Gender, Labour, and Marginality in Modern India: From Colonial Reform to Postcolonial Migration, Care, and Social Justice

Abstract

This narrative review examines the relationship between gender, labour, and marginality in India from the late colonial period to the present. It considers how colonial governance, missionary intervention, and indigenous reform movements shaped the recognition and regulation of women's work, and how comparable patterns of invisibility and undervaluation remain evident in postcolonial labour markets. The review synthesises peer-reviewed historical, economic, sociological, legal, and gender-studies scholarship, supplemented by selected authoritative institutional reports. It addresses female labour force participation, the feminisation of agriculture, gendered migration, unpaid care work, domestic and platform-based employment, caste-inflected marginality, and major policy interventions. Across these domains, the evidence indicates that women's work remains concentrated in informal and weakly protected forms of employment and is constrained by unequal care responsibilities and intersecting social hierarchies. The review interprets contemporary patterns as historically connected to, but not wholly determined by, earlier labour classifications and institutional arrangements. It concludes that employment policy must be accompanied by care infrastructure, enforceable labour protections, improved intersectional data, and support for collective organisation. Priorities for research include longitudinal analysis of institutional continuity, platform governance, and the differentiated experiences of women across caste, region, religion, and migration status.