Despite its many advantages, the employment of women in economic activity in India has been associated with increased mortality for infants and young children. Simultaneously, narrower gender differentials in child mortality among employed women have been noted.

Recent studies examining British attitudes and ideologies which structured colonial policies towards 'outcaste'2 and 'deviant' groups in indigenous society, have suggested that the groups who were marginalised included those whose activities were conceived of as 'threatening' to new normative def