Women's participation in agriculture in Karnataka: A spatiotemporal variatio

For a long time, the women were confined strictly to carry out only household activities in the family and have been the worst victims of exploitation, prejudice, subjugation, discrimination, ignorance, disease, poverty, and social exclusion and backwardness. They were completely denied the status of equality and opportunities to participate in social, economic and political decisionmaking process. Even today the gender discrimination and inequality is persistent and widespread among the socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged sections of the society. Based on the secondary data collected from the Census of India for Karnataka series, it is evident that the agricultural continued to be the major occupation for both males and females in the state, despite a gradual shift of workers out of agriculture. It is evident from the gender component of the occupational shift that a greater proportion of male workers seemed to have moved from crop cultivation to the rural nonagricultural sector. Similarly, a significant occupational mobility of males outside but insignificant within agriculture is registered in the coastal zone. The occupational mobility of female workers from mainly agricultural wage employment as well as, to some extent, from nonfarm business to crop cultivation was recorded in most of the zones except in coastal. In the coastal zone, a significant occupational mobility from crop cultivation to nonfarm activities, particularly in respect of females was observed. The feminization of agricultural production, thus, was quite discernible in the case of arid, semiarid and irrigated zones. Although there has been a moderate shift of female workers towards the rural nonagricultural sector with varying degrees across different zones, a larger proportion of female workers continue to be engaged in agricultural activities, especially as cultivators previously occupied male workers.