Effect of Deagrarianization at the Household Level on the Scale and Nature of Women’s Work in Rural India

Women in rural India are largely concentrated in agriculture. Most women workers are either working as unpaid labour on their family farms or are landless workers working for wages on others’ farms. However, in recent years, we see deagrarianization at the household level in terms of a decrease in the proportion of households that earn their primary income from agriculture as well as the withdrawal of women from agriculture. These patterns have mostly been studied concerning the mechanization of agriculture. In the larger history of development, reallocation of resources from agriculture to other productive sectors is usual although the exact mechanics have varied across time and space based on the context. However, the gender dimensions of such processes have not been studied. In this paper, we use the India Human Development Survey (IHDS 2004/2005 and IHDS 2011–2012), the only available pan-India panel data set to first map the change in female workforce participation outcomes as the households undergo deagrarianization, focusing on alternative trajectories of women either moving out of the workforce or transitioning to non-agricultural occupations. Second, using a linear probability model framework, the paper analyses the effect of deagrarianization at the household level on the likelihood of a woman staying in the workforce. We find that a substantial proportion of women transitioned across agriculture and non-agriculture occupations and that the transitions are not unidirectional. Further, we find that the proportion of women who dropped out of the workforce between 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 is higher among the households that have deagrarianized as compared to households that have stayed in agriculture. The paper also finds that deagrarianization negatively affects the likelihood of a woman staying in the workforce and household and individual-level characteristics such as religion, marital status and education are significant determinants of the likelihood of a woman staying in the workforce. We also find that deagrarianization negatively affects the likelihood of women entering the workforce after controlling for various household and individual level characteristics.