Gender inequality in agricultural wages and employment: Some evidence from Cuttack district in coastal Odisha

Women are discriminated in rural labour market by engaging them in low-paid and low-status jobs and paying them lower wages than that of their male counterparts for similar work. The paper aims to analyse gender-based inequality in agricultural wages and employment in Cuttack district in coastal Odisha. To examine the impact of technological change on gender discrimination in wages and employment, data was collected from 50 female labourers, 20 male labourers and 10 employers in one non-irrigated village and a nearby irrigated village via direct interview method through designed questionnaires. On the basis of survey findings, the paper concludes that even with agricultural development and technological change, gender-based wage differential persists. These disparities in wages arise from the gender-based specialization of specific farm operations. Agricultural operations such as transplanting and weeding which carry lower wages are largely performed by female workers while operations such as ploughing, sowing, fertilizer application, spraying pesticides and post-harvest operations with relatively higher wages are performed by male workers. At the same time for the same work, female labourers are paid lower wages than male. There are also different modes of wage payment system in the village namely daily wage rate, piece rate and share rate. For the female specific jobs like transplanting, employers prefer to pay wages on piece rate basis to extract the maximum work effort from the female labourers. Female labourers accept lower wages due to their immobility as they have to take domestic work burden as well. The paper suggests that there is a need to reduce the male-female wage disparity by enforcing the laws and regulations on equal pay for equal work, improving working conditions and empowerment of female agricultural labourers.