Browsing by Author "Gunawardane, D.S.W."

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Caste and land tenure in Sri Lanka (based on “Madagama” village)
(University of Kelaniya, 2008) Gunawardane, D.S.W.
Gender Inequality in Sri Lanka
(Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Gunawardane, D.S.W.
Gender equality is both a core concern and an essential part of human development. However, in no society do women yet enjoy the same opportunities as men. They work longer hours and they are paid less, both in total and pro rate. Their choices as to how they spend their time, in both work and leisure, are more constrained than they are for men. These disparities generate substantial gaps between how much women and men can contribute to society, and how much they respectively share in its benefits. As a conceptual tool, gender is used to highlight various structural relationships of inequality between men and women as manifested in the labour markets, income, economic resources, education and training. Discrimination is especially obvious in political leadership and decision-making positions and in economic top management. The objective of this study was to analyse how gender inequality indicate that different dimensions in Sri Lankan context. Study was based on secondary data gathered from literature survey which are directly related to the issues addressed in this study. The study was revealed that disadvantage and marginalization of women and discrimination against them is a global phenomenon. Everywhere in the world, there are still considerable differences in living conditions and upward social mobility opportunities between men and women due to unequal factors. In Sri Lankan context traditional women have much less social, economic, political and domestic power than men. However, they have played considerable role inside the family as homemakers. Especially rural women spend much time every day on agricultural and domestic tasks. However, after the independent, successive governments have invested heavily in education, health, and welfare programmes. As a result, both men and women enjoy relatively high standards in health and education. From this view, the status of Sri Lankan women has been changed last few decades. Though, poor women are facing several problems due to unequal factors of political participation, labour force participation and decision-making process. To overcome those disparities mobilization of women as equal partners in all developmental process therefore needs the priority attention of policy makers.
Modernization and transformation of the rural community: Madagama Village, Galle District
(University of Kelaniya, 2011) Gunawardane, D.S.W.
The Sinhala rural society occupies a distinctly unique position vis-à-vis the Asian rural societies. The studies conducted by both local and foreign sociologists and anthropologists have been of great help in identifying the structure and the organization of the conventional Sinhala rural society. However, it is clearly evident that the traditional Sinhala village has undergone critical changes during recent times. A village in the Galle District in the Southern Province was selected as the area, and the objective of this was to make an attempt to ascertain the nature of the structure and the organization of the society in a village in the wet zone of Sri Lanka, the linkage existing between the village and the city, identification of the government programmes implemented in the village, assess the impact of those programmes in the village and the village social life, and to identify the nature and the pattern of changes that had taken place in the village. Historical method, comparative method and functional method were the methods generally adopted in conducting the study, while the observation method and the interview method were used for collecting the data. The interview method was used by way of key informant discussion and focus group discussions. This study has revealed that the rural village has undergone extensive changes in modern times when compared to the conventional village that existed in the past. Various policies and programmes implemented during the last few years of colonial rule, and after gaining independence, particularly land policy, social welfare programmes, open economy concept, politylization of the rural society, green revolution, extensive diffusion of government activities into the village etc. are distinctive factors that have contributed to the modernization of the conventional rural village. It can be clearly seen that the present Sinhala rural village is closely connected with urban society and intensively linked to the national administrative set up, as never witnessed before.