Problems and prospects of rural women worker with special reference to small scale and cottage industries in Jaipur district, Rajasthan, India

Introduction

"Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenges of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance." Kofi Annan The economic development of a region is determined by the availability of resources, planned utilization of opportunities and availability of assets in various industries, which have a direct impact on the living standards and livelihoods of the local communities, whether positive or negative. Development and livelihood are closely related, and sources of livelihood have a big influence on the region's overall development and socio-economic progress. In order to improve the social standing of rural women workers and ensure gender equality in industries for the next generation, it is imperative that gender-sensitive labor requirements be met in small-scale and cottage industries. Additionally, issues pertaining to women workers must be identified and addressed. Women's employment determines their economic standing. Women are empowered as a result of their economic standing, which also elevates them in society. The reality is that most women's household responsibilities are combined with economic activity and the use of their skills and labor to augment the family's income, which can make the difference between a respectable living and degrading poverty. The situation of women workers in small scale and cottage industries is particularly dismal. The nature of the various problems and challenges faced by rural women workers engaged in different types of small scale and cottage industries will logically differ from each other. For this reason, the key problems and challenges must first be identified and thoroughly assessed. Therefore, a methodical study is required to identify the particular issues that rural women workers in various small and cottage enterprises face. Incentives and concessions supplied by the government should be tailored to the type and extent of issues experienced by rural women in small and cottage enterprises, hence this research will assist the government in offering incentives and concessions. Only with this strategy can balanced regional industrial development be guaranteed. Therefore, the study was undertaken in the Jaipur district of Rajasthan, with the general objective to examine the problems and prospects of rural women workers in smallscale and cottage industries in Jaipur District, Rajasthan. In order to accomplish the study's goals, statistical analyses were performed on the acquired data.

Problems Affecting Rural Women Worker and Developmental Prospects.

Rural women workers employ a variety of livelihood strategies in an effort to maintain their standard of living. A livelihood system can only be considered sustainable if it can manage and recover from risks and preserve or improve its assets and skills without depleting the base of natural resources. Women workers in rural areas Age disparity, education level, employment type, skills, family situation, income source, income variance, gender inequality, work distribution, working hours, conservatism, social security, number of children, etc. are some of the characteristics that affect livelihood and income patterns. Given the aforementioned concerns, a study on rural women workers' struggles for livelihood strategies is required to gain a better understanding of their role in ensuring the sustainability of livelihoods, particularly in light of the numerous threats to rural livelihoods. As a result, an analysis of the livelihood strategies of rural women workers in Rajasthan's Jaipur area as well as the barriers preventing them from relying on small and cottage enterprises has been attempted.

Materials and Methods

This study was conducted on rural women workers in Jaipur district. This district was selected purposefully because the study area has a large number of rural women workers in small and cottage industries and the factors and challenges affecting the livelihood and income of rural women workers were considered. This district is largely involved in the work of organizations like Manav Kalyan Sangh, Lok-Chetana Samiti, e-Mitra, e-Governance and other developmental programmes run by the Government of India for the welfare of rural women. For the investigation, a combination of probability and nonprobability sampling methods was used in mixed sampling. There were thirteen blocks in the Jaipur District. Every block was specifically selected for the current inquiry. Additionally, 495 rural women workers who are directly involved in small-scale and cottage industries were selected as research participants. The analysis is based on primary data collected through a household survey to understand the problems and push factors faced by rural women workers in the district. Altogether, a total of 495 household surveys were conducted, and the following analyses are based on the community-based collected data.

Resource use Efficiency

To achieve the objectives of this study, the problems and potential factors faced by rural women workers in small and cottage industries have been analysed using tabular presentation and Garrett ranking technique. The method has the advantage of being statistically analyzed and providing the opportunity to rank the problems based on their severity. The main benefit of this strategy above the simple frequency percentage is that the limitations and challenges are arranged based on the degree to which the ladies believe they are affecting them. A different rank is assigned when the same number of respondents are subject to two or more constraints. For Garret, the formula to convert ranks into precent is as follows:

Percent Position = 100 * (Rij -0.5)/Nj Were, Rij = Rank given for i th constraint by j th individual; Nj = Number of problems ranked by j th individual.

Result and Discussion

A region's development is a multifaceted factor that shows how much its infrastructure, social fabric, and economics have grown. As is well known, not all areas experience development in the same way under comparable geographic circumstances. In this study, which focuses on the Jaipur district and the main cottage and small-scale industriessuch as blue pottery, leather work, carpeting, Jaipuri Razai, agricultural allied sectors (such as making papads, jam, jelly, pickles, etc.), block printing, and embroidery-an effort is made to comprehend various stages of development while considering various development indicators. One of the main areas of interest for the majority of economic scholars is the gender gap in cottage and smallscale industries. Especially in underdeveloped and developing economy it is firmly accepted that rural women worker is one best alternative to resolve the problems arising from poverty. In Tables 1.1

, and 1.3(b), the issues that the rural women worker respondents in the study area encountered in accomplishing their livelihood strategies are analyzed. The Small Scale and Cottage Industries rural women worker respondents were asked to rate the difficulty of their struggle for a better living in order of severity.

Financial Problems

The number of respondents who said that they were concerned about financial issues is displayed in Table 1.1(a). According to Table 1.1(a), only 263 (53.13%) of the 495 respondents said that they had trouble getting credit, and 380 (76.76%) said that they had trouble with the capital disparity between men and women. In a similar vein, 38 (7.67%) and 46 (9.29%) respondents, respectively, cited high interest rates and a lack of a secure loan as issues. These individuals provide suitable and possible solutions to many industrial problems usually faced by women workers and keep them informed about government policies, schemes, initiatives as well as regular updates on fund allocations and procedures. As a result, rural women will be more likely to participate in government programs. 4. The main factor influencing incomes in rural women's homes will be policy initiatives targeted at raising the net income, social status, social network, various income sources of these households from small-scale and cottage enterprises. Additionally, we must better understand the problems factors limiting household income growth from cottage and small-scale businesses.

Author Contribution

Dr. Pratibha Bhaskar: Investigation, methodology, formal analysis, writing-original draft. Dr. Ravi Ranjan Kumar: Validation, writing-review and editing. Prof. Saket Kushwaha: Validation, methodology-reviewing and editing.

Data Availability

Upon reasonable request, the corresponding author will make the datasets created and/or examined during the current work available.

Conclusion

This study has taken rural women workers (specifically) who are employed in small and cottage industries in Jaipur district or are involved in any work related to them. This research work discusses the problems and factors that affect or hinder the work performance of any rural women workers.

According to the research area's Gini Index data, rural women deal with issues including gender and income inequality, industry competition, working hours, and skills, among other things. To end poverty, desirable development programs are needed to address the issues rural women experience at work. An essential development strategy that should be implemented is the expansion of work prospects for rural women in self-employment in tiny and cottage enterprises, which are concentrated among the impoverished. In order to boost small-scale, cottage, and handicraft production in rural regions, as well as to establish an effective system of supplying input services and competitive market prices, it is necessary to encourage rural women workers. Small and cottage industry-driven development policies should be supported since they have the ability to raise impoverished people's incomes and so lessen inequality. Thus, it is advised to concentrate on development initiatives that will undoubtedly have a bigger impact on eradicating poverty and allow the majority of the impoverished to make a living.

Based on the criteria used to investigate the issues and opportunities faced by rural women employed in small-scale and cottage industries in Rajasthan's Jaipur district, it was discovered that villages and small-scale and cottage industries located near urban centres enjoy greater privileges and are more developed than other industries located farther away from service centres. The adoption of additional socioeconomic infrastructures and the commercialization of traditional cottage businesses could further expand the livelihood options available to women in these industries.

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