Professor N. Nagaraj, from the GPS Institute of Agricultural Management, Bangalore, presented a seminar on the topic “Gender and Dynamics of Labour Use in Agriculture” on September 30, 2016, at the office of the Foundation. The presentation was based on data from two villages in Telangana and four villages in Maharashtra, collected through the longitudinal village level studies of ICRISAT, with which Professor Nagaraj has been associated.
The presentation focused on some interesting aspects of labour dynamics in Indian agriculture. Professor Nagaraj began his presentation by underscoring some recent changes in the rural economy of India, including the introduction of employment guarantee scheme, the expansion of education in the countryside, an increase in communications and connectivity, a changing attitude towards participation of women in the village economy. He also highlighted the fact that the agricultural sector continues to employ a majority of the rural workforce despite its declining share in GDP.
With this in context, Professor Nagaraj moved on to describe the phenomenon of “feminization of agriculture” in India, a phenomenon attributed largely to the remarkable movement of rural male labour from farm to non-farm sectors. This, he argued, has surely led to the empowerment of women in the agrarian economy, who now are increasingly getting an opportunity to manage small and marginal farms. At the same time, however, it has also raised new challenges for rural women, who continue to suffer from a lack of land and property rights, along with low literacy levels and lack of experience in handling agricultural support systems.
Testing the phenomenon of feminization of agriculture against village level data, Professor Nagaraj showed that work participation rates, for both male and female, have witnessed an increase over time. Interestingly, the data shows female labour participation rate to be higher than male in most of the years, as also a consistent trend increase in the share of female workers in agriculture. Strikingly, these results were in contradiction to those based on macro level studies (using data from the NSSO), which show that there has been an absolute decline in the number of agricultural workers largely due to a remarkable decline of the female workforce in agriculture. Professor Nagaraj noted that according to the NSSO, rural male labour force participation rate has been stable at 56 per cent over the years while the rural female labour force participation rate has witnessed a sharp decline, from 34 per cent in 2004-2005 to 26.5 per cent in 2010. The latter is in stark contrast to findings from the ICRISAT village level survey data.
The next part of the presentation was on total labour input use in crop production and its variations across crops and regions. He pointed out how variations in cropping pattern, technological changes and other factors have had an impact on the female labour force participation. Professor Nagaraj underscored the fact that a shift towards more labour intensive crops invariably leads to a relatively higher absorption of female workers. He also claimed that the mechanization of labour-intensive cropping operations like weeding and transplanting had most severely affected the rural female labour force.
The next part of the presentation was on male-female wage gaps. Professor Nagaraj asserted that traditionally women have been paid much less than their male counterparts and that reality unfortunately has not changed in recent times. Mechanization of crop operations in fact has tended to increase the gender wage gap further. He also showed that this gender wage gap is higher in case of employment in the non-farm sector than in the farm sector.
The presentation concluded with some questions from the audience and a lively discussion.
