vWomen, Work and HouseholdElectrification in Rural IndiaWe mustnot believe, certainly, that a changein woman's econ-omic condition alone is enough to transform her, though thisfactor has beenandremainsthe basicfactorin herevolution;Simonede Beauvoir,The Second SexEvery public policy initiative must necessarily consider the dif-ferential incidence of its impact. Who would be most affected bythe policy and in what way? Such considerations lead to questions asto what obstacles might arise to its full implementation and whatsome of the unintended consequences might be. This in tum promptsa consideration of backup or auxiliary policies that need to be in placeto facilitate implementation and contain unintended undesirable ef-fects.Ifthe question of incidence were posed to the policy of massiveexpansionofhousehold electrification in rural India, the answer, itseems, would clearly point in a particular direction. On the one hand,to the extent that electricity would substitute for other rural energysources, it would eliminate or drastically reduce household demandfor oil, firewood, dung and wastes. In the case of the last three inparticular, this would greatly eliminate the need to 'collect' thesefuels, which is how mostofthe fuel in most rural households isacquired. By all accounts, the principal group of rural workers present-ly expending time and effort in the gathering of fuel in the non-monetized sphere is rural women, assisted on occasion by children.Electrification, then, stands to substantially eliminate this task fromtheir chores.In addition, the principal end-use of energy in rural India is cook-ri1ii~t\,WomenandWork • 145ing. This again is an activity that is almost exclusively the domainofable-bodied rural women in the normal working age group. Elec-trificationofcooking and related daily activities would significantlychange their nature. Finally, household electrification can be expectedto have a major impact on household production in general, in whichwomen are the principal actors. It appears, therefore, that in the eventoffull electrification at the household level, rural women stand to bemost affected in terms of the types of work they perform and the natureofthese tasks, both from the perspective of the acquisitionoffuel aswell as thatoftheir end-use. Moreover, gathering fuel, cooking ofdaily meals, and other household work are unpaid work. Extensivehousehold electrification, then, could be expected to have a significantimpact on a particular setofrural workers, adult women of workingage, and on a particular kindofwork;'~Inpaidlabour.The idea that women's activities are central to basic issues of foodand fuel has been recognized in some quarters, such as internationalbodies concerned with appropriate technologies and women in dev-elopment. For instance, a UNIDO working group on rural energyrequirements observed in its report that'[i]tis the womenofthedeveloping world who are" most concerned with the problemsofenergy supply and use, because it is they who do the cooking and inmost countries, gather the fuel. Furthermore, it is usually the womenwho draw and carry the water for domestic use.'IIn the higher echelons of policy formulation in this area, however,there is no explicit consideration of these issues. Indeed, scholars andprac:titioners in the field of development who take an explicit interestin the economic condition of women are pretty much unanimous intheir verdict that the poverty, drudgery, illiteracy, ill-health, and ex-ploitationofrural women are typically not the target of developmentplans, that this tendency persists because women are largely shut outofthe development process, and that even policies that may have madea difference fail because they are not tuned to the contingencies thatwould be relevant.Those designing policiesare largelyunawareof the dimensions and extentof rural women's work, or they choose not to seeitThe result of thatignorance or neglectis disregard of theproblem andomission of kindsofpolicieswhichwouldbe relevant. Examination of whatwomenare actually1UNlDO Draft Report, 'Energy for Rural Requirements', 1978, cited by Irene Tinker inDauber and Cain, 1981.146·Money, Energy and Welfaredoingwith their time is thereforenot simplya statistical exercise,but rathera first step towardsolutions.Knowledgecan be a powerfultool,even in theface of wilfulignorance.2This chapter explores the relation between household electrifica-tion and female labour in rural India in two stages. First, it reviewsthree majorintellectual approaches to female labour, the neo-classical,Marxian, and feminist, and considers each approach in the light of thesignificanceofa major technological transformation such as elec-trification.Itthen considers empirical evidence from electrified ruralareas in four states in India, comparing female labour related to ruralenergy acquisition and use in electrified and non-electrified house-holds. ...ANALYTICALAPPROACHES TOWOMENANDWORK1.TIlENEO-CLASSICALTRADmONThe distinctive features of the neo-classical approach to householdeconomics can broadly be placed in two categories. In the first cat-egory is the standard assumption of a joint utility function for mem-bersofthe household and all the implications that go with it.3Thehousehold is assumed to be a single decision-making unit maximizinga utility function common to all itsmembers," Predictably, this ap-proach papers over the potential for conflict among household mem-bers and ignores the differential apportionmentofcosts and benefitsamong the components that are taken to comprise the joint utilityfunction. In the second category fall certain assumptions about thebehaviour of individual actors within the household (as opposed totheir behaviour in the 'market'), which I further distinguish between2Intemation~j'LabourOffice, 1980, p. 9.3 A succinct expression of a joint utility function in the patriarchal context is to be foundin the Bengali dictum 'Patirpunye satir punya' (The devoted wife's merit lies in the meritof her husband), to which Tagore added the immortal aside 'Nohile kharach barey' (Elsethe expense goes up)--clearly a binding constraint Note the similarity to James Mill onwomen: '.•.the Interests of all of whom Is Involved either In that of their fathers or inthat of their husbands.' (Article on Govemment, 1825, reprinted in Bell and Offen, 1983).4 The precise configuration of household decision-making process by which this comesabout may vary, as discussed by Amartya