This chapter examines the relationship between gender and globalization. It highlights the way in which education and aspirations for upward mobility, brought about by changing labour markets, have altered understandings of parenting and the division of work among women belonging to middle-class households in two Calcutta neighbourhoods.

Changes related to new forms of employment have influenced formal education in Calcutta and in turn modified the way middle-class women are involved in the daily work of raising children and running a household at different stages. Although mothers have contributed to schooling for generations, the emphasis on employment in multinational companies has brought about a shift in educational strategies towards private English-language education. This is increasingly seen as a precondition for occupational choices offered in the ‘global’ market, which demands the reorganization of parenting practices and the division of labour in the household.

When globalization is discussed with reference to the middle-class family or the ‘domestic sphere’, the politics of economic liberalization are held responsible for the widespread emergence of specific types of domestic organization in the context of consumerism and urbanisation among the new middle classes (Jamieson 1998; Giddens 1999). It is assumed that specific notions regarding the separation of a private and a public sphere, the nuclearisation of households, marital relations, and child-rearing practices are adopted in the process. The macro-politics of markets are held responsible for a more homogeneous pattern of household organization worldwide.