One of the most significant social changes over the past 25 years in Tamil Nadu is the entry of women into the local political bodies of Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samithi through a 33 % reservation system. Simultaneously, women are now to a large extent organised in Self-Help Groups, through which at least some of them can access loans either for small entrepreneurship or simply for smaller emergency/consumption loans. An important background to this is the increased participation of women in the non-agricultural labour market. In this article we report from a 25 year panel study of 213 agrarian households in six villages in Karur and Tiruchirapalli districts
