India's accession to the GPA : Identifying costs and benefits

Home-based producers are some of the most invisible workers in the unorganised sector. In many industries, including garment making, they comprise a sizeable proportion of the workforce. Because these producers work within the home, often on activities closely related to household production for consumption, they are easily missed in labour force estimates. Added to this problem is the fact that many home-based producers are women and women have traditionally been an under-counted group within labour force statistics. The paper aims to make visible the number and contribution of male and female home-based garment producers in Ahmedabad, illustrating any deficiencies in official statistics. It also highlights the aggregate contribution made as well as differences by gender and recommends ways to improve counts of home-based producers and strategies to increase the contribution of female home-based garment producers in Ahmedabad.