Women Agricultural Workers Research Articles

Accessibility of Entitlements among Women Agricultural Workers: A Case Study from Goalpara District of Assam, India

Despite several existing legal provisions to provide equal rights for women and men, Indian women agricultural workers remain restricted from getting their agricultural entitlements due to various socio-cultural reasons including discriminatory gendered norms. The study attempts to understand the accessibility of entitlements among women agricultural workers in the Goalpara district of Assam – the region where women’s dependency on agriculture is overwhelming. The study is based on a mixed-methods approach, using data collected from the field survey. The study reveals that rural agricultural women workers face substantial hindrances in accessing basic agricultural entitlements like land, credit and modern technology, making them socially and economically vulnerable.

Dynamics of Working Conditions among Women Agricultural Workers

Dynamics of Working Conditions among Women Agricultural Workers

The Role of Women's Agricultural Workers and Household Economic Resilience

The involvement of women in the agricultural sector can be viewed in various aspects of social, economic, political, cultural, and religious life. This article describes the role of women's agricultural workers concerning household economic resilience, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research also seeks to systematically reveal the factors that encourage women to choose to become agricultural workers compared to other sectors and the obstacles they face in efforts to increase household economic resilience. This research uses a qualitative approach with the type of case study. This study involved six informants who were selected using a purposive technique. Documentation techniques and in-depth interviews were carried out for data collection. The results showed that women had an essential contribution to the economic resilience of farmer households before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pattern of short-term farming ranging from 3-4 months is seen as needing to be more prospective to support the family's economy. Economic background, education background, low skills, and the perception of independent women are seen as factors causing women to work as agricultural workers to help with family finances. The role of women is significant in maintaining household economic resilience both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Urgent basic needs can be met even though most are at the minimum level of fulfillment. The expertise of women farm workers in managing and allocating income positively impacts aspects of family economic resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Al-ʿUcha

<i>Al-ʿUcha</i>

Multiple Roles and Economic Contribution of Women Hortikultura Farm Workers in Improving Family Welfare

The results of research on women's involvement in supporting agricultural household economic activities in rural areas have encouraged women to perform multiple functions. This dual role is a quite complex problem for women. On the one hand, they have to carry out their functions as wives and mothers, on the other hand, women have to earn a living helping their husbands support the family economy. The objectives of this study were: (1) To describe the allocation of female working time as farm laborers and as housewives; (2) Describing the size of women's income contributions; and (3) Describe how big the family of women agricultural workers has achieved family welfare. The research location was chosen deliberately and using snowball techniques involving 30 respondents as farm laborers with the criteria coming from a complete family (having a husband and income). The main motivation of housewives in rural areas is to leave their domestic sphere, to work as horticultural farm laborers because their husband's income is still insufficient to meet family needs, so he follows the invitation of his colleagues to work. Part-time from their activities as agricultural laborers, the contribution to the total family income reaches 46 percent (not deducted from food allowance) and 45 percent (deducted by food allowance). The percentage of working time spent on productive activities is around 4.21 hours/day, while for reproductive activities it reaches 19.79 hours/day. Meanwhile, from the results of this study, it was also revealed that 78 percent of the families of female agricultural laborers were still in the underprivileged category.

이주여성 농업노동자의 한국생활 적응에 관한 탐색적 연구

이주여성 농업노동자는 이제 우리 농업에 없어서는 안 될 존재가 되었지만, 이들은 철저하게 사회적 관심에서 벗어난 대상이다. 본 연구는 이주민이자 여성이자 농업부문 종사자라는 중층적인 어려움에 처해 있는 이들 이주여성 농업노동자의 한국생활 적응에 관한 탐색적 연구이다. 본 연구의 주된 연구방법은 심층면접으로 2019년 9월과 10월에 경기도 일대의 농장에서 일하는 19명의 이주여성을 대상으로 하였다. 이들은 대학교육을 받지 못한 아시아의 농업 국가 출신 여성으로서 가족의 경제적 돌봄을 위해 임금수준이 높은 한국에 취업을 목적으로 왔다. 이들은 한국의 농촌에서 무더위와 추위 속에서 장시간의 고된 농업노동을 하고 있으며, 농업 현장에서는 초과한 노동시간에 따른 수당 지급이 지켜지지 않고 있었다. 농장에서의 성폭력 문제는 간과할 수 없는 수준에 와 있고, 모성보호는 사각지대에 있으며, 주거는 컨테이너나 비닐하우스가 숙소로 활용될 정도로 열악한 수준이다. 크고 작은 부당함에도 대부분은 임금수준이 본국보다 월등히 높은 한국에서 살아남기 위해 참고 일하고 있었다. 그러나 어떤 부당한 대우에 대해서는 개인적인 저항을 통해 바로잡았고, 주거문제에 있어서 농장주와 협상을 통해 문제를 해결하기도 하였다. 국제이주로 인해 초국적 형태로 가족생활을 유지해 나가고 있으며, 지역에서는 본국인들과의 사회적 관계를 통해 한국현실과 타협하며 적응하고 있었다. 향후 우리 사회에서는 농업 분야 노동시간 문제, 이주노동자의 재생산권 보장 문제, 그리고 이주노동자의 가족동반 문제에 대한 법적・제도적 논의가 필요하며, 이주노동자의 사회적 관계 지원에 관한 관심이 요구된다.

Women agricultural labourers in rural areas of Ranipettai district – a theoretical assessment

Women play a significant and crucial role in all spheres of the socio – economic development of any country. The agricultural sector is the largest employer of women. Majority of the women workforce in the rural areas depends upon agricultural sector and its allied activities. farming expansion and related pasture counting, key harvest manufacture, live-stock production, horticulture, post-harvesting operations, agro social forestry, fishing, etc, it is a fact long taken for granted but ignored since era. The huge number of factors economic and non economics is accountable for the trouble of scarcity among the agricultural labourers. Several discussions are going on the problem of women agricultural labourers in the world in general and in the study area in particular. Women as farming labourers are categorize in earnings disbursement on masculinity source.The earnings disparities is in all key agriculture process as well as transfers and prepare in which women serious process along with recovered is inclusive by women agricultural labourers. The women agricultural workers are supplementary to poor on agriculture sector. The comparative deficiency of non-agricultural employment among women labourers is reliable with the argument that women expression restriction to physical mobility and prefer employment near their homes. Women agricultural labourers in the study area suffer from a multiple burden on their time due to their home making, child rearing and income earning each day to day jobs in arrange to convene the day to day house expenditures. Here this background, this research paper mainly concentrates on women agricultural labourers in rural areas of Ranipettai District an theoretical perspectives.

Livelihood Security of Women Agricultural Labourers in Erode District of Tamilnadu

Aim: The main aims of the study is to identify the socio-economic characteristics of women agricultural labourer, to identify the determinants linked with economic, food, health, edification and empowerment as dissimilar domains of livelihood security of women agricultural labourers and to estimate the determinants of livelihood security of women agricultural labourers in Erode District of Tamil Nadu. Methods/Statistical analysis: The research has curbed in to a sample of 140 women agricultural workers households were selected from four villages of Bhavani taluk of Erode District in Tamil Nadu. A simple percentage analysis has been employed to identify the socio-economic characteristics and Multiple Regression equation method has fitted to the data to explore the effects of the explanatory variables on livelihood security of women agricultural labourers. Findings: Out of the 140 sample women agricultural labour households selected for the study, vast majority of the households registered as nuclear type of families; 52.86 percent with 2-4 members; 62.14 percent of the women agricultural workers were in the age cluster of 30 – 60 years; 33.57 percent of the respondents had education at secondary level; 33.57 percent labourers income falls in the income group of Rs.25000-Rs.50000/-,45.00 percent of the households selected for the study were with the asset group valued below Rs.2.5 lakhs. There was positive relationship of the explanatory variables with composite livelihood security index of agricultural women workers. Conclusions: Government intervention through legislation, planning and implementation must be stepped up to provide greater opportunity for the sustainable development of women livelihood security at all levels, so that the discriminatory practices of women and the gender related issues against women would be addressed.

Correlation between local-specific traditions of women agricultural workers and the Incidence of Low Birth Weight in South Metro Sub-District, Metro City, Lampung Province, Indonesia

Correlation between local-specific traditions of women agricultural workers and the Incidence of Low Birth Weight in South Metro Sub-District, Metro City, Lampung Province, Indonesia

Migrant women farm workers in the occupational health literature

Little attention has been given to the vulnerable populations of migrant women agricultural workers. A systemic review in PubMed was carried out (1990-2008) using terms related to migrant agricultural workers, with specific focus on women. Case studies from Lebanon and California are presented to highlight key physical, psychosocial, and cultural risk factors among these working populations. The review revealed a host of potential problems that span from pesticide exposure and musculoskeletal disorders to socio-cultural barriers. Comprehensive exposure-outcome and intervention studies focusing specifically on migrant women in agriculture are lacking. In depth studies focusing on the work environment of migrant women workers in the agricultural sector are needed. Personal and environmental factors that influence health should be considered in any effective intervention aiming to influence policy making and have a positive impact on these vulnerable working populations.

SP1-94 Depression in Brazilian municipal residents whose culture of tobacco is a significant economic activity

IntroductionBrazil is the second-largest producer and largest exporter of tobacco in the world. The majority of tobacco production occurs in the southern states, where there is a predominance of family...

Politics of Gender and Consumption in Authoritarian Chile, 1973-1990: Women Agricultural Workers in the Fruit-Export Industry

This essay explores the impact of new consumer cultures on rural women in Chile's fruit-export sector during the military regime of Augusto Pinochet, 1973–1990. It challenges the longstanding assumption that the consumerism associated with Chile's neoliberal makeover was overwhelmingly reactionary in its political consequences and debilitating for working-class communities in particular. It argues that while new consumer cultures emerged within, and sometimes exacerbated, conditions of extraordinary exploitation and want, consumption was also a site through which women fruit workers challenged family patriarchy and created new forms of community with each other. Taking the central valley province of the Aconcagua Valley as its focus, the essay examines women's enthusiasm for the proliferation of imported commodities such as ready-made clothes, makeup, televisions, refrigerators, and electronic music devices, whose availability resulted from employment in the fruit-export sector as well as new sources of consumer debt. It concludes that while such new consumer desires and practices positioned rural women as validating certain aspects of the military's modernization project, it simultaneously encouraged women to resist necessarily linkages between authoritarian and modernity and to embrace gender ideals that were quite oppositional to those the regime promoted. Resumen Este ensayo explora el impacto de nuevas culturas de consumo en trabajadoras rurales del sector exportador de frutas en Chile durante el regimen militar de Augusto Pinochet, 1973–1990. Desafia la suposicion tradicional sobre la cultura consumista asociada a las reformas neoliberales chilenas que argumenta haber tenido consecuencias politicas reaccionarias y en particular, perjudiciales para las comunidades de clase trabajadora. Este trabajo sostiene que mientras que la nueva cultura consumista surgio, y en algunos casos, se potencio, dentro de condiciones de explotacion extraordinaria y necesidad, el consumo tambien conformo un sitio a traves del cual las trabajadoras de la fruta desafiaron familias patriarcales y crearon formas alternativas de comunidad entre ellas mismas. Enfocandose en el valle central de la provincia de Aconcagua, este ensayo examina el entusiasmo de las mujeres frente a la proliferacion de productos importados, como vestimentas manufacturadas, cosmeticos, televisiones, refrigeradoras y equipos de musica, a los cuales ellas tuvieron la oportunidad de acceder por su empleo en el sector exportador de frutas y por la disponibilidad de nuevas formas de financiamento de consumo. Este ensayo concluye que mientras que nuevos deseos y practicas de consumo ubicaron a las trabajadoras rurales de la fruta en una posicion de revalidacion de ciertos aspectos del proyecto militar de modernizacion, estos motivaron a las mujeres a resistir conexiones entre autoritarismo y modernidad, y promover ideales de genero contrarios a los aceptados por el regimen.

Nostalgia, Gender, and the Countryside: Placing the ‘Land Girl’ in First World War Britain

In December 1917, an article in the Daily Chronicle, entitled ‘The New Land Lady’, stated that:One of the good things which may issue from this war is a revival of the old English countryside.The happy village may be born again.If this reformation should come, it will be the work of the women.The nostalgia evident in this call for women's wartime ‘return’ to the land to restore a lost, pastoral idyll during an event more usually associated with modernity raises several questions. What meanings can be attached to the ways in which women agricultural workers were seen as the key to a ‘rural revival’ and thus as crucial to a revitalized nation during the First World War? And what are we to make of the seemingly contradictory appeal to women radically to leave their presumably urban and suburban homes and conservatively to restore the countryside?As Raymond Williams pointed out, this emblematic English countryside has always been placed in a more ideal past, and the desires to return to or to preserve the allegedly unchanging patterns of land and the lives attached to it are integral to the problem of modernization itself. More recently, Alun Howkins has argued that the ideology and ‘ideal’ of England and Englishness have remained essentially ‘rural,’ and that in 1914 this was the vision of Englishness that ‘went into battle'. However, one might certainly be forgiven for assuming that the creation of the Women's Land Army and the resulting appearance of urban women in trousers, breeches and puttees in villages throughout Britain would herald something more like a ‘transformation’ than a ‘revival’.

Zooming out/zooming in visualizing globalization

The challenge of ‘visualizing globalization’ requires analytical frames that engage the local‐global dynamic as well as a variety of visual methods. The article reflects on two uses of photography in a cross‐border research project tracing the journey of a tomato from the Mexican field to the Canadian fast food restaurant, and the role of women workers within the various stages of continental food production, distribution, and consumption. To examine globalization from above, the ubiquity of corporate advertising images is exploited, and their messages deconstructed and reconstructed to expose the production processes behind the commodities being promoted. Globalization from below is explored through photo‐stories of the daily lives of Mexican women agricultural workers as food producers at work and at home; Teresa's story illustrates how subsistence and market economies co‐exist and how family economies remain the survival and social base for Mexican peasants. The juxtaposition of two classic forms of image production—social documentary and corporate advertising photography—raises questions about the social construction of reality and creates new kinds of visual dialogues offering multi‐layered interpretations of the local‐global nexus.

Changing from subsistence to cash cropping. Sakaramma's story.

In India, conversion of land to cash-crop rather than subsistence production has effected the standard of living of rural women. Food security, which used to be attained by supplementing home-grown produce with income from agricultural labor, is now achieved with funds raised by selling cash crops. The quality of food purchased is often inferior to that formerly raised on homesteads. Greater quantities of a wider variety of food were consumed under the old system, and the quality of the food was assured. Cash is now a daily necessity, yet the supply of cash depends upon fluctuating markets beyond local control. Cash income can increase without any increase in real income, and purchases of necessary fertilizers are financed by loans with high rates of interest. Women have no control over how the increased income from cash is spent, and it is often dedicated to debt clearance, alcohol, and household items rather than food. In the past, women agricultural workers were paid in kind and received the same compensation that men received. When payments were converted to cash, women received less. Women's work has increased because they must gather fuel and fodder for the cattle after working in their own and others' fields. Formerly these raw materials were readily available from the residue of traditional crops. It is clear that traditional farming is more advantageous for small farmers than cash-cropping, but more and more small farmers are yielding to government propaganda and adopting the new system. Women are never consulted about such a switch, yet they suffer most from the loss of the flow of their nonmonetary resources into their households.

Agricultural Restructuring and the Spatial Dynamics of U.S. Women's Employment in the 1970s1

Abstract The spatial rearrangement of women agricultural workers' employment across 380 labor market areas is examined during the period of agricultural transformation in the 1970s. Labor market maps of women's employment changes show regional declines and increases in accord with the dynamics of agricultural industrialization. Case studies selected from the maps demonstrate the gender‐specific and locality‐specific ramifications of these transformations.

Women in Rural Production and Reproduction in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Tanzania: Case Studies

The situation in regard to women in rural production and reproduction is examined for the Soviet Union China Cuba and Tanzania. A striking feature of the Soviet economy is the number of women involved in agriculture as well as in the industrial and professional work force. The primary impetus for the incorportation of women into waged agricultural employment in the 20th century has been the imbalance of the sexes brought about by the civil war World War 2 collectivization and the demands of industrial growth. Women make up a substantial proportion of workers in all 4 sectors of the agricultural labor force: on collective farms (56.7%); state farms (41%); individual peasant farms (65.2%); and private subsidiary farms (90.7%). The majority of women agricultural workers provides what is termed physical labor--the heavier less skilled and nonspecialist types of work. The conflict between womens productive and reproductive roles has been particularly sharpened in the Soviet Union by the governments pressure on women to bear children in an effort to halt the downward trend in the birth rate. Women have been resisting the pressure to have more children. The government of China introduced a number of policies and measures in the 1950s to encourage women to participate in agricultural production. The Communist Party made its 1st concerted effort to mobilize women for agricultural production during World War 2. Establishment of cooperatives and communes has expanded the scope of productive and service occupations available to women. There has been an overall and substantial increase in the number of women participating in agricultural production since the early 1950s but there have also been fluctuations with many women entering and leaving the work force according to both seasonal and overall local demand. Womens greater contribution in agricultural production was expected to give them an increased share in controlling productive processes and allocating economic and social resources. An important component of policies designed to encourage women to enter social production were programs to support the reproductive role of women and to reduce both individual household responsibilities and chores. Marriage reforms introduced the right of free choice. Marriage and contraception was made freely and readily available. Cuba prior to 1959 was an economy characterized by underemployment and unemployment. Since the revolution several agricultural reforms have transferred private lands to the state and state farms have been built on the foundations of previously extensive sugar plantation and cattle ranches. Women have not entered the permanent waged agricultural labor force in the collectivized sector in large numbers. The women in Cuba have benefited from policies to improve their general health and provide the means of birth control. In Tanzania agriculture is the backbone of the economy and women have been traditionally the chief producers of agricultural products. The government has emphasized that health clinics birth control maternity leave and day care centers are necessary to enable women to combine their roles as producers and reproducers and thus participate in rural development.

Follow-up studies on the distribution of haemoglobin levels in female farm workers.

Haemoglobin concentrations in about 1000 women agricultural workers in Japan were measured every year, except in 1972, during the period 1967-77. Improvements were noted in the course of this investigation, and these were predominantly associated with the fact that those in the study community began to pay attention to the problem of low haemoglobin levels and to improve their diet, with an increase in daily food intake, particularly of animal protein and iron. In addition, a marked decrease in anaemia caused by hookworm also played an important role. In this paper, the change in haemoglobin concentration during the period of study are described and the aetiology is discussed.