25 years ago, Nirmala Banerjee wrote the piece “How Real is the Bogey of Feminization?” in which she stated that “there are no obvious reasons why (feminization of the Indian workforce) should take place in the coming years”. The Indian female labour force participation rate has witnessed a rise in recent years after years of decline. The female workforce participation rate has never steadily increased in India and reached its peak of 40.8 % in 2004-05 but has declined since then. The PLFS data, however, shows an increase in female LFPR from 20.1% in 2017-18 to 27.9% in 2022-23. The urban female WPR has remained more or less stagnant, reached its peak of 20.9% in 2004-05, declined to 17.1% in 2017-18, but has slightly increased to 19.9% in 2022-23. The recent rise in rural female WPR from 20.1% in 2017-18 to 26.7% in 2019-20, the pre-pandemic period, is especially interesting.
The reason behind a low and declining female LFPR can be three-fold (Jose Thomas, 2020). First, some studies show that this decline can be attributed to an increase in the enrollment rates of female education and an improvement in income in rural families. Second, some studies focus on how slow growth of job opportunities, social norms and barriers to women’s participation in activities outside the household, and discrimination faced by women at the workplace have led to a low female LFPR. Finally, some studies have focused on measurement issues of understanding female employment in India.
Banerjee in 1999 noted that feminization of agriculture in India means more women being engaged in agriculture as compared to other sectors of the economy. Raktima Mukhopadhyay, Itishree Pattnaik, and Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt’s 2023 book Becoming a Farmer Women in Rural West Bengal, India (published by Orient BlackSwan)is an especially important book to understand how the feminization of agriculture can emerge and women farmers can remain hidden or invisible.
First, it is important to understand what feminization of agriculture in the Indian context could imply given the relatively low female labour force participation rate. State-wise analysis of census data shows that in states where women’s activity rates have increased, it was almost due to an increase in the agricultural sector. According to Census data of 2011, 67% of women in agriculture work as cultivators or agricultural labourers. Thus, if there has been any increase in work opportunities for rural women, it is only in the agriculture sector.
What is the feminization of agriculture?
Feminization of agriculture can be interpreted in two ways – first, the increase in women’s labour contributions to farming activities and how women navigate these changes like increased responsibilities and work burdens. Second, it is also important to understand the feminization of agriculture in terms of how women define, control, and enact the social processes of agriculture like ownership of land and other resources, decision-making power, and women’s contributions to public spheres.
The book Becoming a Farmer focuses on a specific subgroup of rural women – those heading their households due to migration of the men folk, either for a short period or longer duration. The rise in female-headed households in West Bengal (since the book is set in the state) can be attributed to two factors. First, the rise of de jure female-headed households, and second, the rise of de facto households. De jure female-headed households arise because of the absence of the male head residing in the household due to widowhood, separation, divorce, or disability. De facto female-headed households, on the other hand, are those where migration of the male members makes the woman the head of the household.
Male out-migration can arise when the men are pushed to find alternative sources of income outside their places of origin as a result of deceleration of agricultural production and productivity, the increasing cost of agricultural inputs, higher risk of crop damage as a result of climate change, lack of employment opportunities, and the higher aspiration of newly literate youth in rural areas (Mukhopadhyay et al, 2023). In rural West Bengal, for marginal farmers to survive, male members of such families migrate in search of income as cultivating small pieces of land is not enough to sustain the entire family. The two study districts for the book are Bankura and Dakshin Dinajpur. In Bankura, on average 67 % of the families have members who migrate from vulnerable blocks to perform agricultural labour. This form of migration is often circulatory and intrastate and happens at least twice a year or more. In Dakshin Dinajpur, on the other hand, around 47% of Muslim and 55% of non-Muslim households undertake short-term migration while 53% of Muslims and 46% of non-Muslims undertake long-term annual migration. Both these districts have a large tribal (indigenous) population and a larger-than-average share of women working in the agricultural sector.
The study used three tools – household survey instruments, focus group discussions, and case studies. A structured questionnaire-based household survey with a purposive sample of households with men who migrate was used. The study included 95 women farmers, with 64 respondents from Bankura and 31 from Dakshin Dinajpur.
Changes in the Role of Women in Agriculture after Male Out-Migration
Temporary migration can be seen as a sign of dynamism, but it pertains more to increasing inequalities, agrarian instability, and inadequate income generation throughout rural and urban India. The book found that with male out-migration, women have adapted to new farm activities and new forms of diversification. However, the study also found evidence of a decline in crop yield and an increase in crop damage after male migration. Along with climate change, this is also because of changing land use practices associated with women’s financial and social standing. The book delves into how agricultural processes are gendered as women face problems in assured irrigation and knowledge of crop management practices as government training and provision of inputs also work in a gendered setting. An example of how a woman farmer who wanted to diversify her crop production and grow wheat and mustard like her neighbours but her out-migrated husband doubted her ability, resulting in her mirroring her husband’s decision despite her being the one doing the cultivation!
Why a Book Like Becoming a Farmer is Important
The book is an ethnographic analysis of women farmers once their husbands have migrated out in search of better work opportunities. The book provides a detailed analysis of what male out-migration could mean for the women of the household. It is divided into 13 chapters with the first 3 chapters laying the foundation of the phenomenon of “feminization of agriculture in India”.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are dedicated to understanding the agrarian set-up of West Bengal and how women’s roles have changed over the years. Chapters 7 and 8 provide a detailed understanding of the two districts selected for the study. Chapter 9 lays out the socio-economic characteristics of the selected households.
Chapter 10 is the first chapter of the book that analyses the field data. The chapter found that women and other family members take over much of the role that the migrated men used to perform, along with their usual household chores. The women do a range of work like livestock rearing, petty business, casual labour, working in the brick kiln, and selling forest products. There is a lack of regular work opportunities available to the women and statistics from West Bengal show that the non-farm job creation has shifted to more casual and marginal jobs.
Chapters 11 and 12 further analyse the roles of women in agriculture in Bengal and India with Chapter 13 providing the conclusion of the book. Families of these male out-migrated members can no longer rely on their land for subsistence or on remittances sent by their husbands and have to often take up other activities like casual labour or petty business.
The book provides an important understanding of how women farmers, who often remain hidden from policymakers, are an important part of today’s agrarian life. It is important for the field understanding of women farmers because secondary survey data often do not give us an accurate picture.
References:
Banerjee, N. (1999). How Real is the Bogey of Feminization? In Gender and Employment in India edited by T.S. Papola and Alakh N. Sharma. Pp 299-317. New Delhi: Vikas Publication House.
Jose Thomas, J. (2020). Sectoral Shifts and Declining Labour Participation Rate of Women In Women and Work in Rural India edited by Madhura Swaminathan, Shruti Nagbhushan and V.K. Ramachandran.Pp 85-108. Tulika Books in association with the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.
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Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Economics of the South Asian University, New Delhi.