Socio-economic Status of Female Workers Engaged in Traditional Chikankari under Sitapur District

Chikankari is an ancient and traditional embroidery technique that originated in Lucknow, a city in north-eastern India. The artisans of Chikan embroidery are outspread in Lucknow and nearby villages of Sitapur district. The rural people of Sitapur villages are largely dependent on the Chikankari embroidery for their livelihood and the embroidery is very popular among rural ladies. Socio-economic status of a person is the economic and social position of the person based on education, income and occupation in relation to others. It was found in the study that age group 20-40 were dominating in Chikankari work as they faces low health problems as compared to higher age group. Modified Kuppuswamy Socio-economic scale updated for the year 2019, was used to calculate the socio-economic status of the respondents. Socio-economic status of the worker shows that they were mostly upper lower class (60%) and lower middle class (40%). Nearly all subjects (99%) had income below 5000/month and the average income from Chikankari is rupees 2566.66/month/person, while the income of the family/household income mostly range between rupees 19516-29199/month and the average income was rupees 20542.91/month. Most of the Chikankari workers had kuchha houses and uses wood for cooking on traditional chulha. Public hand pumps were the source to drink water. They had very small or no land holding and daily wages are the source of income to fulfill their daily needs.