Gender Differentiated Dimensions in Agriculture and Identifying its Factors Governing Impact on Tribal Farm Women A Study in Assam

Abstract

newlineThe present study was carried out in Jorhat, Morigaon, Baksa and newlineDhemaji districts of Assam with the objectives to assess the gender division of newlineagricultural activities and to explore gender differentiated dimensions in agriculture newlinealong with its impact factors. A multistage random sampling method was followed to newlineselect the final respondents of 320 that comprises equal number of women and men newlinerespondents of a particular household. Two agricultural components namely paddy and newlinepiggery were included in the study. Appropriate statistical tools viz. frequency, newlinepercentage, mean, Z- test, multiple regression, path analysis were employed to analyse newlinethe data. The findings revealed that majority of the farm women and men belonged to newlineyoung age group with less considerable level of education. More than ninety percent newlinehad male headed household and nuclear family (70.625) with medium sized family newline(53.75%) in between 4 to 6 members. Both had good number of years of farming newlineexperience but had low training exposure, poor extension contact and less social newlineparticipation. Majority (66.25%) of them were small holding farmers utilizing 1 to 2 ha newlineof land under paddy (71.25%) and had small pig size of less than 3 number. Most newline(58.12%) of them had rice and other allied agricultural activities as the main occupation. newlineAverage annual family income was Rs. 1.72 lakh and individual average income of newlinewomen and men was Rs. 0.39 and Rs. 1.33 respectively. Both women and men had a newlinemedium level of knowledge and medium risk bearing ability. A medium overall level of newlineparticipation was found in agriculture by women (55.62%) and men (58.12%) with newlinemean scores of 54.57 and 67.99 in women and men respectively. Majority (40.63%) of newlinethe farm women had low decision making power in agriculture, while men (49.37%) newlinehad a high decision making power. The overall extent of access and control was found newlineto be medium (48.75%) to low (33.13%) in women whereas, in men, a medium newline(47.50%) to high (30.62%) level was found. Most of the women had low (41.87%..