on income and contraceptive status, it is not so regarding activity patterns which are likely to change over time and seasons (as seen in chapter 6). But a micro level in-depth investigation can provide vital information on the mechanisms of such cause-effect relationships. As Epstein states: Statistical surveys can indicate how things change, but the reasons for the changes can be inferred only from the findings. by contrast, social anthropologivcal studies examine processes of change and therefore can attempt to answer directly the question of why changes occur the way they do (Epstein, 1982:153). Therefore, having established the above mentioned relationship on a statistical basis, we will now proceed to discuss the cause-effect relationship using information obtained in the course of direct observation of activities and our in-depth interviews. Consider the following case study where the activity patterns of a couple have largely influenced their decision to accept sterilization as a method to permanently limit their family size. Balu is a Nadar who immigrated to Vilangulam from a neighbouring district seven years ago in search of employment. he served in a Thevar household for two years as an adaiyal (see chapter 6) after which he leased in two thirds of an acre of land and began independent cultivation. His wife is also actively involved in cultivation of the land leased in. Apart from this, both husband and wife work on other farms for wages, after the paddy crop is harvested, Balu's wife goes around the village buying paddy from anyone who is willing to sell. The couple have two daughters aged twelve and six. After the birth of Page 212 their second daughter they used the condom as contraceptive for five years before deciding to opt for sterilization. In the course of an in-depth interview, the couple revealed that they jointly decided to limit their family size as they felt that they would require a ’lot of money' to buy gold and good clothes for their daughters and get them married. Balu reported that he could not fulfil his parental obligations to his daughters if he continued to have more children. He reported that while he could provide for his family with the income from the land leased in, he could not provide for additional children as he could not buy any land and the income which he and his wife earned was not likely to rise by any significant degree. According to Balu, both he and his wife discussed the consequences of having additional children in the light of their economic status. They decided that, given the amount of land at their disposal and the income they were likely to earn as wages, accepting sterilization to permanently limit their family size was imperative and essential. Balu admitted that his activity patterns have changed since he ceased being an adaiyal. He is now able to freely work for wages instead of having to work for one landlord. He agreed that his wife's activities would have changed if she had not been sterilized. She did not now have to worry about becoming pregnant and losing work. The combined earnings of the couple are adequate to meet the demands of their household and they are able to save a modest amount of money every year in order to meet the wedding expenses of their daughters. We could observe that while Balu's second daughter attended school regularly and did not contribute to the family income, his elder Page 213 daughter was actively involved in working on their own farm and on other farms for wages. When questioned about this Balu said that while a part of his daughter's earnings was used to meet household expenses, the rest was saved to buy jewellery and a small part was used by the girl herself when she made periodic trips to the town with her friends. She was allowed to buy things such as bangles, ribbons and cosmetics for herself and to go to the movies. Balu confessed that he could not appropriate all his daughter's earnings and even if he did try he would have to face the wrath of both his wife and his daughter. Thus, in this case the couple's decision to accept sterilization was largely influenced by their desire to maintain the quality of life which they were enjoying and their ambitions to provide for their two children. They were convinced that an additional child would result in a deterioration of their standard of living. They were aware of the needs of the family and the limitation to their capacity to earn money. Moreover, they did not want to be socially looked down upon as parents who did not provide for their daughters. All these factors acted jointly in influencing them to limit their family size. If Balu and his wife are parents who decided to limit their family size because they wanted to provide a good life for their daughters, consider the following case study where a man decided in favour of sterilization not just to provide for his children, but to take care of his wife and himself during old age. Velu is 26 years old and lives with his wife and two children in a house next to his brothers. He inherited one acre of land from his father and has leased in two thirds of an acre from a relative. He Page 214 has been through ten years of schooling and is considered to be a knowledgeable man by his friends and his relatives. One of the first things that Velu said in an in-depth interview was that he had spent one hundred rupees to obtain a passport and that he was planning to go to one of the Middle East countries for a few years so that he could earn enough money to buy two acres of land. When asked whether he wanted to buy more land because the land that he already owned was not sufficient, his reply was that he would need more money in the future than he was presently earning. Moreover, he wanted to buy the land to take care of himself and his wife as he would hand over the ancestral land he had inherited to his son. Velu reported that he could not hope to have sources of income other than agriculture. He could take care of his wife and two children only if his family size was limited as he thought that prices would keep rising and he would need more money to maintain his standard of living. When he discussed the matter of sterilization with his wife, she was reluctant to undergo surgery. Hut he managed to convince her that it was in the interests of their children and in their own interests that they should accept sterilization. He even volunteered to undergo vasectomy but his wife was not in favour of it as he was the breadwinner. She finally agreed to accept tubectomy and was sterilized in the Government hospital at Peravurani. Velu said that it was a very trying time for him and he had difficulty in convincing his wife as she was afraid of post-operative complications. He was, however, glad that he could successfully convince her that such a step was necessary in view of the amount of land he owned and the income he could possibly earn from agriculture. Velu reported that he had given careful consideration to all matters regarding his ability to earn an adequate income, the Page 215 needs of his family and the dwindling purchasing power of the rupee before he arrived at a decision. He stated: My father used to buy a kilo of salt for 20 paise and now I have to spend 60 paise for the same kilo of salt. In five years time I might have to spend more than a rupee and I am sure that while prices will continue to rise my income may not go up by the same extent. I will need more money then to buy what I am buying now and if I have more children life will be difficult not only for us but for our children as well. I want to take care of my children and educate them. My father is an illiterate but he sent me to school till I decided to drop out. I want to make sure that my children study well and do not drop out like I did. I could not have done this if I had not decided to limit my family size. Coming to the matter of providing for himself and his wife, Velu pointed out that his parents have retained one acre of land for themselves and do not depend on any of their children for everyday economic support. Velu asked: When my illiterate father does not depend on me or my brothers, how can you expect me to depend on my children ? He then went on to answer his own question stating that he would be happy if his children could take care of their own families and not depend on him. As for his wife and himself, he was confident that even if he could not manage to buy more land, he could still hand over his ancestral land to his son and apply for a government pension during old age. This statement reflects an important change in parental attitudes and perceptions. From a position where they took old age support for granted and expected their children to provide such support, parents are moving into a position where they have begun to anticipate less returns from children and are taking steps to provide for themselves during old age. Such a shift in the parental line of thinking raises Page 216 certain questions of interest and importance which have until recently been largely neglected by demographic research. What is the status of the aged in rural south India ? Is the old age security hypothesis still valid and do parents continue to have children because they want old age support ? What are the factors that have contributed towards such a shift in the attitudes of parents? A study of the status of the aged will enable a better understanding of the social and economic changes which have led to an increase in the adoption of family planning methods. Therefore, we will in the following section examine the social and economic status of the aged in the study area, in an attempt to answer the above questions using information gathered through our in-depth interviews and everyday observation during our stay in the village. 7.4 The Social and Economic Status of the Aged The old age security hypothesis has often been used in studies related to the value of children as a factor influencing fertility control and regulation of family size. It is generally taken for granted that in the absence of supportive measures such as pensions and social security, parents in developing countries have a large number of children in order to ensure that they will not go without care during their twilight years. In a traditional south Indian village the needs of the aged are primarily basic, namely, food, clothing and shelter. However, one of the reasons given for the preference for sons is that of ritual obligations after death. A son Page 217 may not be needed to provide economic support to aged parents but he is required to light the funeral pyre. Attempts to explain relatively high fertility in developing countries have invariably stressed that one of the important factors motivating parents to have a large number of children is the concept of old age security. In its simplest form this means that parents have children largely because they need support and because they do not have any alternative means of support. Children are a source of wealth flows and Caldwell emphasizes that such flows are not purely economic but emotional and psychic as well. Cain points out that ’in evaluating the suitability of children as security assets, the appropriate comparison is with alternative sources of security'. Alternative sources of security, according to Cain, are the availability of annuities and insurances and publicly financed social security. Four questions emerge: (1) Do parents have children with the intention of depending on them and do they still consider children as security assets ? (2) Does the absence of publicly financed social security and insurances and annuities mean that parents in rural areas have no other option than to depend on their children? (3) Are parents who live with their children totally dependent or do they provide support to the children? (4) Could it be that married sons prefer to live in extended households because thay need parental support and guidance? Page 218 In south Indian society, to have a child is the most natural thing to do after marriage and childless couples are looked down upon in the social sense of the term. More often than not a couple decide to have a child because they do not have one already, at this point it is purely a matter of maintaining social credibility and status. The younger married couples who have their first child may not dwell on matters such as old age security. Instead, they may yield to parental pressure or decide to have a child primarily to dispel any doubts of infertility. In south Indian villages if a couple do not have a child within the first few years after marriage it is freely suspected and gossiped about(especially by the women) that either the girl is infertile or that there is marital disharmony. Childlessness has been such a social stigma in the past that even to this day, one of the foremost aims of any married girl is to become a mother. Nevertheless, it cannot be presumed that parents do not think of their requirements when they become old. It can be reasonably expected that the aged will be incapacitated at some stage and will require support. However, this support need not and does not always come from their own children but from other relatives, friends and neighbours. With the advent of the market economy and intensified methods of cultivation there has been a diversification of activities and there are more employment opportunities even for the aged. Surveys in many countries have indicated high rates of labour-force participation among the aged especially in the rural areas. In south Indian villages nobody retires from the labour force and the aged continue to work until they are physically incapacitated. The aged might shift to jobs that are physically less demanding, but they continue to work and contribute to the family income. While it is true that in extended Page 219 households the aged parents depend on their married sons and other adult children for economic support, it is also true that in many cases they contribute as much as they can so that they are not considered as a burden. The aged depend on their children only if they have no other option. In this context it is necessary to examine the options available to the aged which enable them to take care of themselves without having to depend on their children. The first option is for the aged to retain some land from which they derive a regular income. The second option (in the case of those who are landless) is to seek some form of employment which can sustain them. The third option is to live on old age pensions and other benefits made available by the Government. In the study area aged people who have no other means of support are eligible for a monthly pension of 40 rupees, a monthly supply of five kilos of rice, a free midday meal in the local school and an annual supply of two sets of clothing. Those who are in receipt of these benefits reported that the benefits are adequate to meet their needs and that they do not have to depend on anyone else including their children for everyday economic support. A percentage distribution of 169 persons aged 60 or more in the study area (Table 7.15) revealed that 47 per cent of the aged live with their married sons while nearly fifteen per cent live in houses adjacent to married sons. It was also found that while 15 per cent live with unmarried mature sons (aged 15 or more), seven per cent live with married daughters. Nevertheless, the fact that nearly half the Page 220 aged live with their married children should not mislead us to the conclusion that they are dependent on their children. Table 7.15 Percentage Distribution of Persons Aged 60 or More According to Residential Status Residential Status % With Married Son(s) 47.3 With Unmarried Mature Son(s) 9.5 Married Son(s) Adjacent 14.8 Son(s) Not Adjacent 7.7 With Married Daughter 7.1 With Relatives 4.1 Living Alone 9.5 N 169 * Includes those living alone because they do not have any living children It is essential to examine the economic status of the aged before arriving at a reasonable conclusion. In attempting to do this we arrived at the following classification. (1) Those who live with their children and provide economic support. (2) Those who live with their children but are dependent on their children for economic support. (3) Those who live away from their children but receive economic support Page 221 (4) Those who live away from their children but do not receive any economic support. (5) Those who live alone because they do not have any living children Table 7.16 Residential Status of Persons Aged 60 or More According to Economic Support Type of Support % Living With Children and Providing Support 28.4 Living With Children and Receiving Support 45.0 Living Away From Children and Receiving Support 4.1 Living Away From Children and Receiving No Support 18.9 Living Alone Because of No Living Children 3.6 N 169 It is evident that while nearly half the aged population is dependent on the younger generation for support, 28 percent of the aged live with their children, provide economic support and cannot be considered dependents in the economic sense. Apart from this, nearly 19 per cent live by themselves without any economic support from children which goes to show that the aged are not only capable of fending for themselves but are also giving less importance to the old age security hypothesis. In contrast to the situation where the patriarch favoured an extended household because of the power that he could wield and the Page 222 control he had over the family's resources, there is a trend towards the aged living by themselves partly because of an erosion of their powers and partly because they do not like to depend on their children. Parents live with their children only if they have no other option or if their presence is required in the household. A majority of those who live with their children and can be classified as dependents do so only because they are physically incapacitated. The point is that if parents have access to even meagre resources, they would prefer to live alone and not bear the social stigma of dependency. This is illustrated by the following case study: Muthu is a widower aged 71 who belongs to a scheduled caste. He lives alone in a hut which is nothing more than four mud walls and a thatched roof. His material possessions consist of a mat on which he sleeps, a plate, a glass and an earthen pot to store drinking water. Muthu visits a Thevar household every morning and he takes a pair of bullocks to the pond where he washes them. He then feeds the pair of bullocks and returns home to sit and chat with anyone who cares to chat with him. In the afternoon he goes to the school where he is given a meal which he says is more than adequate. In the evening he visits the Thevar household again and takes the pair of bullocks to the pond. In return for this service he is given a meal in the Thevar household. The five kilos of rice which he receives from the Government is sold and the proceeds together with his monthly pension are adequate to meet his requirements of a cup of tea in the morning and betel which he chews regularly. He reports that when he falls ill and is not able to go to the Thevar household, he gets a meal from his son's household. However, this is rare and he reports that he would rather go without a meal in the evening than trouble his sons who can Page 223 barely manage to feed their own wives and children. He reports that he is not worried about ritual obligations after his death as he is confident that the members of his caste group will cremate his body. Unlike in the developed West where educational levels are high and the younger married couples are able to make important decisions by themselves, in south Indian villages married sons often seek the advice of their parents even if they do not live together. In matters related to the sale or purchase of land and in arranging marriages, the opinion of the elderly is considered invaluable and is often sought(even if it is ultimately rejected). Parents are beginning to consider children less as security assets in the economic sense of the term. If parents live with their married children or in adjacent houses it is more because of the social and emotional support they derive. The fact that parents depend on children for some form of support should not obscure the fact that they are themselves a source of support to their children. Consider the following case studies. P.Pillai is a Velalla landlord who lives alone with his wife after the marriage of the youngest of his three sons. He decided that he should divide his land and make his sons live independently of each other in order to prevent any quarrel. One of the reasons for this decision is the fact that his eldest son is more inclined to drink and the other two sons resent it. He therefore built separate houses for them next to his own and gave them each a share of his land after retaining about six acres for himself and his wife. The income from this land is sufficient to meet all the needs of the couple and they do not depend on their sons in any way. He says that his sons respect Page 224 his decision and are happy than they do not have to fight with each other. Ke is regularly consulted by all his sons regarding all important matters and they follow his advice. He says that he is able to maintain his social status and command the respect of the members of his caste group and others in the village because he does not have to depend on his sons for economic support. In his younger days he used to be physically involved in the cultivation of his land but since the division of his property he supervises the cultivation of his share of the land by trusted workers of the scheduled caste who have been loyally working for him for the last twenty years. However, P. Pillai admits that he has to ultimately depend on his sons to perform the rituals after his death. He adds that after all that he has has done for his sons, the least they can do is to perform these rituals. If this is a case of the aged deciding to live by themselves in the interests of their married sons and in their own interests, the following instance is one where the married son not only lives with his parents, but is totally dependent on them, and does not want the responsibilities of cultivation of land and maintenance of his household. Chelliah is a Thevar whom the villagers consider to be a hopeless case of addiction to alcohol. Apart from this, he has an illicit relationship with a Pallar woman whose husband supplies him with alcohol. During the course of an in-depth interview he admitted that apart from his drinking and his mistress, he had no time for anything else. The members of his household and his other relatives are aware of this situation and after repeated efforts to instil a sense of responsibility in the man, they have resigned themselves to the fact that they have to tolerate his wayward character. His wife, Page 225 his parents and his parents-in-law decided that he could not be trusted and have transferred his land to his children. His father is in full control of the finances of the household and Chelliah is given money every day to meet his drinking expenses. In fact (as mentioned in chapter 4), after the birth of his second child, the decision to get his wife sterilized was made by his parents and his parents-in-law and he had no say in the matter at all. His father says that he will care for his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren as long as he is alive and he is confident that his daughter-in -law will manage well with the help of his relatives and labourers after his death. If this is an extreme case of a son who is totally dependent on his father, there are instances where the 'patriarch' still remains important because his sons, though responsible for the maintenance of the household, feel comfortable when they do not have to make important decisions by themselves. The first case mentioned above is that of an aged man living by himself because he is in receipt of a pension and does not want to depend on his sons as they are hard pressed to meet the demands of their own families. The second case is that of an aged couple living alone because they can afford to do so and do not want their sons to fight with each other. The third case is that of aged parents taking full care of their son's family because they are required to do so. If the first two cases illustrate the independence of the aged and the third illustrates the importance of the aged consider the following case where the aged are forced to depend on their children. Page 226 Paaliyan is a barber who was taken to Sri Lanka in the 1930s when he was about 12 years old. There, after three years of apprenticeship, he managed to start a hair dressing saloon of his own. After years of effort, he returned to the study village with his wife and daughter, bought five acres of land and settled down. After his daughter's marriage both he and his wife were living with their son-in-law for a year. The son-in-law not only decided to build a house for himself but also appropriated all his father-in-law's land. Paaliyan who was totally dependent on his son-in-law for the cultivation of his land reported the matter to the elders of the village who intervened and made an arrangement whereby the son-in-law would give Paaliyan one bag of paddy and 30 rupees per month. Paaliyan and his wife could manage to live on this but since his wife's death, he cooks for himself and when he is not able to do so his son-in- law provides him with food. Paaliyan reported that he was a very unhappy man because his own daughter colluded with her husband to deprive him of his land and reduced him to a state of dependency because of his physical condition. Thus, there appears to be a change in the status of the aged to the extent that they are depending more on themselves and less on their children for support. The importance given to the needs of wives and children has led to a situation where the aged are placed in a compromising position. In other words, they cannot demand that their children should provide them support at the expense of their own wives and children. Introduction of old age pensions and provision of free meals and clothes have contributed to the increasing independence of the aged, «.part from this, there appears to have been an erosion in the emotional ties between the aged and their children. Often, Page 227 children seem to take care of their aged parents because they are socially obliged to do so. One Thevar landlord admitted in the process of giving information on landownership that he had to persuade his two paternal aunts (widows aged over 60 ) to live with him so that he could register some of his land in their names in order to stay within the ceiling fixed by the Land Reforms Act. The two aunts are well looked after and all their needs are met; but in reality they are two puppets who are under the total control of their nephew. Thus, there are instances where in taking care of aged parents or relatives, people act purely out of self interest and because it is advantageous for them to do so. Moreover, as we have seen earlier, the aged (given the opportunity) not only provide for themselves but for their children as well. Further, the aged play an important role in the lives of their grown up children in the sense that they provide guidance and support. But, more than anything else, because of the changing economic conditions, the aged prefer to live independently and be less of a burden on their children who are hard pressed to take care of their own families. CHAPTER 8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 8.1 Summary The combined anthropological and demographic-survey approach was essential in attaining our objectives. This combination allowed us to study the entire spectrum of activities in the village. The limitations of the retrospective survey were offset by the data gathered through direct observation, and, likewise, it was possible to gather data on a wider range of activities and events through the retrospective survey. Use of any one method alone would have been inadequate and would have provided a distorted picture of the nature, pattern and sequence of activities. Ultimately, it was participant observation which enabled us to understand the rationale behind the activities performed by the villagers and their children in their attempts to earn a living and manage as well as they could. It was through in-depth interviews that we established the cause-effect relationship between activities and fertility regulation. The greatest benefit of living in the village was that the accuracy of information provided by the respondents could be verified from other sources. Society in the study area remains traditional in certain respects but has been characterized by a series of social and economic changes. Formal education is now considered important and attitudes towards sickness and treatment have changed. The lower castes have more freedom to choose an occupation of their liking and they are now able to own land instead of merely being landless labourers. Page 229 Agriculture isAlonger considered as a means of mere survival but as a commercial activity capable of improving the standard of living. Though a majority of the families in the area continue to depend on agriculture for a livelihood, there has been a perceptible shift towards non-agricultural occupations which has been made possible by economic development and a diversification of activities. Fertility levels in the study area are low and declining steadily. The infant mortality rate and the child mortality rate are also both declining. The resort to female sterilization is becoming commoner and the average age at sterilization is declining. With the rise in the demand for sterilization, couples with fewer living children are accepting family planning methods. There is also a considerable demand for induced abortion in the study area. The government family planning programme has been responsible for providing all the facilities required for sterilization. The midwife based in the study area has been largely responsible for motivating couples to accept sterilization. But, the role of the other PHC personnel has been minimal. There has been no effort to promote actively the use of the IUD and there is no distribution of condoms or the pill as envisaged in the programme. The provision of MTP (medical termination of pregnancy) facilities has yet to prove adequate and there there has been no governmental effort in the area to remove the social stigma attached to the method and to make such a service easily available. In the absence of governmental intervention, private agencies (legal and illegal) have been responsible for the provision of such services and this practice is bound to continue unless the government moves in a big way to provide comprehensive service facilities instead of concentrating mainly on female sterilization. Page 230 The increasing rate of family planning acceptance in recent years not only reflects a change in attitude but also proves that the educational efforts during the previous decades have begun paying off. Villagers are now aware of the need to regulate fertility. The fact that younger couples are accepting sterilization with a smaller number of children reflects a basic change in attitudes towards family size. The significance of this change in attitudes can be gauged by the fact that one finds that having a large number of children has become increasingly socially unacceptable and people who do not take steps to regulate fertility are subject to ridicule. The demand for family planning services is bound to increase at a faster rate and what remains is for the Government to ensure the provision of adequate service facilities. The overall economic development of the area can be partly attributed to an important institutional change, namely the spread of the banking system. As seen in chapter 5, banks are not only the single major source of borrowing but also the source of increasing cash flows. This type of institutional change has had an impact on economic growth and parental decision making. Moreover, as mentioned in chapter 3, economic development of the area has been greatly facilitated by the commercialization of the production process. The economic changes that have taken place in the area have significantly affected the standard of living and compelled parents to rearrange their priorities in order to maintain a minimum standard of living. In a situation where parents have to cope with the increasing demands made on them by their children and society, it is most likely that having another child is given very low priority. Page 231 Improved methods of cultivation have increased rice production and made rice a cash crop thus causing a rapid expansion of the cash economy. The spread of banking facilities has followed and in turn also contributed to the economy becoming monetized. It is evident that the economy of the area has been extensively monetized and people are increasingly regarding themselves as consumers. Improvements in transport facilities have put the villagers in closer touch with the towns and have brought a wider range of goods and services within their reach. Monetary considerations are now present in all important decisions and have played a considerable role in influencing parents to change their views about such matters as family size and the merits and costs of having a large number of children. Monetization has also led to a diversification of activity patterns and to the shift in the types of activities undertaken by people of different ages. The degree of monetization and a shift in activity patterns have significantly influenced fertility control decisions and have led to an increased acceptance of family planning methods. The changing nature of agricultural operations has led to a restructuring of the labour market in the area. Though 'bonded labour' continues to exist in a refined form, agricultural labourers are now able to offer their services to anyone who pays them a wage for a specific operation. The method of payment has also changed and, with the exception of harvesting activities, all other agricultural activities are paid for in cash. The attractiveness of the cash wages offered is such that female participation in the labour force is rising. However, the demand for child labour (on farms other than family farms) is low, and indeed in practice is much lower than it was when farm labour was undertaken by client families rather than by Page 232 employed individuals. While children below age ten do not make a significant contribution to productive work (partly because of the increasing tendency to send them for primary education), those in the 10-14 age group do make a worthwhile contribution. The elderly are able to remain in the work force because of more employment opportunities. As a result there is less dependency on children for old age support. There appears to be a change in the status of the aged to the extent they are depending more on themselves and less on their children for support. The importance now given to the needs of wives and children has led to a situation where the aged are placed in a compromising position. The younger generation of married couples now feel that they have a greater responsibility towards their children than towards other kin. Even aged parents now prefer to see their married sons taking good care of their wives and children. As a result, they cannot demand that their children should provide them support at the expense of their own wives and children. The introduction of old age pensions (although still limited and small) and provision of free meals and clothes have contributed to the increasing independence of the aged. Apart from this, there appears to have been an erosion in the emotional ties between the aged and their children. Often, children seem to take care of their aged parents only because they are socially obliged to do so. There are instances where, in taking care of aged parents or relatives, people act purely out of self interest and because it is advantageous for them to do so. The aged (given the opportunity) not only provide for themselves but for their children as well. Nevertheless, the aged still play an important role in the lives of their grown up children Page 233 in the sense that they provide guidance and support. But, more than anything else, because of the changing economic conditions, the aged prefer to live independently and be less of a burden on their children who are hard pressed to take care of their conjugal families. 8.2 Conclusions In the light of these findings one can reasonably conclude that: While society in rural south India remains traditional in certain ways, there have been significant social changes which have contributed considerably to alter people’s perceptions about the role of children, the role of parents and what is good for the family. Value systems have changed and a child is no longer considered valuable only if there is an economic return. There has been an unmistakable shift in attitudes towards children’s education. Irrespective of socio-economic status, Parents have come to realize that primary education is a basic necessity. There has been a redistribution of land in the area which has, to an extent, improved the economic status of the lower castes. However, redistribution has reduced the average size of land holdings to an extent where parents have to regulate fertility to keep their land intact and avoid further fragmentation. People are becoming increasingly aware of the health needs of their families and have developed confidence in the efficacy of modern medicine. Parental concern over children’s health has experienced a dramatic change in attitude and even female children (when they fall ill) are promptly taken for treatment and cared for. Page 234 The economy has become monetized to such an extent that it is no longer possible for parents to make decisions without thinking of income and expenditure. The changing economic and social structure has resulted in greater emphasis being given to income earning activities. In order to ensure that their income earning capacity is not affected and to ensure that a minimum standard of living is maintained, parents find it imperative and essential to ensure that their activities are not affected by successive pregnancies and the continuing rearing of young children and are increasingly prepared to prevent future births. Consumption standards and consumer aspirations prevailing in the area seem to have a negative effect on actual and desired family size and a definite positive effect on birth control. 8.3 Implications for Future Research Activity patterns affect decision-making to the extent that parents control fertility in order to ensure that their activities are not restricted. Parents take into consideration the nature of their activities and the income they can earn from such activities when they decide on matters like family size and the number of children they should have. An anthropological approach has helped us to establish the cause-effect relationship between activities and fertility control. It would be useful to have longitudinal studies collecting information on activity patterns in order to analyze the effects of activity patterns on fertility over a period of time. Page 235 An important finding of this study has been that with regard to the influence of monetization on decision-making. A large scale survey may provide information on income and consumption levels, but a detailed investigation is needed to understand how income levels and consumption patterns act to influence parental decision-making, especially with regard to family size and the acceptance of contraception. In other words, there is a need to integrate demography, economics and anthropology to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of socio-economic change. As mentioned earlier, the persistence of certain traditional practices has not prevented attitudinal changes which have occurred as a result of social and economic changes. It would be interesting to study in greater depth how a society can manage to remain traditional and still embrace relatively new ideas such as fertility regulation. There is a need for more anthropological studies to investigate in detail the steps that parents take to protect their children from mortality, why they have switched to the modern (western) system of medicine and why they have lost faith in the traditional systems. The concept of 'value of children' needs to be readdressed in the context of parental perceptions. While it is true that even young children are involved in economic activities which support the production process, parents may not consider their children's contribution to be significant (especially when there is no monetary income). It has been repeatedly argued that parents are able to earn an income because of children performing supportive activities. But, to many people who think in absolute terms, there is no addition to the income. A day's income is the result of a hard day's work in the Page 236 fields and the employers do not take the contribution of children at home into consideration when they pay the labourers. In other words, people have begun to disassociate wages earned by a parent from the contribution of his children. To quote one Pallan respondent, My daughter helps me in the sense that she takes care of my younger child and does the cooking and cleaning while I am away working. But, I still get only six rupees a day and it does not improve our situation in any way. The expenses still have to be met and I do not get more money because my daughter helps me. On the other hand, if I have another child I will not be able to get even these six rupees and I cannot afford to let that happen. When asked what would have happened if her daughter had not helped her, she replied that life would have been more difficult as she would have had to do more work at home and find someone else to look after the child. But, she proceeded to stress the fact that she would not have, ’at any cost’, foregone the opportunity to earn money. When there is no monetary return from children’s work, parents find it difficult to maintain a minimum standard of living without controlling fertility and limiting their family size. As Eberstadt rightly says: Perceived changes in the value of children may have an important impact on the' number of children parents are willing to raise, even if the perceived economic worth of a child does not switch from being positive to negative (Eberstadt, 1981:16). Use of time budget data should be taken a step further from quantitative analysis to interpret the value of children’s work contributions from the viewpoint of the parents. Do the parents feel that they are benefitting from their children or do they feel that having children and rearing them is a ’costly’ proposition ? Caldwell’s theory of ’wealth flows’ appears to be most relevant in the Indian context and the concept of intergenerational wealth flows should be examined in detail especially in the context of changing Page 237 consumption patterns. As an educated respondent belonging to the higher castes said in the course of an in-depth interview, ' one look at today’s prices is enough to make anyone abstain from sex' (meaning having another child). A rise in the perceived cost of living seems to be acting as a deterrent to further reproduction. Another important aspect which has hitherto been largely neglected and should receive future attention is the status of the elderly. The traditional belief that it is the duty of children to provide old age support to parents no longer seems to be true. Care for the aged seems to depend more on intra-familial relationships than social norms. A detailed investigation is necessary to examine what married and grown up children think of the ’value of parents'. With the introduction of old age pensions and growing employment opportunities the aged are becoming less dependent on their children for old age support. While this thesis has focussed attention on how and why the elderly persons live without receiving economic support from their children, there is room for further research on the mechanisms behind this change in the status of the elderly. Rural Thanjavur is in a transitional stage where fertility has started to decline and this fall will be sustained because social values have changed and the term ’family' has been redefined to mean one's wife and children and does not always include aged parents and other kin. It would of great value to Indian demography if detailed investigations are conducted to examine how the younger generation of married couples feel about matters such as family size, expectations of returns from children and providing old age support to parents. Page 238 In an attempt to explain fertility decline (or a lack of it), much of demographic research in rural India has concentrated on questioning parents with children about matters related to fertility such as desired family size and their attitude towards contraception. Usually those selected to answer questions related to fertility are couples who have already had two or three children and can be conveniently classified as acceptors or non-acceptors of family planning methods. This has happened largely because of an assumption that young newly married couples in an underdeveloped rural society are not aware of such matters and have not thought of such matters simply because they have not commenced having any children. Another impediment has been the difficulty in questioning unmarried girls about such matters. In a society which is bound by tradition such questions are simply not asked of unmarried people, male or female. In the study area we found that nothing could now be further from the truth. Young married men are well informed about the methods available to limit family size and, more importantly, they do give a considerable amount of thought to such matters. Potential bridegrooms revealed that they would like to enjoy married life for a few years without children and that they would ’certainly not beget children indiscriminately’ without thinking about 'a lot of other things’. Sven adolescent children seem to know when their mothers had undergone an ’operation’ to prevent future births. A number of statistical projections have been made about the rate of growth of population and the ’percentage of couples' who will need to be ’protected' in order to sustain fertility decline. But, these projections do not provide any clues (let alone answers) about the people who need to be protected, their way of life, their educational Page 238a status and more importantly their attitudes towards family size. A detailed study of this younger section of the population, those newly married and those who are likely to get married in the foreseeable future, would certainly help to assess the future demand for fertility control methods and indicate the changes that are taking place in the attitudes of people on a society which itself is in the throes of change. REFERENCES Alaev, N. B. 1982 The Systems of Agricultural Production, in T.Raychaudhuri and I.Habib (ed.) The Cambridge Economic History of India , Vol 1. Andrews, .M. , J.N. Morgan, J.A. Sonquist and L. Klem 1973 Multiple Classification Analysis, Michigan: The University of Michigan. Arnold, F . et al. 1975 Introduction and Comparative Analysis, The Value of Children: A Cross National Study, Vol 1. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. Bardhan, P.K. 1984 Land, Labour and R.ural Poverty, Delhi: Oxford University Press . Becker, G .S. 1960 An Economic Analysis of Fertility, in National Bureau of Economic Research, Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1981 A Treatise on the Family, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Becker, •S. and B. Geer 1957 Participant Observation and Interviewing: A Comparison Human Organization, 16, 3. Beteille, A. 1969 Castes:01d and New, Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Birdsall, N. and W.P. McGreevey 1983 Women, Poverty and Development, in_ M. Buvinic et al. (eds), Women and Poverty in the Third World, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Blood, R. 0. and D.M. Wolfe 1960 Husbands and Wives, New York: Free Press Booth, A. and R.M. Sundrum 1984 Labour Absorption in Agriculture, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Boserup, E. 1965 The Conditions of_ Agricultural Growth, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. 1982 Population and Technology, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Page 240 Boulier, B. 1977 Children and Household Economic Activity in Laguna, Philippines.Journal of Philippine development, 4, 2. Brass, W. and A.J. Coale 1968 Methods of Analysis and Estimation, in W. Brass et al. (eds) The Demography of_ Tropical Africa, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Bulatao, R.A. 1975 Philippines, The Value of_ Children: A Cross National Study, Vol 2,Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. 1979a On the Nature of the Transition of the Value of Children in Asia. Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 60-A. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. 1979b Further Evidence for the Value-of-Children Transition. Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 60-B. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. 1981 Values and Disvalues of Children in Successive Childbearing Decisions, Demography, 18, 1. Bulatao, R.A. and J.T. Fawcett 1983 Influences on Childbearing Intentions Across the Fertility Career: Demographic and Socioeconomic Factors and the Value of Children, Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 60 F. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. Cain, M.T. 1977a Village Fertility Study Methodology Report No.l, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies. 1977b The Economic Activities of Children in a Village in Bangladesh, Population and Development Review, 3, 3. 1985 The Fate of the Elderly in South Asia: Implications for Fertility, Working Papers, Center for Policy Studies, New York: The Population Council. Cain, M.T. and Mozumder, A.B.M. 1981 Labour Market Structure and Reproductive Behaviour in Rural South Asia, in G. Rodgers and G. Standing (eds), Childwork, Poverty and Underdevelopment, Geneva: International Labour Office. Caldwell, J.C. 1982 Theory of Fertility Decline, London: Academic Press. 1985 Strengths and Limitations of the Survey Approach for Measuring and Understanding Fertility Change, Ln J. Cleland and J. Hobcraft (eds), Demography of Developing Countries: Insights From the World Fertility Survey, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page 241 Caldwell, J.C. and Pat Caldwell 1984 The Family Planning Programme at the Local Level: A Study of a Village Area in South India, in Gavin W. Jones (ed.), The Demographic Transition in Asia, Singapore: Maruzen Asia. Caldwell, J.C., P.H.Reddy and Pat Caldwell 1982 The Micro Approach in Demographic Investigation: Towards a Methodology, presented in the International Seminar on Demographic Change in the Social Context, organized by the Population Centre, Bangalore, September 6-8, 1982. 1982 The Causes of Demographic Change in Rural South India:A Micro Approach, Population Sd Development Review, 8, 4. 1983 The Social Component of Mortality Decline: An Investigation in South India Employing Alternative Methodologies, Population Studies, 37, 2. Census of India 1983 Part II B(i), Primary Census Abstract. 1965 Volume IX, Madras, District Census Handbook., Thanjavur. 1966 Part VI, Village Survey Monographs, Vilangulam. 1972 Series 19, Tamil Nadu, District Census Handbook, Thanjavur. Chandramouli, A.S. and M.Guruswamy 1979 Distance as a Variable Influencing the. Delivery of MCH and FP Services, Journal of Institute of Economic Growth, Dharwar: Institute of Economic Growth. Chandrasekar, S. 1972 Abortion in Crowded World, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Cicourel, A.V. 1964 Method and Measurement in Sociology, Canada: Collier-Macmillan, Ltd. Cohn, B.S. 1971 India: The Social Anthropology of a_ Civilization, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall Inc. Dandekar, K. 1959 Demographic Survey of Six Rural Communities, Poona: Ghokale Institute of Politics and Economics. 1979 Child Labour: Do Parents Count it as an Economic Contribution? in_ K.Srinivasan et al. (eds) The Child in India, Bombay: Himalaya Publishing House. Dasgupta, B. 1977 Village Society and Labour Use, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Page 242 De Tray, D. 1983 Children’s Work Activities in Malaysia, Population and Development Review, 13, 3. Devanzo, J. and D.L.P. Lee 1983 The Compatibility of Child Care with Market and Nonmarket Activities: Preliminary Evidence form Malaysia, in M. Buvinic et al. (eds), Women and Poverty in the Third World, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Dharma Kumar 1983 Agrarian Relations: South India, Tn T.Raychaudhurai and 1. Habib (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol 2 . Dube, L. The Economic Roles of Children in India, iii G. Rodgers and G.Standing (eds), Childwork, Poverty and Underdevelopment, Geneva: International Labour Office. Dyson, T, P. <£. and M. Moore 1983 On Kinship Structure, Female Autonomy, and Demographic Behaviour in India, Population and Development Review, 9, 1. Dyson, T P. G. and N. Crook 1984 India’s Demography: Essays on the Contemporary Population, New Delhi: South Asian Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Easterlin, R.A. 1971 Relations Between Population Pressure and Demographic Change, in International Population Conference, London, Vol. 3, Liege: IUSSP Easterlin, R.A. and E.M. Crimmins 1985 The Fertility Revolution: A Supply-Demand Analysis, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Eberstadt, N. 1981 Fertility Decline in Less Developed Countries, New York: Praeger Publishers. Epstein, T.S. 1982 A Social Anthropological Approach to Women’s Roles and Status in Developing Countries: The Domestic Cycle, Tn R. Anker et al (ed), Women’s Roles and Population Trends in Developing Countries, London: Croom Helm. Esp'enshade, T.J. 1972 The Price of Children and Socio-Economic Theories of Fertility. Population Studies, 26, 2: 207-221. 1977 The Value and Cost of Children. Population Bulletin, 32, 1 Page 243 Fawcett, X 1977 The Value and Cost of Children: Converging Theory and Research. Tn L. T. Ruzicka (ed.) The Economic and Social Supports for High Fertility, Canberra: The Australian National University. Feeney, G 1976 Estimating Infant Mortality From Child Survivorship Data By Age of Mother, Asian and Pacific Census Newsletter, 3, 2. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. Gazetteer of India. 1972 Tamil Nadu State, Government of Tamil Nadu. Goldstein B. and J. Oldham 1979 Children and Work: A Study of Socialization, New Jersey: Transaction Books. Gough, K. 1973 Harijans of Thanjavur, ln K.Gough and H.P. Sharina (eds) Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, New York: Monthly Review Press . Hanenberg R. 1983 Estimates of the Total Fertility Rate Based on the Child-Woman Ratio, Asian and Pacific Census Forum, 10, 2. Hayami, Y and M. Kikuchi. 1981 Asian Village Economy at the Crossroads Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Hobson, S 1979 Family Web: A Story of India, London: John Murray Ltd. Hoffman, i.W., and M.L. Hoffman. 1973 The Value of Children to Parents. In J.T. Fawcett (ed.) Psychological Perspectives on Population, New York: Basic Books. Hull, T.H 1975 Each Child Brings its own Fortune: an inquiry into the value of children in a Javanese village. unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Canberra: The Australian National University. 1981 Perspectives and Data Requirements for the Study of Children's Work, Ln G. Rodgers and G. Standing (eds), Childwork, Poverty and Underdevelopment, Geneva: International Labour Office. Johnson, 1975 Time Allocation in a Machiguenga Community, Ethnology, 14, 3. Kluckohn, F.R. 1940 The Participant Observer Technique in Small Communities, American Journal of Sociology, 46. Page 244 Knödel, J., N. Havanon and A. Pramularatana 1984 Fertility Transition in Thailand: A Qualitative Analysis, Population and Development Review, 10, 2. Krishnakumar, S 1972 Kerala's Pioneering Experiment in Massive Vasectomy Camps, Studies in Family Planning, 2, 1, New York: The Population Council. Leibenstein, H. 1957 Economic Backwardness and Economic Growth, New York: John Wiley and Sons. Lewis, 0. 1958 Village Life in Northern India, Urbana: University of California Press. Mamdani, M. 1972 The Myth of Population Control: Family, Caste and Class in an Indian Village, New York: Monthly Review Press. Mandelbaum, D. 1970 Society in India: Continuity and Change, Berkeley: University of California Press. Mencher, J.P. 1970 A Tamil Village: Changing Socioeconomic Structure in Madras State, in K. Ishwaran (ed), Change and Continuity in India's Villages, New York: Columbia University Press. 1978 Agriculture and Social Structure in Tamil Nadu, New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private Limited. Meyer, P.A. 1981 The Value of Children in the Context of the Family in Java: unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Canberra: The Australian National University. Mincer, J. and S.K. Polachek 1974 Family Investments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women, Journal of Political Economy, 82. Mitra, A. 1978 India's Population: Aspects of Quality and Control, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Moffatt, M. 1979 An Untouchable Community in South India, Structure and Consensus, Princeton: Princeton Univeristy Press. Page 245 Mueller, 1972 Economic Cost and Value of Children, in J.T. Fawcett (ed.), The Satisfactions and Costs of Children: Theories, Concepts and Methods, Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. 1976 The Economic Value of Children in Peasant Agriculture, in R.G.Ridker (ed.) Population and Development: The Search for Selective Interventions. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 1982 Women's Time and Its Relation to Fertility, ini R. Anker et al. (ed) Women's Roles and Population Trends in the Third World, London: Croom Helm. Nag, M. 1981 Economic Value and the Cost of Children in Relation to Human Fertility, in N. Eberstadt (ed.) Fertility Decline in the Less Developed Countries, New York: Praeger Publishers. Nag, M., i.N.F. White and R.C. Peet 1978 An Anthropological Approach to the Study of the Economic Value of Children in Java and Nepal, Current Anthropology, 19, 2. Nortman, 1974 Parental Age as a Factor in Pregnancy Outcome and Child Development, Reports on Population/Family Planning, New York: The Population Council. Peet, R. C. 1978 Report on the Anthropological Study of the Cost and Value of Children in a Nepalese village, unpub. Ph.D. thesis, New York: Columbia University. Peterson, W. 1981 American efforts to Reduce the Fertility of Less Developed Countries, _in N. Eberstadt (ed.) Fertility Decline in the Less Developed Countries, New York: Praeger Publishers. Rao, B.N. 1976 Family Planning in India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Ltd. Raina, B. 1960 Family Planning and Demographic Research In India, in S.N. Agarwala (ed) India's Population, Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Registrar General of India 1976 Fertility Differentials in India, New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General of India. 1981 Sample Registration Bulletin, 15, 1. New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General of India. Page 246 Reinharz, S. 1979 Ori Becoming a_ Social Scientist, San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers. Rele, J.R. 1967 Fertility Analysis Through Extension of Stable Population Concepts, Population Monograph Series No. 2, Berkeley: University of California. Repetto, R. 1968 India: A Case Study of the Madras Vasectomy Program, Studies in Family Planning, 31, New York: The Population Council. Ridker, R. 1969 Synopsis of a Proposal for a Family Planning Bond, Studies in Family Planning, 43, New York: The Population Council. 1971 Savings Accounts for Family Planning, An Illustration from the Tea Estates of India, Studies in Family PIanning, 2, 7, New York: The Population Council. Rogers, E.M. 1971 Incentives in the Diffusion of Family Planning Innovations, Studies in Family Planning, 2, 12, New York: The Population Council. Rutstein, S.O. 1983 Infant and Child Mortality'.Levels, Trends and Demographic Differentials, WFS: Comparative Studies, No. 24. Sahlins, M. 1972 Stone Age Economics, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Schultz, T.W. 1974 The High Value of Human Time: Population Equilibrium, Journal of Political Economy, 82, 2. Shariff A. 1984 The Beginning of Fertility Decline in South India: A Micro-Study of a Cluster of Four South Indian Villages, unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Canberra: Australian National University. Shivaraman, M. 1973 Thanjavur: Rumblings of Class Struggle in Tamil Nadu, in K. Gough and H.P. Sharina (eds) Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, New York: Monthly Review Press. Srinivas, M.N. 1969 Social Change in Modern India Berkeley: University of California Press. 1976 The Remembered Village, Berkeley: University of California Press. Page 247 1979 The Field Worker and the Field, in M.N. Srinivas et al.(eds) The Field Worker and the Field, Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1982 India: Social Structure, Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corporation. Stein, B. 1980 Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Thorner, A. and A. Thorner. 1957 Land and Labour Use in India, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol 12. Thurston, E. 1909 Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Madras: Government Press, Trow, M. 1957 Comment on Participant Observation and Interviewing: A Comparison, Human Organization, 16, 3. United Nations 1961 The Mysore Population Study, New York: United Nations. 1982 Country Monograph Series No. 10, Population of India, New York: United Nations. Vlassoff, C. 1980 Unmarried Adolescent Females in Rural India: A Study of the Social Impact on Education, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 2. 1982 The Status of Women in Rural India: A Village Study, Social Action, Vol 32. Vlassoff, M. 1979 Labour Demand and Economic Utility of Children: A Case Study in Rural India, Population Studies, Vol 33. White, B.N.F. 1976 Production and Reproduction in a Javanese Village, unpub. Ph.D. thesis, New York: Columbia University. Whyte, W. F. 1951 Observational Field Work Methods, In Marie Jahoda et al. (eds) , Research Methods in Social Relations, New York: The Dryden Press. Wiser, W.H. and C.V. Wiser 1963 Behind Mud Walls, Berkeley: University of California Press. APPENDIX LIST OF ACTIVITIES Productive Activities Attending auction Attending cattle market Attending teacher's meeting Attending to business at endowment office Attending to business at panchayat union office Attending to business at police station Attending to business at thasildar's office Attending to business with village adm officer Attending to post natal case Attending village meeting Banking Bleaching customers' clothes Borrowing implements/cart/cattle Borrowing money Breaking tamarind shells Bringing goats from field Bringing water for cattle Bundling hay Bundling reeds Bundling seedlings Buying fertilizer Buying paddy/rice Buying pesticide Buying prawns/crabs/fish Carrying bags/bundles Carrying clothes to pond Carrying fertilizer Carrying food to workplace Carrying manure to field/pit Carrying seedlings Carrying soil Carting bricks Carting bundles Carting firewood Carting hay Carting kerosene Carting leaves Carting manure Carting mud/sand Carting paddy bags Carting peanuts Carting seedlings Carting trees Cleaning diesel pump Cleaning machinery Cleaning seeds Cleaning threshing yard Collecting blackgram Collecting clothes for washing Collecting flowers t Collecting fruits t for sale Collecting house tax Collecting land revenue Collecting lotus leaves for sale Collecting money Collecting paddy Collecting reeds t Collecting roots t Collecting tamarind t for sale Collecting vegetables t Collecting voter’s list Collecting weed bundles Cooking mid-day meals in school Cutting branches Cutting grass Cutting leaves Cutting soil Deepening a well Delivering clothes Delivering soda bottles Digging a canal/pit/well Digging in field Distributing paddy Draining field Draining nursery Driving bullock cart Drying customers’ clothes Drying paddy Drying peanuts Drying reeds Drying roots Drying reeds Drying tamarind Feeding cat tie/goats/poultry Feeding medicine to cattle Felling trees Fencing nursery Fishing (fish, crabs, prawns) Gathering grass Gathering paddy, hay Gathering seeds Getting cattle shod Grazing cows/sheep/goats Hair dressing Heaping manure in field Heaping paddy Herding sheep Hiring cattle/sheep/ducks for manure Hiring diesel pump Hiring labourers Hiring sprayer Hoeing Husking Informing about village meeting Informing decision of village committee Irrigating field Irrigating nursery Knitting coconut leaves Letting ducks/goats/poultry out Levelling field Lifting peanuts, sesame, ragi Lifting rice seedlings Loading bags into cart Loading bricks into cart Loading hay into cart Loading manure into baskets Loading paddy and peanut bundles into cart Loading paddy into bags Loading peanuts into bags Loading sand into cart Loading seedlings into cart Looking after ducks/goats Making a chicken coop Making arrangements for temple festival Making coir Making fence Making fibre Making fishing line and rod Making grain bin Making pandal Making seed bin Measuring paddy/rice Mending agl implements Mending basket Mending fence Mending handles Mending net Mending plough Mending rope Mending sickle handle Mending snare Milking cows, buffalos, goats (for sale) Moving hay about Opening/closing sluice gate Operating diesel pump Operating sprayer Painting the horns of cattle Painting the house (for wages) Packing food (for sale) Paying labourers Planting saplings Planting seedlings Planting vegetables Playing musical instrument (for wages) Ploughing Preparing threshing yard Pressing customers' clothes Pumping water Putting cattle in cowshed Putting sheep in pen Reaping Receiving payment Removing fence Removing tamarind seeds Removing weed bundles Repairing cart Repairing cattleshed Repairing gunny bag Repairing iron rod Repairing radio Repairing saw Repairing snare Repairing spade Repairing yoke Returning cart/cattle/implement Ricking Scaring birds from field Searching for missing cattle, sheep, poultry Searching for work Securing haystack Selling butter milk/curds Selling eatables Selling eggs Selling firewood Selling flowers Selling fruits Selling goats/sheep Selling peanuts Selling kerosene Selling lotus leaves Selling meat Selling milk Selling paddy/rice Selling palm roots Selling poultry Selling prawns/crabs/fish Selling toddy Selling vegetables Serving mid-day meals in school Setting trap/snare Shaving customers Sifting grain Sorting peanuts Sowing seeds Spraying pesticide Spreading fertilizer Spreading hay to dry Spreading leaves in field Spreading manure in field Spreading paddy seedlings in field Stacking bricks Stacking customers' clothes Stacking dried plants Stacking hay Stacking fishing net Storing grain in bags Storing grain in bin Storing seeds in bin Supervision at coconut grove Supervision of cart repair Supervision of cattle being shod Supervision of construction work. Supervision of felling of trees Supervision of hay being stacked Supervision of loading paddy into bags Supervision of noon meals scheme at school Supervision of planting Supervision of trampling Supervision of weeding Supervision of work in field Tailoring Taking care of cattle Taking care of field Taking cattle from cowshed Taking cattle to hospital Taking ducks to pond Taking goats to field Talking to a co-worker (about work) Talking to a money lender Talking to employer (about work and wages) Teaching -private tuition Teaching in school Tethering cattle/goats Threshing Toddy tapping/carrying Trampling Tying paddy/grass in bundles Unloading bricks Unloading bundles Unloading manure Unloading peanuts Unloading sand Unloading seedlings Visiting land owner Waiting on the seashore Walking to employer’s house Walking to give money Walking to workspot Washing customers' clothes Washing cows Watching flower bed Watering banana plants Watering coconut trees Watering drumstick plants Watering flower bed Watering vegetable bed Weeding Weighing paddy bags Whitewashing (for wages) Winnowing Working as construction labourer Working as domestic servant Working in arrack shop Working in co-op society Working in coconut grove Working in laundry Working in post office Working in rice mill Working in petty shop Working in smithy Working in soda factory Working in tea shop Writing accounts Educational Activities Attending child welfare home Attending mat weaving centre Attending school Attending tution class Fixing weaving machine Reading/writing at home Household Maintenance and Childcare Bathing children Carrying mud Chopping firewood Cleaning cattleshed Cleaning courtyard Cleaning sheep pen Collecting cowdung for fuel Collecting firewood Cooking Digging hearth Drying par boiled paddy Dung washing courtyard Dung washing floor Fetching water Grinding rice Heaping paddy Making door Making furniture Making gate Making ladle Making preservatives Mending basket Mending clothes Mending mat Mending roof Mending winnowing fan Milling paddy, rice Mixing mud with water Mud washing the walls Par boiling paddy Pounding paddy,rice Serving food Sifting paddy Stringing beads Sweeping house Taking care of children Taking care of parents Taking children to child welfare home Washing vessels, clothes Social and Cultural Activities Attending a marriage Attending bethrothal ceremony Attending ear piercing ceremony Attending election Attending funeral ceremony Attending funeral ceremony 3rd day Attending funeral ceremony last day Attending kumbabishekam Attending muhurtakalam ceremony Attending new year celebration (at school) Attending puberty ceremony Attending republic day function (at school) Attending temple festival Attending to a patient Extending invitations Informing relatives about a death Paying condolences Visiting a sick relative in hospital Visiting relatives Sweeping temple,church Personal Needs/Leisure Time Activities Bathing/washing/brushing Chewing Crying/weeping Discussing Drinking Easing Eating Hair-drying/delousing/combing Hunting/catching butterflies Listening to radio Meeting friends/relatives Playing cards Playing/roaming Praying Quarrelling/cursing Reading newspaper/magazine Resting because sick. Resting/sitting Resting/standing about Shopping Singing/dancing Sitting because rain Sleeping Smoking Taking/giving medicine Talking in a tea stall Talking in a toddy shop Talking in church Talking in neighbour’s house Talking in shop Talking in smithy Talking in street Talking to family member Talking to non relatives Talking to other relatives Waking up family members Watching drama Watching films Watching gambling Watching pongal celebrations Watching sports (at school)