Use of Female Family and Hired Labour in Agriculture: An Empirical Study in Western Uttar Pradesh, India

The role of women in Indian agriculture has been highlighted in a large number of studies. However, there are only a few studies which highlight the role of household female workers in agricultural activities on their family farms. Female family workers constitute a special category of labour who are called to join in agricultural work on farm whenever demand for labour increases. They are, thus, a flexible source of labour supply. Their work is seasonal and intermittent and remains unpaid and hence unrecognized. Most of the studies of female labour in agriculture were undertaken in the early decades of the green revolution. There are few recent field studies of women participation in agriculture in India. Moreover, the earlier studies were mostly confined to wheat and rice growing regions and did not look at the labour intensive commercial crops like sugarcane. The present study seeks to fill up these gaps in literature by particularly focusing upon the role of household female workers in an agriculturally developed region specializing in sugarcane cultivation. The study is based upon an intensive field survey of 240 farm households located in the agriculturally developed western region of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India. The study reveals that the contribution of women to agricultural work in the study area which specializes in sugarcane cultivation is higher than their contribution revealed by earlier studies in wheat growing northern states of Punjab and Haryana, but it is lower than their involvement in the rice growing regions of south India. The study also confirms the inverse relationship between size of holding and use of female labour observed in the earlier studies. Our findings about the work segregation by sexes are also in line with the findings of the earlier studies. The study stresses that women workers in agriculture should be given due recognition in public policy to reduce the gender gap in agriculture. have also opened new opportunities for women to engage in agricultural activities (Deere, 2005). The increasing role played by women in agriculture is, however, not reflected in the official estimates of women workers. The main reason for the non-recognition of the continued high participation of women in agriculture may be found in the general Euro-centric and middleclass bias, according to which all women are basically seen as housewives (Mies etal., 1986). The traditional social attitudes which view women as primarily responsible for household duties also leads to undercounting of women as workers especially in case of women who work on family farms (Kanchi, 2010; Mies, 1986). The social definition of women as housewives removes them ipso facto from the perception of researchers and development planners dealing with the labour market (Mies, 1982). In India, agriculture sector employs 65 percent of all economically active women as compared to 50 percent of men according to the Census 2011. Nearly 28 per cent of the cultivators and 48 per cent of the agricultural labourers in the country are women. According to the NSSO Employment and Unemployment Surveys, the share of women out of the total farmers increased from 38 per cent during 1999–00 to 42 percent by 2004–05 (Srivastava & Srivastava, 2010). However, both Census and NSS data under count the number of women workers in agriculture and the informal sector as pointed out by several scholars like Anker (1983), Sen and Sen (1985), Agarwal (1985), Sardamoni (1988), Krishnaraj (1990), Visaria (1999),Hirway (2002, 2009, 2015) and Sen (1983). The role of women in Indian agriculture has been highlighted in a large number of studies. However, there are only a few studies which highlight the role of household female workers in agricultural activities on their family farms. The present paper is an attempt in that direction. Review of Literature Several studies show that women are extensively involved in agricultural activities. However, the nature and extent of women’s involvement in agriculture differs in different agroproduction systems (NishuBala, 2010). Even, within a region, their involvement varies widely among different ecological sub-zones, farming system, caste, classes and socio-economic status of families (Swaminathan, 1985; Sethi, 1982; Unni, 1999; Sreekumar, 2001; Mies, 1980). Nata Duvvury (1989) observes that the extent of female participation in production in India is determined by a nexus of class/caste hierarchy and norms of patriarchal ideology. She pointed out that most peasant women do significant proportion of the work involved in pre and post-harvest operations that are done in the home compound rather than in the field. According to her while women of poor peasant households may in addition go for assisting in the field, women of households on the upper end of the hierarchy would never go for 'outdoor' work. As Dak and Sharma (1988) point out that the dominant cultural norms accept women’s manual work on the family farm but working for others is considered to bring about a lowering of this status. The taboo against women’s outside work is stronger among the higher castesas compared to the backward castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Martha Chen (1989) also observes that there are marked differences in women's agricultural work according to agro-ecologic zones. In general, female labour force participation rates are lower in the wheat growing belt of the north-west relative to the rice growing eastern and southern states. Variations are also observed in participation of female labour in agriculture between different rice growing regions (Agarwal, 2004; Sen, 1987). Several studies show that household women spent long hours on agricultural work in addition to their household duties. Chakravorthy (1975) found that an active farm woman spends around 8 to 9 hours on the farm during the peak agricultural season, 3 to 4 hours on taking care of the cattle and 3 to 4 hours on their household chores. According to Agarwal (1983) women devoted 17%, 68% and 15% of their work time to agriculture, animal husbandry and supportive activities respectively. Singh and Bhati (1985) point out that on an average, a female worker devoted 4.2 hours of work per day on marginal farms, 4.1 hours on small farms and 3.6 hours on medium size farms. Maria Mies (1985) in her study of the role of women in subsistence production and agriculture labour in three villages of Andhra Pradesh finds that although the poor peasant and agricultural labourer women had virtually no control over land and other means of production, they carried out 70-80 percent of all field work in agricultural production. 2 of 20 Gender and Women’s Studies Baliyan K. Gender and Women’s Studies. 2018, 2(1):2. Narasimha Reddy and Venkatanarayana (2013) have examined the changing nature of labour use in rice cultivation in the state Andhra Pradesh. Using NSS data they show that the number of females self-employed in agriculture has declined from 10.6 million in 1993–94 to 7.7 million in 2009–10. There was a sharp increase in casual labour engaged in agriculture. Family and casual labour used for per hectare of rice cultivation has also shown a declining trend in Andhra Pradesh during the period 1990–91 and 2009–10. The trend in gender-wise labour use in rice cultivation in Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2011 indicate that both the male and female labour use is declining. However, the rate of decline is relatively faster with respect female labour than that of male counterpart. Two operations that have shown a noticeable decline in their share during the period are harvesting and threshing/winnowing. Increasing mechanisation of female labour intense operations such as harvesting could be possible explanation for the declining share of female labour in rice cultivation. A number of scholars have attempted to estimate the economic contribution of women in agricultural work (Mencher and Saradamony (1982), Sen and Sen (1985), Muller (1985), Patnaik and Sailabala Debi (1986), Patel (1989), K. Saradamoni (1989), Usha Tuteja (2000). These studies pointed out that women labour contribute more in terms of time, output and income and they need a fair deal both in socio-economic planning and in decision-making A number of studies have explored the determinants of female participation in agriculture. The studies suggested that participation amongst women is affected by various cultural and social factors (Chowdhry,1993; Duvvury, 1989). Factors like literacy; caste and age also affect women’s participation in agricultural work (Arya & Madhukar, 1988; Dutta & Sharma, 1985; Srivastava & Srivastava, 2010;Baliyan, 2014). Role of economic factors i.e., land holding status and income level of households has been highlighted by some scholars (Chakravorty, 1978; MahendraDev, 2004). Women’s participation in agricultural work is also influenced by the cropping pattern (Sen, 1983; Eapen, 1994; JeemolUnni, 1999). Other studies have pointed out that the level of development of a region also affects women’s participation in work (Devendra & Chittedi, 1992; Roy, 1993). Pattnaik et al. (2017) have examined the trends in participation of women in agriculture in India and its states using Census data. They find substantial variation in dependence on agricultural employment across states. A regression analysis across states shows that women’s participation in agriculture is negatively related with the size of holding and positively related with poverty levels. They conclude that women’s participation in agriculture is higher when the family and the agriculture are less advantageous for livelihoods. Scholars have also observed sex segregation in agricultural work. Both Meis (1985) and Chen (1989) described pattern of labour use of men and women in agricultural operations. In general women labour both family and hired is employed in operations like weeding, winnowing, drying, storage, and husking