Time Utilization of Farm Women: A study in Kashmir Valley, India

Abstract

Women play a pivotal role in all household, farm and allied activities. Women's contribution to the
Indian agriculture and allied activities is a recognized factor. They participate in several activities
such as harrowing, transplanting, weeding, picking etc. Women devote major chunk of their daily
time for various agricultural and domestic activities. Thus, it is important to study the time utilization
of hill farmwomen in personal activities, household activities, farm activities, childcare activities
and allied activities. The present study was conducted on farmwomen of Baramulla District of
Kashmir valley, which is the largest district in the entire Kashmir, with an aim to study the extent of
participation and total time spent by farmwomen in farm, household, childcare, personal and allied
activities. A 24-hour time dairy was used on 50 farmwomen belonging to village Ratnipora, block
Tangmarg, district Baramullaregarding time utilization during harvesting season. The farm women
in reproductive age and having at least one child below 6 years of age were taken as criteria. The
data was collected using multistage sampling technique. The study revealed that average time utilized
by farmwomen in different activities during 24 hours during harvesting season. Maximum 6 hours
and 43 minutes were spent on household activities, followed by 5 hours and 8 minutes on farm
activities. It was observed from the results that children were given only 1 hour and 41 minutes
during 24 hours. Overall farmwomen worked for 18 hours during a day.