Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Female employment and wages in rural labor market in semi arid villages of India

Auteur : Roy, Namrata Singha

Université de soutenance : University of Calcutta

Grade : Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2016

Résumé
Over the last two decades, global trend of female employment has registered a declining participation in paid labor market. A low female participation rate is observed in Southern Asia which is largely due to a sharp fall in female employment in India. There is an absolute decline in rural female workforce from agriculture and allied activities between 2004-05 and 2011-12. The similar trend is noticed even in semi-arid tropical region where female participation is usually high compared to all India. On the other hand, farm wage of rural female workers is increasing during the same reference period. Hence, an attempt has been made in the thesis to answer the question, “Why are females withdrawing from agriculture in spite of an increase in farm wage ?” This complex process of employment and wage determination has been addressed by estimating labor supply function, wage function and occupational segregation model in a cross sectional perspective as well as in panel view by using the unit level data of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The results show that factors like higher family income, higher property value, upper social caste and higher education of spouse facilitate the withdrawal of female from labor market. On the other hand, a host of factors including age, dependency ratio, number of young kids, marital status and age at marriage which generally work as „pull factors‟ become „push factors‟ in this study. So the withdrawal of females from the labor market at macro level is mainly operating at upper stratum of the society where the „pull factors‟ are stronger than „push factors‟. But at the low income group of the society, „push factors‟ are becoming stronger than „pull factors‟ and as a result a distress induced female participation is observed. In terms of wage, the results show that the human capital variables such as education and experience are important factors in explaining the variations in daily wage paid to men, whereas, the nutritional wellbeing comes out as major determinant of wage for females. The panel estimation study has re-confirmed the findings drawn from the cross sectional study.

Présentation et version intégrale (Shodhganga)