Gender Disparity: Its Manifestations, Causes and Implications

2. Male Female Wage Differentials across the States
As is well known, agricultural labourers do not fall under the purview of market-based economy, though they have to face the impact of increasing trade openness in very many ways. Apart from the trade related impacts of globalization, cultural and commodity-based changes have been in order in all corners of the country- from the state capitals to the remote corners. Consequently, wave of freedom of women is flowing through media and other means of demonstration. It is true that in some states and in some regions of some industrial states also, democratic decision making is not yet set in. As a result, institutional changes for supporting worldwide move for gender equality have not yet intruded into these spheres of life. What is more, female agricultural labourers have always had the disadvantage of ‘heavy duty work’ over and above their usual family responsibilities. Under such situation, and given lack of purchasing power, they are highly susceptible to the negative effects of ‘cooperative conflicts within families’ (Sen, 2005; Ghosh, 2006).¹⁰ So in the interests of institutional intervention for improving women freedom, agricultural labourers are the ideal candidates to start with.

It is true that at current prices, wage rates for even the male agricultural labourers are lower than the World Bank’s standard definition of poverty, namely one dollar per day. It is to be kept in mind that neither the male nor the female AL does find employment for all 30 days in a month. For understanding earning differentials between male and female we have to turn to Table 5 which estimates gender-wise wage differentials at constant rupees on the basis of 1960-61 consumer prices for agricultural labourers (CPIAL) since 1980-81. It also reports pre- and post-reform growth rates and ratio of female to male wages as well. The major findings are briefed follows.

(i) The second period (190-91 to 2000-01) growth rates of real wage rates for female AL have fallen in as many as 19 states out of 26 studied here. Out of these 19 states, real wages of female workers have deteriorated in absolute terms in 14 states. These states are: ARP, ASS, BIH, GOA, J & K, Kar, Mah, Man, Meg, Miz, Nag, ORI, SIK and TN. Interestingly, real male wages in absolute terms have also fallen in the same set of states except BIH, J&K, MAH and TN. Unlike sex ratio, real agricultural wages for both male and female have increased in Punjab and Haryana.

(ii) What about relative deprivation of female workers? As may be observed from the last two columns, the ratio of female to male wages has declined in 21 states from 1990-91 to 2000-01, while it has increased only in five states, namely DEL, GOA, HAR, PUN and UP. But in no state it is more than one. And in the communist states of Kerala and West Bengal, the real values of the ratio is always lower than the all-India mean: it moved from 77 in 1980-81 to 62 in 1990-91 to 60 in 2000-01 for Kerala, whereas it has fallen more drastically in West Bengal from 81 to 66 to 61.

(iii) What is more damaging is that the national mean of female to male ratio has been falling over the last two decades including the post-reform period from 83.86 to 75.80 to 70.56. On the other hand, the coefficients of variation across the states for both female and male wages as well as deprivation ratio have been rising at drastically faster rate during the post-reform period. Any attempt at finding out effective measures for gender equalization in the vast rural areas of the country must aim at wage equalization for rural labourers. As rightly pointed out by Ghosh and Guha-Khasnobis (2006, pp.3-4), “Women in agriculture in India are found to be industrious but despite their hard work there is an unfortunate failure to capture, channelise and appreciate their contributions and thereby to remunerate them suitably. In fact, even with great improvements being made in the country’s economy these women have very little to gain from the development as they have remained ever more locked up in agricultural pursuits---.”

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