Factors impacting women’s participation rate in agriculture

Abstract

Female labours are quite cheap and easily available for farming activities, management responsibilities, livestock rearing etc. These unsung warriors played an important role in agriculture, as they have absorbed 2/3rd of total workforce required. Though the role of women in agriculture remained as ‘Invisible Workers’ throughout all these years. West Bengal is such a major agricultural state in India, where the activities of rural women remain unacknowledged mostly. According to the last census report (census 2011), female work participation rate of West Bengal is 19.4 against the national average of 30. The purpose of the present study aims to apply multiple linear regression analysis to analyze how female work participation rate (dependent variable) of this state is influenced by various independent factors viz scheduled caste population, scheduled tribe population, literacy rate and shifting towards other job opportunities. Stepwise regression model is attempted to identify the most significant factor(s). It has been observed that these explanatory variables are significantly influencing female work participation rate in agriculture for West Bengal and its districts. The study reveals that increase in percentage of female schedule tribe population is advantageous or has positive impact on female work participation rate in agriculture (WPRf). On the other hand, in most of the cases female literacy rate and shifting towards other job opportunities have negative or adverse impact on WPRf.