Discuss the various economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving increasing feminization of…

Question

Discuss the various economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving increasing feminization of agriculture in India.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Agrarian distress, tiny holdings and male outmigration push women onto farms, while restricted mobility, patriarchal division of labour and caste norms keep them there as unpaid or low-paid labour. Women do most farm work yet held only about 14% of operational holdings in the Agricultural Census 2015-16.

**Introduction**

Nearly two in three working women in India still work in agriculture, against roughly a third of men (PLFS 2023-24), and the Economic Survey 2017-18 flagged the "feminisation of agriculture". Yet women held only about 14% of operational holdings (Agricultural Census 2015-16).

**Economic Forces Pushing Women onto the Farm**

SKETCH: flow | How the Farm Turns Female
- Agrarian distress
- Men move to non-farm jobs
- Women stay back
- Women run the farm
- No title, no credit

1. **Distress and tiny holdings**: With the average holding near 1.08 hectares and returns falling, farming cannot support a family, so men seek cash wages elsewhere.
2. **Male outmigration**: Men from Uttarakhand's hills and the migrant belts of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh move to construction and urban work, leaving women as de facto farm managers.
3. **Distress-driven participation**: The rise in rural female labour force participation since 2017-18 (PLFS) is mostly unpaid family help, not better jobs.

**Socio-cultural Forces Holding Women There**

1. **Restricted mobility**: Purdah norms, safety fears and care duties stop women migrating, so they stay with land, children and elders.
2. **Patriarchal division of labour**: Farm work is treated as an extension of housework, so it is counted as "help" and stays unpaid and invisible.
3. **Caste and class**: Status-seeking families withdraw women from fields, as Srinivas's Sanskritisation predicts, so Dalit, Adivasi and landless women carry the load.

**Conclusion**

This is a feminisation of labour and distress, not of ownership, as Bina Agarwal's "A Field of One's Own" (1994) showed. Joint land titles, credit and extension that treat women as farmers would make SDG 5 real on the field.

Discuss the various economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving increasing feminization of agriculture in India.

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