In Bangladesh, a traditional Muslim society, women have limitations to participate extensively in agricultural activities, especially in fields. Historically, women's agricultural activities were confined to homestead production and post-harvest operations. However in recent years they have mostly been involved with livestock and poultry rearing activities. A number of studies were conducted on women's activities during 1980s to observe that women's contribution to socio-economic development wasn't visible due to a number of social norms that recognise men's dominance over women.
There is another important dimension that shouldn't be overlooked, as argued by Mahabub Hossain and others. Growing shortage of agricultural labour in many areas could not be met sufficiently by farm machines. Thus more women started participating in agriculture as entrepreneurs. Besides, 15 per cent of rural households are reported to be headed by women who were compelled to get engaged in farm management, if not by choice. The transformation thus can be attributed to poverty, empowerment of women by NGOs, transfer of male members from agriculture to non-farm occupation and migration of husbands. In the absence of male members, women's role is changing from that of unpaid family workers to farm managers -- a phenomenon termed as 'feminisation of agriculture'. The section below reports key findings on the growth of labour force and women's participation in agriculture from the reports of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) conducted at different periods.
The percentage of adult male participation has decreased over time while this has increased for women. For men, the percentage of adult male participation in agriculture has decreased from 52 per cent in 1999/2000 to 32per cent in 2005-06. On the other hand, the percentage of women in agriculture has increased gradually from 48.1 per cent to 68.1 per cent according to the LFS of 1999-2000 and 2005-2006 respectively.
 The information on time use collected from 62 villages show that adult male participation in agriculture has sharply declined from 83 per cent in 1987 to 56 per cent in 2000 - a decrease by 27 per cent. But it increased to 65 per cent in 2008. Participation of women in agriculture, on the other hand, remained almost the same in 1987 and 2000 (59 per cent and 58 per cent respectively). But compared to 2000, women's participation has increased by about 8.0 per cent in 2008. About 79 per cent adult males were engaged with crop cultivation in 1987 which dropped to only about 42 per cent in the year 2000, and again increased to 53 per cent in 2008 (53 per cent). This could be due to high prices of food during food crisis in 2008 providing incentives to some households who used to rent out land to take up crop production activity that has become more profitable. The other reason for less involvement of male labour in crop cultivation could be that many of the farm operations (i.e. tillage, irrigation, threshing of paddy, etc.) have become fully or partially mechanised.
Women's involvement with crop cultivation has also sharply declined from about 23 per cent in 1987 to about three per cent in 2000 and four per cent in 2008. This is mainly because of the fact that involvement of women with post-harvest operations, particularly for rice processing (i.e. winnowing, drying, parboiling, husking /milling, etc.) have largely been mechanised. However, at present, women are being involved mostly with livestock and poultry production activities rather than with crop production. For example, participation of adult women in livestock and poultry production activities increased from 43 per cent in 1987 to 51 per cent in 2000 and further to 69 per cent in 2008. Involvement of women with homestead gardening has also increased in recent years. In 2008, for example, 18 per cent of adult women members were engaged in  homestead gardening. This compares with about 9.0 to 10 per cent in the years of 2000 and 1987 respectively. Presumably, access to micro-credit from NGOs (sometimes supported by training) has largely facilitated involvement of women with livestock and poultry rearing as well as with homestead gardening. However, participation of women in fisheries activities was found to be negligible in both 2008 and 1987 (around 1per cent) for obvious reasons. For men also, participation in fisheries activities was only 5.0 to 6.0 per cent in 1987 and 2000 which further decreased to about 4 per cent in 2008.
Although men's involvement with agricultural activities declined over time, their participation in non-agricultural / non-farm activities has increased. Participation of adult males in non-agricultural activities increased from 34 per cent in 1987 to around 46 per cent in 2000 and 2008. In contrast, participation of adult women in non-farm activities was halved over time - from 14 per cent in 1987 to around 8.0 per cent in 2000 and 2008. This implies that opportunities of non-farm pursuits for women have decreased over time. Involvement of adult men particularly with services, transport operations as well as with business / trading activities has increased although it has decreased with construction works. Women are forced to do manual construction work due to poverty. When economic conditions improve, they withdraw from this arduous and socially unacceptable manual work.
Considering all adult men and women (whether working or not) and all activities (both economic and domestic), it was observed that total working hours have been reduced to some extent since 1988. In 1988, for example, the average working hours per day were about 8.0 hours for males while it was about 9.0 hours per day for females. The average working hours for both men and women have been reduced somewhat in recent years as revealed from information from 2000 and 2008 surveys. For women, this was due to allocation of less time in domestic activities and for men, the income effect played a role in substituting labour for leisure. By and large, both groups seem to enjoy a bit more leisure than before. The findings also support the conventional wisdom of men devoting more time to economic activities and women to domestic activities.
 Allocation of time for men in agriculture was mainly for crop production activities while for women it was for livestock and poultry rearing activities. However, allocation of time for crop production activities for men was reduced from 4.3 hours per day in 1987 to 2.3 hours per day in 2000 and 2.9 hours per day in 2008. On the other hand, allocation of time per day for women in livestock and poultry rearing activities increased from 0.6 hours in 1987 to 0.8 in 2000 and 0.9 hours in 2008. Allocation of time for women also slightly increased in recent years for homestead gardening.
The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
 abdulbayes@yahoo.com
Women in agriculture
Abdul Bayes | Published: July 22, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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