Women In Rural Sector

1331 Words6 Pages

There has been a decline in the proportion of female employed in agriculture and allied sectors, both in the rural and urban areas. The loss of female work participation in the primary sector is gained by secondary sector and tertiary sector. More than two third of the female work force in rural areas are still dependent on agriculture sector. The rate of moving away from agriculture for women is slow. Agriculture has been the mainstay of women workers (Uni& Uma, 1999). The growing feminization of the agricultural work force in India is due to various reasons. It might be that the rural industrialization and infrastructure is quite limited and because agriculture has the capacity to carry a large number of disguised unemployment women’s to …show more content…

Difference in rural and urban female work participation rates is due to the greater importance of subsistence production and the potential of women to work as unpaid family labour in the agriculture sector (Mehrotra, 2014). Another reason for high difference in rural and urban female work participation rate is that in rural areas females are engaged in household activities such as bearing and rearing children and in the production of goods and services for self-consumption. Women work at home remains unrecognized unless it produces something for sale. But due to the changes in definition of female work participation, now females considered as worker who makes significant contribution in the agricultural operations like harvesting, ploughing, sowing, transplanting, weeding, tending cattle, cooking and delivering food to the farm during the agricultural operation and other cultivation activities fell under the category manual work in cultivation (NSSO, 68th Round). Therefore, female work participation rate in rural areas has increased. But, in urban areas women do not have any opportunity for such work. Diversions of female work participation rate from the primary sector to other sector are visible, which indicate that the female is able to take advantage of the increased employment opportunities in secondary and tertiary …show more content…

In rural areas, secondary sector grow much faster than agriculture during the period of 1972-73 to 2011-12. The entire decrease in the proportion of employment in the agriculture sector has been compensated by an increase in employment in the construction sector in the rural areas (Mehrotra, 2014). This can be explained in terms of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which mainly involves construction work. The industry that has probably absorbed the largest number of workers moving out of agriculture is construction. The construction sector played a dominant role in generating employment, improvement in rural wages and the living conditions of India’s rural poor, followed by the finance, insurance & real estate sector, business services and trade, hotel & restaurant sector and communication combined (Thomas,

More about Women In Rural Sector

Open Document