Work Participation and Decision Making Pattern of Rural Women in South India- A Micro Level Analysis

Jyothi Santhosh, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Gracy Paily, University of California, Berkeley

India’s population crossed the one billion mark in 1999 despite the best efforts in family planning. Seventy percent of the population earns their livelihood from agriculture and a majority of them are women as they have to perform the dual role of homemakers and bread winners of the family. The extent of participation varies between regions and among households based on the socio- economic status of the family. Depending on the crop or enterprise activities the contribution to labor and extent of decision can vary nevertheless they play a prime role from planting to harvesting and post harvest operations. Due to over population and lack of alternative employment opportunities elsewhere, a majority of the population depends on agriculture or agro-based industries for their livelihoods. The uneconomical size of land holdings resulted in both low marketable surplus and purchasing power of rural masses. Realising the fact that targeting population control alone will not bring about development, the government initiated a variety of programs for rural upliftment under the umbrella of Rural development. These programs focussed on men as the head of the households for decision making, women were largely left outside the purview of getting any benefit. Hence in the later part of eighties the DWCRA ( Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) program was initiated for the benefit of women. The program envisages to provide up to Rs.25000 for group activities undertaken by women and also for individual beneficiaries. This study was conducted in order to assess the decision making and participation of beneficiary women in various activities. The main objective was to quantify work participation of women, the decision making pattern and empowerment of women. Data relating to general family structure, asset holding pattern, work participation and decision making details from 120 DWCRA beneficiary households were collected. Logit analysis was carried out for computing the probability of decision making by women.The households were selected randomly and were post stratified into different categories. The sample includes three categories namely Small Farms owning upto 5 acres of land, Large Farms operating above five acres of land and Agricultural Labourers who work in others field and earn wage income. The average size of the family was less than 3 and predominantly nuclear families were found among Small Farms and Agricultural Labor categories. Based on the number of years of schooling, five educational classifications were made. There were differences between educational levels among household categories and between men and women. While a majority of the large farm households had upto primary and high school level of education, the small and marginal households were mostly illiterates. While highest number of men had high school education, the women could study only up to primary level. This was because the girls were required for help in the kitchen and to look after the younger siblings while their parents were away in the fields. In terms of number of days of employment the women in agricultural labor households had 185 days compared to their counterpart men( 127 days). The other two categories had less than 100 days of work in the fields and the women in Large farm worked in the fields for the least number of days ( 53 days). The activity-wise work participation revealed that women were involved to a greater extent in weeding, threshing and storage activities of the important crops. Livestock rearing was managed by women as reflected by 56 per cent of Agricultural Labor, 80 per cent of Small Farm and cent percent of women from Large Farm categories participation in dairy related activities. However, marketing of milk to a nearby Milk Producers Co-operative Society was exclusively done by men. The per annum contribution of women from earnings and savings in expenditure to household income from various activities excluding domestic activities was the highest ( Rs.7770) in the Agriculture Labor category. Despite the wage differential the women in all categories contributed more to the household income compared to men. The time allocation pattern revealed that women contributed around 35 per cent of their time to domestic work, followed by crop production and other light activities. The participation of women in decision making was measured on a three point scale namely No role, Joint decision with husband and Self decision by women. It was observed that in Farm Production and Farm Finance decisions the women either had no role or they were consulted by men. While women in Agricultural Labor category had to take many decisions relating to investment and borrowing on their own. The Family planning ( Sterilization) decisions in Large Farms were Jointly taken while five and 10 per cent of women in Small Farms and Agricultural Labor categories respectively took self decision. Similarly women played an important role in the decisions relating to education of the children. The empowerment index of the women were computed by identifying the components of empowerment namely education, ownership of land, ownership of assets, control of income, savings, access to credit, social participation and earning cash income. The Logit regression results indicated education of the women and alcoholic or disabled husband contributed positively to decision making while husband as the head of the household negatively affected the farm production decisions by women. The farm financial decisions were positively influenced by the education of the husband and empowerment index of the women. In conclusion it can be said that the government sponsored programs for women to take up independent activities and free education has positively affected the decision making on various fronts including Family planning.