Gender, Citizenship and Household Economy in Madhesh

Detailed chapter description

Gender, citizenship and household economy meet most visibly where formal rights encounter everyday dependence. In Nepal Mithila/Madhesh, women’s economic position has been shaped not only by wages and land but also by marriage, migration, unpaid care, civil-registration documents, inheritance practice, access to schooling and the ability to move between household, market and public office. The open India–Nepal border adds another layer because cross-border marriages and kinship networks can make citizenship rules unusually consequential for mothers and children. This chapter therefore treats citizenship as an economic institution as well as a legal status, while distinguishing constitutional rights, statutory pathways and their uneven implementation in households and local administrations. Most production and welfare in Madhesh pass through households before they appear in markets or state statistics. Cooking, care, fuel and water collection, livestock tending, crop processing, small trade, savings, remittances and decisions over schooling are organised through kinship and gender. A household can pool resources while distributing authority unequally. For that reason, rising household income does not automatically establish women’s control over assets, nor does female employment necessarily remove unpaid obligations. The historical unit of analysis must therefore include both market income and the allocation of work, property and decision-making inside the family. Women have long participated in transplanting, weeding, harvesting, fodder collection, livestock care, seed management, post-harvest processing and household food production. Yet the visibility of this work depends on statistical definition. Modern labour-force standards count work for pay or profit differently from production for a household’s own final use. A woman may therefore perform many hours of economically necessary farm work while being classified outside the labour force. This distinction is particularly important in rural Madhesh, where family farming and own-use production remain major components of livelihood.