An Assessment on the Socio-economic Position of Female Workers in the Brick Kilns of Khejuri P.S. under Purba Medinipur in West Bengal

Brick Industry is one of the informal/unorganized industries in India. This industry is booming with the expansion of real estate business. It is a labor intensive industry. The industry employs millions of workers. Sizable portions of the workers are women. They live in poverty. At work place, they are exploited, deprived and do not get the status which the men workers enjoy. There are varied natures of problems the women workers are facing now. Their socio-economic conditions cause concerns. In this backdrop, an attempt has been made to ascertain and examine the socio-economic conditions of women workers engaged in brick kiln factories. The data collected in this regard have been interpreted through percentage analysis. The entire gamut of discussion reveals that women workers live in poverty and as a consequence they come to work in brick kilns. They and their children are mostly illiterate. Most of them are migrants and their land holdings are minimal. Their annual incomes are very small. They are not given the scope of doing skilled work. Very often they express dissatisfaction on working environments. Working environment needs to be improved so that working women get motivated and enthused that may result in development of the kilns. Statutory benefits need to be given for their welfare. The gravity of this situation led my initiative to study on female labour in brick field in the work area in Khejuri CD Blocks (P. S.) under Purba Medinipur district in West Bengal. This study uses data to examine the different aspects of female labor in brick field. Study used quantitative method for data collection and particularly survey was used. A total of 1241 respondents of twenty three brick fields in Khejuri CD Blocks (P. S.) have been interviewed. SPSS windows program is used to process and organize the data for the study.