The credit status of farming females-A study of rural area of Sikkim in North-Eastern India

The topic of the researcher is “Role of female labour in farming sector: a study of state of Sikkim”. Various parameters have been studied under this heading of which credit status of farming females is one of them. The engagement of women in economic activities in Sikkim is widespread, ranging from the formal to the informal sector; even though a majority of the activities women perform in the informal sector are of “invisible” nature, which may not be considered as economic activities. Women's participation in the formal sector is improved with access to education and therefore as more women get educated and acquire the requisite skills, they are increasingly being engaged in the formal sector with a few of them in senior positions in the government jobs. But, at the same time women's participation in the formal sector with lower access to education is confined to low profitable jobs. However, considering that woman make up the majority of the people in the farming sector with low accessibility, it is disheartening to note that their socio-economic condition is pitiable. This fact therefore motivated the researcher to study the present status of females involved in the farming sector in the state of Sikkim and suggest few points that will help women to achieve the best first for them and then also for the state. The present study has analyzed the existing information about the status of credit of farming females and presented the findings pertaining to this parameter. For this, data was collected from 230 female farmers through interviews using a pre-designed schedule from 24 circles from all the four districts of Sikkim State in North-Eastern India. Based on their subjective judgments, female farmer's credit status has been measured and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS). Some descriptive statistics, such as percentage, mean, standard deviation (SD) as well as one sample t-test of inferential statistics is used to interpret the data. The findings show that 48% of the sampled farming females avail credit, of which only 34% of them avail it on their name. 43% of the sampled farming females avail credit from the formal institution and 30% of them avail it for the personal purpose.