Labour utilisation in a village economy of Bangladesh

Abstract

An attempt has been made to examine the usefulness of various conventional approaches to the measurement of labour force and its utilization in a rural agrarian society. The study was carried out in a Bangladesh village, Barkait in Comilla district of Bangladesh. The study points out the limitation of such approaches to the measurement of labour force and its utilization, especially in the case of women and young children and recommends the collection and use of time-budget data based mainly on observation and collected over a period of several months to highlight the nature and pattern of labour utilization in rural agrarian societies. The study is, perhaps, the first major work so far which examines the contribution of women and children, in addition to adult males, in respect of time devoted to directly productive activities and household maintenance activities over a period of several months. Besides, the study also shows how people utilize other non-work uses of time. The study emphasizes the need to redefine the concept of "work" in the context of rural agrarian societies. It recommends that household maintenance activities should be considered within the purview of "work". It found that if "work" merely refers to directly productive activities, women work much shorter hours than men. However, if household maintenance activities are considered within the purview of "work", women were found to work longer hours than men. The study also examines the division of labour by age and sex, household allocation of labour and employment of outside labour by households. Further, the study measures the extent of underemployment in the village under study.