The Indian Journal of Labour Economics (2020) 63:67–79

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-020-00210-z

ARTICLE

Contemporary Features of Rural Workers in India

with a Focus on Gender and Caste

Madhura Swaminathan1

Published online: 19 March 2020

© Indian Society of Labour Economics 2020

Abstract
This paper explores the features of rural labour markets in the contemporary period
with a focus on women workers, based on secondary data as well as the PARI
archive of village data. The first argument is that the low female work participa-
tion ratio, as reported by labour force surveys, may be misleading. The picture is
very different with time-use data: the majority of women are found to be engaged
in economic activity, with clear seasonal variations. Secondly, women workers are
more dependent on agriculture than male workers. The relative absence of non-
agricultural employment among women workers is consistent with the argument
that women face constraints to physical mobility and prefer employment near their
homes. The third notable feature of recent times is that large numbers of women,
from different social groups and economic classes, participated in the employment
generated under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. This evidence put
together suggests that if appropriate employment opportunities are provided, the
number and proportion of women workers will rise. The fourth striking feature of
rural labour markets is the persistence of a large gender gap in wages. Lastly, Sched-
uled Castes typically comprised the major share of the rural female labour force.

Keywords Women workers · Caste · Rural · Village study · Work participation ·

Unemployment · Time-use survey · NREGS · Agricultural employment · Gender
gap in wage rates · India · PARI

* Madhura Swaminathan
madhuraswaminathan@gmail.com
1
Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, India

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68 The Indian Journal of Labour Economics (2020) 63:67–79

1 Introduction

This paper explores the features of rural labour markets in the contemporary period
in India.1 It draws on evidence from secondary data as well as the Project on Agrar-
ian Relations in India (PARI) archive of village data from the Foundation for Agrar-
ian Studies.2 In the context of major macroeconomic and structural changes in the
Indian economy over the last few decades, including the fall in the share of agricul-
ture in GDP, we need to understand and appropriately characterise features of the
rural labour force in the contemporary period. My focus in this paper is on women
workers in rural India, with work defined as participation in economic activity that
is currently part of the System of National Accounts (SNA).
One of the puzzling features of rural India is the low and declining work partici-
pation of women reported in official statistics, an issue that has been widely debated
in the Indian Journal of Labour Economics. The female labour force participation of
the majority of countries of Asia, including those in South Asia, is higher than that
found in India, according to ILO statistics. In 2011–2012, female labour force par-
ticipation was 69% in China, 38% in Sri Lanka and 29% in India. Turning to Indian
statistics, the female work participation rate for women above the age of 15 accord-
ing to the usual (principal + subsidiary) status definition fell from 50.8% in 1983 to
35.2% in 2011–2012 and further to 23.6% in 2017–2018.
Scholars have shown that standard labour force surveys underestimate women’s
work based on many reasons including the nature of women’s work, which is often
home-based, intermittent and in the informal sector. By expanding the scope of
“work” and including women who reported themselves as attending to “domestic
duties” for example, the augmented work participation rises.3
In this paper, I argue that we need to revise our understanding of women workers
in rural India, drawing on time-use surveys from two villages of Karnataka as well
as household surveys from 21 villages across different states of India.
Time-use surveys capture the work done by women better than standard labour
force surveys because time-use surveys collect information on the actual time spent
in different activities and then classify respondents in different work or employment
categories. In this way, time-use surveys also capture information on unpaid activi-
ties. As women are not asked whether they are “workers”, this approach also reduces
errors due to an enumerator and respondent bias.
To date, there has been only one time-use survey in India, a pilot study that was
conducted in six states in 1998–1999. Careful analysis of these data showed wom-
en’s work participation to be double the proportion reported in the labour force sur-
vey in the following year, 1999–2000 (Hirway and Jose 2011). In Tamil Nadu, for

1
Text of the keynote address on theme “Changing Pattern of Rural Labour Markets” was delivered at
the 61st Labour Economics Conference, Patiala, on 7–9 December 2019. I am grateful to Shruti Nagb-
hushan for preparing the tables and Mansi Goyal for editorial suggestions.
2
For more on PARI, see http://fas.org.in/categ​ory/resea​rch/proje​ct-on-agrar​ian-relat​ions-in-india​-pari/.
3
One of the ways in which the concept of work has been expanded is by estimating an augmented work
participation ratio, where the activities of women who reported themselves as attended to domestic duties
are examined and incorporated (see Ghosh 2016; Usami 2019).

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Table 1  Worker population Village Season Worker popula- Census

ratio by current daily status tion ratio of India
among women in two villages 2011
of Karnataka, by season in per
cent. Source: Swaminathan Siresandra Lean 64 63
(2020)
Harvest 92
Alabujanahalli Lean 70 58
Harvest 82

A worker is defined as a person who spent the major part of the ref-
erence week engaged in economic activity

example, the Employment and Unemployment Survey of 1990–2000 showed a work

participation of 38% for rural women, whereas the time-use survey of 1998–1999
showed that 61% of women were in the workforce.
Given the absence of any national time-use survey for the last 20 years, in
2017–2018, the Foundation for Agrarian Studies initiated a time-use survey of
women in two villages of Karnataka. The two villages were Siresandra in Kolar
district and Alabujanahalli in Mandya district. Siresandra is a small village of 79
households and mainly unirrigated with some groundwater-irrigated vegetable cul-
tivation. Two important activities in the village are sericulture and dairying (with
links to the nearby Kolar Milk Cooperative Union). Alabujanahalli is a larger vil-
lage (243 households), located in the Cauvery-irrigated rice- and sugarcane-growing
region of Karnataka. Both villages were purposively selected as they were part of a
larger project and surveyed earlier (Swaminathan and Das 2017).
The number of women was small but the data set is unique: for each respondent,
data were collected twice at 12-h intervals for 7 consecutive days. This was repeated
in two seasons (lean and harvest) in Siresandra village and in three seasons (lean,
sowing and harvest) in Alabujanahalli village. In total, information was gathered for
over 600 24-h days.4

2 Features of Rural Labour

The study used a definition of employment based on the major time criterion during
the reference week (Swaminathan 2020). By this daily status definition of employ-
ment, the data showed near-universal work participation in the harvest season and
lower work participation in the lean season (Table 1). For example, in Siresandra
village of Kolar district, the proportion of women engaged in economic activity was
64% in the lean season and 92% in the harvest season. The corresponding worker
population ratio in Alabujanahalli village was 70% in the lean season and 82% in the
harvest season. The study also found that younger and educated women were likely

4
While the survey collected information on all activities including extended SNA and non-SNA activi-
ties, only SNA activities are reported in this paper.

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to spend fewer hours in economic activity than older, less educated women. These
younger women had more childcare responsibilities but were also aspiring to better
jobs over the back-breaking, poorly paid manual work in agriculture.
Based on detailed data on activity from a time-use survey, the first hypothesis of
this paper is that a large majority of women in rural areas are workers in the harvest
or peak season, that is, when work is available locally. Interestingly, the Census of
India data at the village level seem to capture workers as reported in the lean season.
Standard labour force surveys, however, report a much lower level of work partici-
pation. The latest data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of 2017–2018
show that in rural Karnataka, women’s work participation rate was as low as 27.2%
(Niyati and Vijayamba 2019). Further, the unemployment rate was only 3.4%. One
way of explaining both the low work participation rate and low unemployment rate
in standard labour force surveys is that when little or no employment is available,
women workers reported themselves as out of the workforce and not as unemployed
on account of the “discouraged worker” effect, wherein a worker stops searching for
work because of the absence of job opportunities (Ghosh 2016).
In addition to the discouraged worker effect, I argue that there is a conceptual
problem with the separation of questions on “seeking work” and “out of the labour
force” in the context described here.
Let us examine the definition of workers in standard labour force surveys. For
any given reference period (year or week), based on the major time spent criterion,
the Employment and Unemployment Survey, and now the PLFS, classifies people
as employed, unemployed and out of the labour force. The first question asked is “Is
a person available for work?” If yes, there is a follow-up question. If no, the person
is assumed to be out of the labour force. The next question asked to a person in the
labour force is used to distinguish between a person engaged in economic activity
(that is, employed) and the one “available for work” (that is, seeking or not seeking
work, but available for work).5
I would argue that the question on “seeking work” in labour force surveys
makes little sense in the context of a village where information about work
opportunities and seasonal activity is no secret. Women tend not to seek work
outside the village due to care obligations, safety, etc. In such a situation, when
women know that there is no employment available in the village (and they do not
seek employment outside the village), those who do not reply in the affirmative
to “seeking work” are not necessarily out of the workforce. In short, the ques-
tion about seeking work may not be a suitable one in the context of India’s rural
economy, wherein information on the availability of jobs is no secret (rural fami-
lies know the exact crop operations at any time during a crop season).6 To put
it differently, women may not be seeking work as they know there is no work in
the village. I thus argue that a distinction between seeking work and out of the
workforce may not make sense for women (and in some cases, men) in a local

5
All definitions and quotes are from MOSPI (2011).
6
As Ghosh (2016) and others have argued, the explanation that women drop out of the workforce on
account of participation in education or attaining higher incomes does not hold ground.

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Table 2  Proportion of women workers among total workers from manual-worker households, by village
in per cent. Source: PARI data, from Nagbhushan (2020)
Village District State Year of survey Proportion of women
among total manual
workers

Kothapalle Karimnagar Andhra Pradesh 2006 64

Siresandra Kolar Karnataka 2009 54
Bukkacherla Anantapur Telangana 2006 54
25F Gulabewala Sri Ganganagar Rajasthan 2007 54
Warwat Khanderao Buldhana Maharashtra 2007 52
Alabujanahalli Mandya Karnataka 2009 48
Amarsinghi Malda West Bengal 2010 45
Kalmandasguri Koch Behar West Bengal 2010 45
Zhapur Kalaburagi Karnataka 2009 44
Harevli Bijnor Uttar Pradesh 2006 42
Mainama Dhalai Tripura 2016 42
Khakchang North Tripura Tripura 2016 42
Gharsondi Gwalior Madhya Pradesh 2008 42
Mahatwar Ballia Uttar Pradesh 2006 41
Nimshirgaon Kolhapur Maharashtra 2007 41
Panahar Bankura West Bengal 2010 40
Katkuian West Champaran Bihar 2012 40
Ananthavaram Guntur Andhra Pradesh 2006 38
Nayanagar Samastipur Bihar 2012 38
Muhuripur South Tripura Tripura 2016 34
Rewasi Sikar Rajasthan 2010 34

The villages are ranked in descending order of column 5

labour market where information is widely shared. In this context, the concept of
“potential jobseekers” proposed in the new ILO resolution (ILO 2012) may be of
relevance to rural women (Hirway 2020).
A second feature of the rural workforce is that the typical rural male worker
can now be characterised as a manual worker engaged in a variety of jobs dur-
ing the year rather than being solely an agricultural worker (Ramachandran
2011). As Ramachandran (2011) notes, “it is no longer possible (nor particularly
helpful) to separate a class of non-agricultural workers from the larger pool of
manual workers—that is, to recognise rural farm and non-farm workers as dis-
crete categories—in most villages. The typical rural manual worker today can be
characterised more as a “miscellaneous worker in rural society than as solely an
agricultural worker”. While there were some male workers who specialised in
agricultural tasks (based on survey data from nine villages in the PARI archive),
Dhar (2013) argues that “male workers, given favourable circumstances… began
to move out of agricultural work, while women workers continued to toil in
agriculture”.

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Table 3  Average number of 8-h days of wage employment obtained by men and women from manual-
worker households, by village. Source: PARI data, from Nagbhushan (2020)
Village State Year of survey Women Men

Zhapur Karnataka 2009 143 195

Siresandra Karnataka 2009 140 172
Nimshirgaon Maharashtra 2007 107 111
Alabujanahalli Karnataka 2009 105 135
Warwat Khanderao Maharashtra 2007 101 99
Kothapalle Andhra Pradesh 2006 93 82
Harevli Uttar Pradesh 2006 91 139
Muhuripur Tripura 2016 90 122
Bukkacherla Telangana 2006 81 132
Khakchang Tripura 2016 79 178
Panahar West Bengal 2010 72 131
Mainama Tripura 2016 71 133
Katkuian Bihar 2012 67 109
Rewasi Rajasthan 2010 67 100
Mahatwar Uttar Pradesh 2006 66 180
Ananthavaram Andhra Pradesh 2006 65 107
Gharsondi Madhya Pradesh 2008 65 90
25F Gulabewala Rajasthan 2007 62 122
Kalmandasguri West Bengal 2010 54 148
Amarsinghi West Bengal 2010 52 88
Nayanagar Bihar 2012 35 89

The villages are ranked in descending order of column 4

In terms of diversification of employment, the situation is different for the

female labour force: women manual workers were largely engaged in agricultural
tasks, with less access to non-agricultural employment than men.
To understand the nature of women’s employment, in the following sections,
I have focussed on hired manual-worker households, that is, households whose
main source of income is from wage earnings at manual tasks. Data from PARI
household surveys in 21 villages across different agro-climatic zones show that in
the majority of manual-worker households, women were an important section of
the workforce. With the exception of four out of the 21 villages studied, women
workers accounted for more than two-fifths of workers from manual-worker
households and women constituted more than one-half of all workers in five vil-
lages (Table 2). To illustrate, in Warwat Khanderao village of Buldhana district
of Maharashtra, where cotton growing was prominent, women workers outnum-
bered male workers in manual-worker households. To take another example, in
Siresandra village of Kolar district, women workers constituted 54% of all work-
ers in manual-worker households. In short, in households dependent on manual
labour, the majority of women tended to be in the workforce.

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Table 4  Proportion of women Village State Women Men

and men workers from manual-
worker households who received Siresandra Karnataka 69 62
more than 100 days of wage
employment in a year. Source: Zhapur Karnataka 64 84
PARI data, from Nagbhushan Harevli Uttar Pradesh 56 53
(2020) Warwat Khanderao Maharashtra 43 42
Alabujanahalli Karnataka 42 55
Bukkacherla Telangana 27 32
Panahar West Bengal 27 57
Katkuian Bihar 25 43
Rewasi Rajasthan 23 38
Kothapalle Andhra Pradesh 20 17
Muhuripur Tripura 19 19
Gharsondi Madhya Pradesh 19 27
Nimshirgaon Maharashtra 18 16
Khakchang Tripura 18 17
Kalmandasguri West Bengal 17 68
Mahatwar Uttar Pradesh 16 77
Mainama Tripura 16 18
Ananthavaram Andhra Pradesh 13 14
25F Gulabewala Rajasthan 13 53
Nayanagar Bihar 11 14
Amarsinghi West Bengal 10 36

The villages are ranked in descending order of column 3

The actual employment situation, however, was grim: women workers obtained
not more than 5 months of employment, on average. The average days of employ-
ment per woman worker ranged from 35 days in Nayanagar, a Bihar village, to
143 days in Zhapur village of Gulbarga district (Table 3). As shown in Table 4,
in only three villages did the average woman worker receive more than 100 days
of employment during the reference year (and this includes all types of employ-
ment). These three villages were the following: Siresandra in Kolar district of
Karnataka where sericulture and dairying were important activities for women
workers; Zhapur, a village in northern Karnataka (Gulbarga district), where stone
quarries provided unskilled employment; and Harevli, an irrigated village in
western Uttar Pradesh, where women were employed in sugarcane cultivation.
Further, women workers even in manual-worker households invariably
obtained a lower number of days of employment than male workers. In every
village reported in Table 3, the days of employment for women was lower than
for men, on average. In Mahatwar, a village of eastern Uttar Pradesh, for exam-
ple, women workers received 66 days of employment, on average, as compared
to 180 days of employment for male workers. In Zhapur, a village of northern
Karnataka, where non-agricultural employment in stone quarries was available in

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Table 5  Share of agricultural employment in total days of employment among male and female workers
from manual labour households, by village, in per cent. Source: PARI data, from Nagbhushan (2020)
Village State Year of survey Women Men

Ananthavaram Andhra Pradesh 2006 100 62

Harevli Uttar Pradesh 2006 99 61
Nimshirgaon Maharashtra 2007 97 63
Katkuian Bihar 2012 91 51
Bukkacherla Telangana 2006 90 56
25F Gulabewala Rajasthan 2007 81 71
Kalmandasguri West Bengal 2010 80 46
Warwat Khanderao Maharashtra 2007 79 55
Kothapalle Andhra Pradesh 2006 78 32
Mahatwar Uttar Pradesh 2006 61 23
Amarsinghi West Bengal 2010 59 46
Gharsondi Madhya Pradesh 2008 59 52
Nayanagar Bihar 2012 57 39
Alabujanahalli Karnataka 2009 54 61
Siresandra Karnataka 2009 51 69
Zhapur Karnataka 2009 46 17
Panahar West Bengal 2010 46 46
Mainama Tripura 2016 45 30
Rewasi Rajasthan 2010 42 36
Muhuripur Tripura 2016 38 13
Khakchang Tripura 2016 31 29

The villages are ranked in descending order of column 4

addition to agricultural work, women obtained 140 days of employment on aver-

age, as compared to 172 days among male workers.7
These data show that while women were joining the labour force, the availability
of employment was limited within the village boundary.
Turning to the composition of employment, two findings emerge from village-
level data reported in Table 5. With a few exceptions, employment in agriculture
dominated the work calendar of women workers.8 In the 21 PARI survey villages,
employment in agriculture accounted for more than 50% of the total days of employ-
ment in the majority of villages. This was the case in diverse agro-ecological envi-
ronments such as in Ananthavaram, a canal-irrigated village in Guntur district, and
Harevli, a wheat–paddy–sugarcane village in Bijnor district. The extent of non-agri-
cultural employment was more than 60% of the days of total employment in only

7
These data, of course, all point to high unemployment among male workers.
8
This is not a new finding: based on data for eight PARI villages, Ramachandran et al. (2014) stated that
“an extraordinary feature of our village data is the extent to which agriculture dominates the wage-work
done by Dalit women workers in manual labour households”(p. 304).

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two villages of Tripura, and this was on account of the proper implementation of the
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
To sum up, women in manual-worker households were typically part of the
labour force. On average, women workers in manual-worker households obtained
employment for less than 150 days in a year in all the villages studied, and their
employment calendar was dominated by agricultural labour. The low level of non-
agricultural employment among women workers reflects the absence of non-agri-
cultural jobs at the village level. This observation is consistent with the argument
that women face constraints on physical mobility and prefer employment near their
homes.
A discussion on women workers, especially those belonging to manual-worker
households, cannot ignore the role of caste, as caste continues to shape occupa-
tional structure in rural India. As has been well documented, “agricultural and non-
agricultural manual labour tasks are traditional village occupations, historically
dominated by Dalit and other oppressed castes” (Ramachandran et al. 2014). While
there were regional variations, Scheduled Castes (and Scheduled Tribes where they
were present) typically comprised the majority of the rural female (as well as male)
labour force in the PARI villages. Scheduled Caste women were the mainstay of the
female labour force. The proportion of Dalit women in the workforce was higher
than the corresponding proportion of women from other social groups. In Dalit
manual-worker households, women workers were rarely less than 40% of all work-
ers. To put it differently, in a majority of Scheduled Caste manual-worker house-
holds, women were as likely to be in the workforce as men. Further, the number of
days of employment per Dalit woman worker was, on average, higher or no less than
the number of days of employment per woman worker from a non-Scheduled Caste,
non-Scheduled Tribe social group.9
A third notable feature of rural India is the fact that large numbers of women,
from different social groups and economic classes, participated in the employment
generated under NREGS. As per official data, the share of female work days in total
employment generated by NREGS was 48% in 2009–2010 and rose further to 53%
in 2017–2018 (Ramnarain and Rao 2020). Employment for women was one-half
of total employment generated, well above the required quota of one-third of total
employment.
Village-level evidence on days of employment shows that NREGS is the main
form of non-agricultural employment for many women workers in rural areas. As
noted earlier, agricultural employment dominated the work calendar of women
workers (Table 5). Out of 21 villages surveyed by PARI, in only five villages did
non-agricultural employment account for more than one-half of total work days
reported by women. In most of these cases (three villages of Tripura and one in
Rajasthan), employment from NREGS was the main factor in the observed higher
share of non-agricultural employment in the employment calendar of women.

9
Nevertheless, with a few exceptions, the days of employment received by Dalit women was less than
the days of employment received by Dalit men (see Nagbhushan 2020).

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Fig. 1  Ratio of male to female wage rates for sowing/transplanting/weeding (STW), harvesting/winnow-
ing/threshing (HWT) and unskilled non-agricultural occupations, in 1998–1999 to 2018–2019. Source:
Das (2020), computed from Wage Rates in Rural India

Data on the work calendar of rural women suggest that women are mainly
employed in agriculture and related activities. The experience of NREGS shows
that women enter the non-agricultural labour force when employment is provided,
at a location close to their village or where transport to the worksite is provided.
By addressing concerns of physical mobility, NREGS drew in women in large
numbers.10
The fourth striking feature of rural labour markets is the persistence of a large
gender gap in wages. On average, wage rates for women were lower than wage rates
for men for specific agricultural operations as well as in aggregate. In a very careful
analysis of time series data from Wage Rates in Rural India (WRRI), a publication
of the Labour Bureau of the Government of India, Arindam Das has brought out
the differences in male and female wage rates for different agricultural operations.
Figure 1, taken from Das (2020), shows that for the major agricultural operations,
namely sowing/transplanting/weeding and harvesting/winnowing/threshing, the
ratio of male to female wage rates was greater than one. Further, after a decline in
this ratio in the mid-to-late 2000s, there was a reversal in the early 2010s. The long-
term trend, however, was of a slow decline in the wage gap. In the case of unskilled
non-agricultural employment, the gender gap in wages was higher, that is, females
were at more of a disadvantage, and this gap worsened over time (a rising long-term
trend as shown in Fig. 1).
This all-India picture, of course, hides large variation across states. In general,
the gender gap in wage rates is relatively low in states of the north and east (where

10
There were also other women-friendly practices such as provision of crèches on-site.

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women’s work participation by official estimates is low) and relatively high in states
of the south and west, where women’s work participation is higher (Das 2020).
To reduce the gender gap in wages, we need to address gender discrimination in
wages directly as well as indirectly by various means including enforcement of min-
imum wages and the creation of high-wage employment opportunities for women in
the non-agricultural sector.

3 Concluding Remarks

In this lecture, I explored features of rural labour in contemporary India with a focus
on gender and caste. I have tried to show that the characterisation of “low” work
participation among women in rural India is misleading.
It is well known that official statistics based on standard labour force surveys tend
to underestimate economic activity among rural women. Time-use surveys offer
some insights here, but the most recent time-use survey in India was conducted two
decades ago.
To illustrate a more realistic characterisation of women’s work, I have drawn on
material from two village-level time-use surveys conducted by the Foundation for
Agrarian Studies in Karnataka in 2017–2018. Using weekly and daily status def-
initions of employment, the time-use survey showed that almost all adult women
were engaged in economic activity during the reference week in the harvest season,
whereas participation was lower in the lean season. This observation suggests that
women’s lack of participation in economic activity may reflect lack of employment
in the locality.
This view is substantiated by data from detailed village surveys on the extent of
employment and unemployment among women workers. Evidence from 21 villages
in different agro-climatic regions across ten states, surveyed as part of the Project on
Agrarian Relations in India (PARI), showed that the days of employment received
by women workers in manual-worker households was low and largely within the
agricultural economy. In only five of 21 villages did women receive more than
100 days of employment, on average.
A striking feature of the village data is the predominance of women from Sched-
uled Caste households in the workforce. To put it differently, in Dalit manual-worker
households, women were almost always part of the workforce. Women from Dalit
households, not surprisingly, were employed, on average, for more days in a year
than women from other social groups within the same village. Caste discrimination
is reflected in the rural labour market by the fact that there are few opportunities for
women from landless, Dalit manual-worker households other than to seek work in
the hired labour market.
Women workers are predominantly employed to perform agricultural tasks. In the
large majority of the study villages, the share of agriculture in total employment was
more than 50% for women workers from manual-worker households. To put it dif-
ferently, women’s participation in non-agricultural employment was low in absolute
terms and relative to men. This could be for many reasons including the lack of non-
agricultural employment in close proximity to their place of residence.

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However, women participated in large numbers, and in different parts of India,

in employment generated by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS). In other words, women entered the non-agricultural labour force when
such employment was provided.
Together, both the evidence from time-use surveys on participation in economic
activity and the evidence from village surveys on levels of employment among
women, the lack of non-agricultural employment within the village and participation
in NREGS works show that the number and proportion of women workers will rise
if suitable employment opportunities are provided.
There is a methodological point that emerges from these observations. In a vil-
lage, there is shared information on employment available locally at any given time.
When women are aware that there is little or no employment available, they are
unlikely “to seek work”. I assume here that the majority of women face restrictions
in searching for work outside the village. Strictly speaking, such women should be
classified as unemployed but may report themselves as “out of the workforce”. In
other words, in a small closed economy such as a village, with high seasonality and
variations in work participation across seasons, it may not be appropriate to ask a
question about “seeking work” in the lean season nor to separate the unemployed
from those outside the workforce. The women supposedly out of the workforce in
the lean season may enter it in subsequent months. This question on “seeking work”
is, I argue, not relevant for women in rural India. However, the concept of potential
labour force newly proposed by the International Labour Office (ILO 2013) needs to
be explored.
The lecture also noted the persistence of gender discrimination in wages. Wage
rates for men were higher than for women for most agricultural tasks though the gap
has narrowed overtime. The gender gap in wage rates was higher for non-agricul-
tural tasks and showed a rising trend. Where employment opportunities are fewer
for women, that is, in the case of non-agricultural tasks, the wage gap is higher. It
is important to address the gender gap in wages directly, such as by legislation and
enforcement of minimum wages, but also by the creation of better-paid job opportu-
nities for women, particularly in the non-agricultural sectors.
In conclusion, observing the rural labour market with a gender lens raises impor-
tant issues that need to be addressed both by researchers—such as questions of
measurement of work participation and degree of unemployment—and by policy-
makers—such as questions of lack of non-agricultural employment, the role of caste
in occupational choice and the gender gap in wage rates. To ensure more and better
jobs for rural women, careful identification of the nature of women’s work (includ-
ing the drudgery of care work) and the constraints faced by rural women in seeking
work outside the village is required.

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