Usha Jumani. Dealing with Poverty: Self-Employment for Poor RuralWomen. New Delhi/Newbury ParklLondon: Sage Publications. 1991.

Based on extensive fieldwork carried out in collaboration withSEW A, Jumani’s book is a study of the issues of poor self-employedwomen in the rural areas of Ahmedabad District of Gujrat, India. Thework and social issues of rural women working in fifteen differenteconomic activities have been studied in depth through participatorymethods as a basis of organising the women and strengthening theirresource bases. The study covers five out of seven districts which arelightly rural and the sample consists of 800 poor self-employed women in561 villages. The contents of book have been divided into two parts.Part I of the book comprises seven chapters, while Part II providescase-studies of at least two women in each activity. Chapter 1elaborates the historical process of the economic transformation fromthe informal to the formal set-up of the present-day Indian economy.However, it is argued that the transformation process, contrary to theexpectation that it would generate employment, has led to the expansionof the communities of the poor self-employed workers. These workers, incontrast to formal-sector workers, are denied any legal rights to work,security, earnings, etc.