Gender Inequality in Rural Labour Market in Odisha: Some Micro Evidence from Dhenkanal District

Gender inequality in the rural labour market is not just a phenomenon but a deep-rooted social evil that still prevails in backward agriculture, where men and women live and work side by side but without equal pay and with unequal access to technology, assets, education and training. Discrimination has two forms: unequal pay for similar work by men and women; and restricted upward mobility for women in employment denying them better income while heaping on them the accursed of ill health and drudgery. This paper analyses gender disparity in rural labour market in Dhenkanal district of Odisha covering one irrigated and a non-irrigated backward village with a sample from each of 50 female labourers, 20 male labourers and 10 employers, where irrigation is the index of agricultural development. The paper examines various dimensions of rural labour market including days of work available, type of operations performed, wage rates and mode of wage payment of male and female agricultural labourers. The survey findings reveal that women labourers are more dependent on farm activities than male labourers. Male-female disparity in days of employment in agricultural operations is more pronounced in the nonirrigated village in comparison to the irrigated village. Even with agricultural development and technological change, getnder-based wage differential persists not only in wage rates but also in mode of wage payment. Female labourers receive lower wages than male labourers for the same work and majority of them receive payment in kind rather than cash; conversely males for all the operations get remuneration in cash.