36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Integration with the global capitalist system and the changing priorities of the state puts women in the developing countries in the lowest rung of the exploitative system. It is argued that the capitalist mode of production geared towards surplus extraction cannot lead to women's liberation. Women not only get pushed into low wage jobs but they earn even lower remuneration than their male counterparts. The underlying rationale behind this is the supposition that women arc materially dependent on men and, therefore, the issue of equal remuneration seems an aberration. Women are supposed to depend primarily on their husbands or other male members in the family for financial support. This does not take note of a large percentage of families where women are the sole earners. In subsistence agrarian societies, women are employed on the farm as part of the family; work being contracted out to men who employ their female family members and children as need be. These women do not have any options in terms of the type, nature or location of employment. It is argued that the complex interplay of patriarchy, class and production conditions determines the role women play in economic activity. A proper analysis of women's participation in economic activities and the status of women requires an accurate understanding of the economic and socio-cultural aspects prevalent in the wider society. Changes in production conditions and the differential impact of development policies given the pre-existing economic and social stratification creates contrary tendencies for participation of women in the labour force outsides the domestic arena. The evidence shows that setting up of modern industrial and agricultural sector based on capital intensive technology has pushed women into the low wage sectors and who also form the bulk of unskilled labour. In the Indian context, the traditional upper class/caste norm of excluding women from labour outside the family acts as a barrier for their entry in the labour force. The influence of economic differentiation, caste structure and the nature of family interact with one another in the formation of female workforce. The crucial role played by the class-caste correlations gets sharpened with the impact of the macro policies for growth based on top down planning which has particularly affected women by marginalising their economic contribution and overlooking the economic activities they perform. This combined with the adoption of various structural adjustment policies and programmes as a result of the continuing economic crises of the eighties has made it imperative for women to join the labour force for subsistence. The evidence shows that women have generally been ill-served by structural adjustment policies and programmes . . . many of them have lost their jobs in the formal sector; and when this has happened they have found it more difficult than men to gain another, partly as a result of discrimination arising from the male