Journal of Community Mobilization and Sustainable Development

Women in India have lived and continue to live in a deep rooted patriarchal society. Traditional social customs are entrenched in Indian families to such an extent that women subconsciously believe that their male counterparts deserve to get a bigger and better share with respect to food, education, property, access to health care, etc. As a result, their own health takes a backseat with time. The multiple role of women leads to a significant contribution in real terms to the productive system. But it is unfortunate that her role is not adequately recognized and they remain invisible workers and her contribution not qualified in the male-dominated society. Women are generally married at young age, become mothers and are in dual burden of domestic and financial responsibilities. Women are frequently undernourished since they are usually the last member in a family to eat and lastly to get medical attention. Present study has an effort to measure gender inequality in household and socio-economic decisions and to measure inequality in participation in farming activities. Three agro climatic zones (Zone 1, Zone 2 and Zone 3) had been taken and sample size was 240 rural households. The findings of the study revealed that significant difference was observed between men and women among all household and socio-economic decisions, which shows that men took most of the decisions. Among participation in farming activities, men mostly took decision related to farm and farming activities which included decision pertaining to selection of seed/ crop, marketing of crop and lease in and lease out of land while women had less participation among in these activities. Farm women participation was limited to decision on management of care and livestock and was found more than men counterparts.