Changing Gender Division of Labour in Rural Areas and Women Friendly Farm Tools

Abstract

In order to identify the existing and emerging rural work opportunities among rural women workers, a study was carried out among I 60 randomly selected women worker participants of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) during 2008-10 in the districts of Palakkad in Kerala and Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. The study revealed that MGNREGS has resulted in widening labour opportunities for rural women and thereby changed the traditional gender division of labour in both states. Through the MGNREGS field operations, the rural women workers of the two states are now able to get opportunities in additional areas of labour roles such as digging of soil, tank construction, pond construction, levelling, canal and bush clearing, well construction, head load work, bund forming, canal forming, etc., which otherwise were traditionally neither available to women nor did women participate in the same. However, to perform the new labour roles, they need tools and implements which are suitable for their anthropometric measures, are less hazardous and can improve their efficiency