Article by Danish Aslam from Economics Wing, GAEE JMI

Background :

Women form an integral part of the Indian workforce. In the last few decades, a large number of women have entered the Indian labor force, and this growth has been particularly noticeable in the agricultural sector.

According to Census 2011, India had approximately 471 million workers in 2011, with about 149.8 million of these workers being women. Yet, whenever agriculture is brought up in India or elsewhere, and the term “farmer” is mentioned, men are assumed to be the ones to whom the sector and the term alludes.

Despite such patriarchal notions, women have taken the lead in the sector. While agrarian Feminization narratives are becoming increasingly polarized, there is still a scarcity of studies that attempt to make sense of this diversity of experiences. One underlying reason is a persistent failure to engage meaningfully with the more highly politicized issues of inequality, which are rooted in class and ethnicity and interact with gender.

Introduction:

The term ‘Feminization of Agriculture’ refers to the growing participation of women in agricultural activities.

According to the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, the total number of female workers in India is 149.8 million, with 121.8 million working in rural areas and 28.0 million working in urban areas. Of the 149.8 million female workers, 35.9 million are cultivators, and the remaining 61.5 million are agricultural laborers. 

The remaining female workers are divided into two groups: 8.5 million in the household Industry and 43.7 million in other occupations. Further, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) claims that agriculture employed 71% of women in 2018-19, followed by manufacturing (9 ℅), construction (6 %), and hospitality (4 %).

Factors responsible for the surge in women’s workforce in agriculture :

Women are frequently employed as unpaid caregivers in family fields. Thus, women’s employment mobility is limited, further hampered by poverty, agrarian distress, and gender wage disparities.

(i) Poverty: 

According to the Census, about 33.7% of rural males migrate in search of employment and better economic opportunities to escape poverty. On the other hand, females have a percentage as low as 3.6 percent because they are the “family members” left behind by the migrating man to work in family fields.

As a result, poverty is a significant factor that forces women to work as laborers to supplement their family’s income.

Most women don’t look for opportunities outside the agricultural sector because of the lack of resources and funds. Thus, working becomes a complicated task for those who migrate to support themselves and their families. Living alone in a city also comes with additional concerns, with safety being one of the many.

(ii) Agrarian Distress 

Agrarian distress is a predominant factor for disruption of farm labor (depeasantization), i.e., migration of males from agriculture towards casual work. According to a report, between 2001 and 2011, 7.7 million farmers left agriculture. With the increasing shift of men from farm to non-farm activities, the women’s workforce in agricultural and allied activities has grown.

The Economic Survey 2017-18 claims that there has been a ‘feminization’ of the agriculture sector, with an increase in participation of women as cultivators, laborers, and entrepreneurs as men’s rural-to-urban migration has increased. Studies claim that the agricultural sector employs 80% of all women workforce in India, with 33% accounting for agriculture laborers and 48% being self-employed farmers. Rural women produce around 60-80% of the food.

(iii) Gender wage disparities:

The gender wage disparity in the agricultural labor market is observed in all Indian states. While wages for both male and female farmers increased over the last decade (2006-17), the wage disparity persists, with women farmers earning less. 

The wage disparity was greatest between 2012 and 2014 when women farmers earned nearly 27 cents on the dollar less than men. While wages for both male and female farmers increased over the last decade (2006-17), the wage disparity persists, with women farmers earning less.

Despite a marginal reduction in the wage gap (by 4.43 c/o) between 2012-13 and 2014-15, nothing much appears to have changed, as evidenced by data on the All India Annual Average Daily Wage Rate in the major states. The wage disparity was highlighted once more in 2015-16 when female farmers earned 25.37 cents on the dollar less than male farmers.

Some of the possible elements that can impact the gender wage gap include—- the expansion of Self Help Groups (SHGs), primary education among rural women, expenditure on the social sector as a percentage of net state domestic products, and the cropping intensity.

Challenges in women-centric farming:

Despite having diverse functionalities in pre-harvest and post-harvest processing, packaging, and marketing activities, women farmers face several problems, such as Gender Disparity in Land Ownership, Inadequate Access to Credit, Wage Disparity, Mechanization, etc.

Some of the figures below are astounding, demonstrating that increasing women’s labor force participation in the agricultural sector has not translated into decision-making power over critical issues such as property and marriage.

• The percentage share of Agricultural workers in total workers is 54.6 % (Registrar General of India).
• 57.8 % of rural households are engaged in agriculture (Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households, NSO).
• 30.33 % of total cultivators and 40.67 % of agriculture labor are women. Yet, only 13.95 % of women own landholdings according to the agricultural census of 2015-16.

Lack of property ownership keeps landless women, and female agricultural laborers on the precipice, like insurance, credit, irrigation, and other government-provided entitlements are denied in the absence of land security. While land and agriculture are state subjects, laws regulating them are influenced by religion, tradition, and socio-cultural norms against women’s right to property.

Women are paid little to nothing because their work is frequently regarded as an extension of household work. Furthermore, because women are perceived as caregivers and homemakers, their contribution to agriculture goes unnoticed and is often not even included in GDP.

Despite employing a large number of people (41.49 % in 2020), agriculture contributes far less to GDP than its employment rate (19.9 ℅ in 2020-21). Since most women work in agriculture, they should be at the forefront of developing policies to reduce over-employment in the sector. Other forms of employment should be developed specifically for women.

The mechanization of agriculture has led to the confinement of women to traditional, low-paying jobs like winnowing, harvesting, sowing seeds, and rearing livestock. In addition, there is no female perspective on the issue of farmer suicides. Suicides by male cultivators primarily affect female family members, particularly widows, forcing them to shoulder the burden of managing the household as well as the fields.

Role of Cooperatives and Self Help Groups (SHGs) in women-centric farming :

Cooperative education programs for women are organized through State Cooperative Societies to ensure women’s participation in various activities in the field of cooperatives.

On the other hand, Self Help Groups (SHGs) are small groups of women from marginalized communities that operate on the tenets of mobilizing, organizing, self-help, and mutual interest.

The government has acknowledged the need for pro-women policies concerning land, water, credit, technology, and training – an effort to ensure schemes focusing on these aspects.

Mahila Shakti Kendra is one such government initiative to empower rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health, and nutrition.

A recent global rapid gender analysis on COVID-19 found that most decision-making bodies established in response to the pandemic are dominated by men (CARE and IRC, 2020). Similarly, women and girls and their organizations are often excluded from community-level decision-making and governance structures that shape the response strategies during humanitarian crises (IASC, 2018).

On average, women in rural contexts face an excessive work burden because of an unequal gender division of labor and their multiple roles (productive, reproductive, and community), most of which are unpaid (OECD, 2020). 

The pandemic further increased women’s work burden due to the increased number of people staying at home during quarantine and/or increased demands of caring for sick family members (UN Women, 2020). It also highlighted gender disparities in land rights. Women who became widowed due to COVID-19 faced disinheritance because women’s property rights are often conditional on marriage. 

In addition, migrant family members who could not find work in cities returned to their villages, increasing competition for land. These dynamics put women’s already fragile land tenure security to the test, threatening to widen the gender gap in investments, productivity, and income.

Role of Cooperatives and Self Help Groups (SHGs) in women-centric farming :

Cooperative education programs for women are organized through State Cooperative Societies to ensure women’s participation in various activities in the field of cooperatives.

On the other hand, Self Help Groups (SHGs) are small groups of women from marginalized communities that operate on the tenets of mobilizing, organizing, self-help, and mutual interest.

The government has acknowledged the need for pro-women policies concerning land, water, credit, technology, and training – an effort to ensure schemes focusing on these aspects.

Mahila Shakti Kendra is one such government initiative to empower rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health, and nutrition.

A recent global rapid gender analysis on COVID-19 found that most decision-making bodies established in response to the pandemic are dominated by men (CARE and IRC, 2020). Similarly, women and girls and their organizations are often excluded from community-level decision-making and governance structures that shape the response strategies during humanitarian crises (IASC, 2018).

On average, women in rural contexts face an excessive work burden because of an unequal gender division of labor and their multiple roles (productive, reproductive, and community), most of which are unpaid (OECD, 2020). 

The pandemic further increased women’s work burden due to the increased number of people staying at home during quarantine and/or increased demands of caring for sick family members (UN Women, 2020). It also highlighted gender disparities in land rights. Women who became widowed due to COVID-19 faced disinheritance because women’s property rights are often conditional on marriage. 

In addition, migrant family members who could not find work in cities returned to their villages, increasing competition for land. These dynamics put women’s already fragile land tenure security to the test, threatening to widen the gender gap in investments, productivity, and income.

Final take: Gender equality in decision-making forums is the way ahead 

The agricultural sector provides much-needed economic opportunities for women. However, due to a variety of obstacles, this potential remains untapped. The formalization of the manufacturing process encourages the monetization of women’s labor and improves their working conditions.

Furthermore, social norms that shackle women in the labor force must be addressed through education, skill development, technological adoption, and digital literacy. These can increase the efficiency, profits, awareness, and purchasing power of women in the workforce, allowing the government to support these women by disseminating innovative technologies, techniques, etc.

It is necessary to find ways to increase female representation in decision-making forums to help bridge wage gaps and the current deficit in women-sensitive policymaking.

Women are under-represented in decision-making roles worldwide. However, gender equality and diversity are recognized to affect organizations, institutions, and the overall economy positively.

In developing countries, gender equality and development are intertwined: more gender equality creates the conditions to boost economic development and contributes to economic growth, while more development leads to more gender equality.

In developed countries, women are as educated as men, they represent a crucial positive value for the economy, and they contribute substantially to economic growth. More women in the labor market translate into a considerable increase in GDP.

Another area where much work remains to be done is gender budgeting. Only 5% of the total budget in 2020-21 was sensitive to gender-neutral outcomes and explicitly focused on women-centric schemes, which could be increased.

There’s no blueprint for closing the gender gap. However, by promoting equal access to resources and creating gender-sensitive and gender-aware policies and programs, we can provide women farmers with a level playing field, which is critical to ensuring the sustainability of agricultural development in India.

Article Summary :

This article discusses the economic context of women’s increased participation in agriculture. Furthermore, after reviewing several reports and surveys, key points for enhancing the Feminization of this sector have been identified. The author explains the role of cooperatives and self-help groups (SHGs) in resolving problems in women-centric farming. Following that, the pandemic’s impact on women in India’s workforce, particularly in rural areas, has been emphasized in order to explain the ongoing Feminization of the agrarian sector.

Finally, it is concluded that no blueprint exists that can close the gender gap. Still, by promoting equal access to resources and making policies & programs more gender-sensitive and gender-aware, we can provide women farmers a level playing field, which is crucial to ensure the sustainability of agricultural development in India.

(Danish Aslam is an M.Sc. Bioinformatics student at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, and a member of GAEE JMI, an autonomous branch of the Global Association of Economics Education in India. The views expressed are personal and do not reflect the opinions or views of GAEE or its members.)