Authors: Sowmya B, Manjula G K
Abstract: Sericulture has long been projected as a women-friendly, labour-intensive rural industry in India, with women performing nearly 60 per cent of the work across the silk value chain. In Karnataka, sericulture and silk industries provide employment to almost 1.2 million rural households, many of them headed or co-managed by women from small and marginal farming families. Drawing on feminist and gender studies perspectives, this paper examines how women’s labour in sericulture is organised, valued and governed, and how financial inclusion policies reshape their work identities. The study combines secondary data from government and policy sources with primary survey data from 120 rural women sericulture workers across selected districts of Karnataka. It analyses women’s participation in different stages of sericulture, access to financial institutions and schemes, and perceived livelihood changes. The findings reveal a paradox: while sericulture offers flexible, home-based employment and supplementary income, women’s work remains undervalued, under-remunerated and concentrated in low-paid, labour-intensive tasks. Access to Self-Help Groups (SHGs), DAY-NRLM and state-level livelihood schemes has improved savings discipline and credit access, but benefits are uneven and mediated by caste, landholding and bargaining power within households. Feminist political economy lenses show that gendered labour in sericulture simultaneously enables inclusion and reproduces structural inequalities. The paper concludes with recommendations for gender-responsive sericulture policy, improved social protection, and deeper financial democratisation to transform women from “family helpers” to recognised workers, entrepreneurs and decision-makers in the silk economy.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19247939
