Gender Bias in Farm Activities: Evidences from Household Level Data of a Developing Economy

Mohapatra, Dharmabrata and Sahoo, Dukhabandhu and Mohapatra, Souryabrata (2018): Gender Bias in Farm Activities: Evidences from Household Level Data of a Developing Economy. Published in: American Journal of Rural Development , Vol. 7, No. 1 (2018): pp. 30-43.

Abstract

Despite the fact that women remained socially subordinate to men, they participated in resource control, decision-making, and production. Yet the status of farm women in general is much lower than that of male counterparts largely because of the customary male dominance in the society, inherent shyness of farm women, lack of opportunities and very poor accessibility to modern technologies. The present study is an endeavor to address this issue in a traditionally agrarian society, i.e. Odisha, India. The data are analyzed through descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviation, cross tabulation and Logit regression estimation techniques is adopted. For estimation of the aforesaid regression model the statistical packages like SPSS 20.0 and Stata 13.0 are used. Land is mostly owned by male person, which is basically due to hereditary reason (82.9 %). But cultural reason and to get the Government benefits are the minor factors. So far as reasons for land ownership at district level is concerned hereditary is the only reason to own the land. Factors like age, year of education and income from Primary Occupation do not improve the knowledge of parents regarding the property right of their girl children as these factors are not significant.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Gender, Farming, Property rights, Rural agrarian society
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

References

[1]Bastidas, E. P. (1999). Gender issues and women's participation in irrigated agriculture: the Case of two private irrigation canals inCarchi, Ecuador (Vol. 31). IWMI.

[2]Boserup, E. 1970. Women’s Role in Economic Development.New York, NY, St. Martin’s Press.

[3]Fatima, A., & Sultana, H. (2009). Tracing out the U-shape relationship between female labour force participation rate and economic development for Pakistan. International Journal of Social Economics, 36(1/2), 182-198.

[4]Ghosh, M., & Ghosh, A. (2014). Analysis of women participation in Indian agriculture. IOSR J. Human. Soc. Sci, 19(5), 1-6.

[5]Goldin, C. (1994). The U-shaped female labor force function ineconomic development and economic history (No. w4707).National Bureau of Economic Research.

[6]International Labour Office. (2013). Global Employment Trends2013: Recovering from a second jobs dip. International LabourOffice-ILO.

[7]Kottis, A. P. (1990). Shifts over time and regional variation in women's labor force participation rates in a developing economy: The case of Greece. Journal of Development Economics, 33(1),117-132.

[8]Mondal, M. (2013). The role of rural women in agriculture sector of Sagar Island, West Bengal, India. Int. J. Eng. Sci, 2(2), 81-86.

[9]Mridul Eapen (1994), 'Rural Non-Agricultural Employment in Kerala, some Emerging Tendencies', Economic and PoliticalWeekly, Volume XXIX, Number 2 I, May 2 1.

[10]Tansel, A. (2002). Economic development and female labor force participation in Turkey: Time-series evidence and cross-section estimates.

[11]Unni J (1999) Women Workers in Agriculture: Some recent trends.In: Papola TS and Alakh N Sharma (Eds) Gender and Employment in India. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 99-121.

[12]Vaisaria P (1999) Level and Pattern of Female Employment. In: Papola T.S. and Alakh N. Sharma (Eds) Gender and Employment in India. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1911-1994.