Socio-Economic Conditions of Female Agricultural Labour in India “A Case Study of Andhra Pradesh”

Abstract

Women’s role in economic development, in most countries of the world, cannot be undermined. In the third world countries, especially, where agricultures still constitutes the main source of livelihood and the main area of work for most people, women’s contribution is quite high. The strategies undertaken for the development of agriculture in these economies were more concerned with the increase in productivity through mechanization of the agricultural production process and neglected the sex specific composition of the rural labour force. Overtime, men gained from the technical change that came about in agriculture while women were marginalized. They remained mostly as low paid casual labourers. India’s female population, as per 2011 census, is 586.46 million and constitutes 48.46 percent of the total population. Nearly 75 percent of the female population in rural and mostly belong to the subsistence sector. In agriculture women mostly undertake labour intensive and drudgery prone activities like transplanting, weeding, harvesting and post harvest operations. They also work in the allied fields such as animal husbandry, forestry, plantation, fishing etc. More often, the economic activities undertaken by the rural women on their own farm or in animal husbandry get disguised as household work and remain unreported. Agricultural work is seasonal in nature. During the off season women in agriculture have to struggle hard to find alternate source of income.