India, Modernity, Washing Machines and Women

The NCAER's study on the Indian middle class has some interesting data on the ownership of consumer durables in India:

Consumer Durable	Ownership
Colour TV	14.6%
Refrigerator	13.4%
Scooter	7.9%
Washing machine	7.2%
Motorcycle	7.1%
Car/Jeep	0.3%

Now colour TVs, refrigerators and washing machines cost about the same. But the ownership of washing machines is about half that of colour TVs and refrigerators. It is comparable to the ownership of scooters and motorcycles, which cost about 5 times as much.

So the 'deficit' in the ownership of washing machines (compared to colour TVs and refrigerators) is about 7% of the population. This translates to about 1.5 crore families. That is, 15 million families can afford a washing machine, but haven't bought one.

What does this mean? It means 15 million Indian women wash clothes by hand – even though they don't have to. It means 15 million Indian women spend half their day washing clothes, from morning to afternoon, everyday – even though they don't have to.

What does this say about modernity in India?

Degree of Industrialisation: India and Other Countries

How do we measure to what extent a country is industrialised? There is no economic indicator called "degree of industrialisation". A rough substitute would be the percentage of the population that is employed in the industry and services sectors (as against agriculture). Taking this as a measure, here are some countries and their "degree of industrialisation":

Country	Degree of Industrialisation
India	48%
China	60%
America	99%
Britain	98%
Germany	97%
France	96%
Japan	95%
Russia	90%
Brazil	80%
Indonesia	57%

Data from CIA's "The World Factbook".