Work and Reproductive Health: A Hobson's Choice for Indian Women?

Abstract

The recent reproductive and child health (RCH) combined programme of the World Bank and Government of India approaches the problem of reproductive health more from the supply side with accent on quality of care, access to service, coverage of the relevant population etc. We do not discount the need for either strengthening the existing services, making It more accessible and/or broad-based. The burden of our argument is however different: even assuming the programme (RCH) is able to provide the best of services with the widest possible coverage, our contention is that we would still be tackling only 50 per cent of the problem of reproductive health. What the programme does not address Is the existing structural nature of women's work (domestic as well as non-domestic) which has severe built In hazards for women's health (reproductive and otherwise) which no amount of first rate quality of care and/or access lo health services alone can deal with. Focusing on Tamil Nadu, we argue in addition that a demographic model state need not necessarily be a reproductively safe place.