WOMEN, WAGES AND INTRAHOUSEHOLD POWER RELATIONS IN URBAN BANGLADESH

This article examines the implications of women's access to income-ear ning opportunities for their position in intra-household relationships . For those who believe that such relationships are egalitarian, this issue may not appear relevant; for others, however, there is a diverge nce of views between those who offer an optimistic analysis of the eff ects of earning power for women's status, and those who provide a more pessimistic prognosis. In exploring this issue, the article makes use of first-hand accounts of women workers in the recently emergent expo rt-oriented garment factories in Bangladesh, both in order to evaluate the 'fit' with theoretical insights of intra-household relations from the social science literature, and to assess what the 'everyday lived realities' described by the women workers tell us about the workings of power within family-based households in urban Bangladesh.