Trends and Determinants of Agricultural Wages in West Bengal

The paper has examined the trends and determinants of wages of agricultural labourers across the districts of West Bengal from 1980-81 to 1999-00 using the data published annually by Agricultural Wages in India (AWI). The data of different years have shown that there was a slow down in the growth rate of real daily wages of male and female agricultural labourers in more than half of the districts in the first half of 1980s but there was gradual recovery in the latter part of the decade. However, increasing trends of real wages in the latter half of the 1980s were not sustained in the subsequent years. The decline in wage rate has been observed in the first half of the 1990s. The latter half of the decade started with recovery of the wage rate but again declined in the beginning of the 2000. The gender differential in wage rates of agricultural labourers has been found but declined in most of the districts over the years. There was a declining trend in the variation of real wages across the districts of West Bengal over the years. The variations in the male wage rates could be explained by five relevant demands and supply variables: labour productivity, diversification of labour into other occupations, gross cropped area per agricultural labourer, cropping intensity and literacy rate. The study has suggested that out of the five variables, only one variable, namely, occupational diversification has positively and significantly influenced the real wage rate of male agricultural labourers in 2000-01.