Gender Disparity: Its Manifestations, Causes and Implications

State-wise Disharmonies in Gender Equalities
Agricultural Labour Class
We know that the most vulnerable economic class in Indian society is the class of agricultural labourers (AGL) who mainly belong to rural India in varying proportions among the states. CV of supply of agricultural labourers (both male and female) across the states has reached at a high level of about 75% between 1991 and 2001. On the other hand, the maximum and minimum proportions of female AGL in 2001 have continued to be as high as 63.30% in Bihar and as low as 2% in Haryana. But the CV of real wage of female AGL among the states has drastically increased from 35.10% to 74% over the same period, whereas the ratio between maximum and minimum real wages for female in any state increased from three to eight times, and the same is true for male too. This clearly means that in many states including the two poorest states of Orissa and Bihar, some of which fall in the group of middle income with large sizes (AP, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, TN and WB), female agricultural wages have substantially worsened in the post-reform period. Note that UP has recorded remarkable progress in terms of female AW over this period. What is more glaring is that the CV in growth rates of real wages of female AGL between 1990-91 and 2000-01 was as high as 261%. Note that this variance was one fifth between 1980-81 and 1990-91, and the mean value of female AW has in fact deteriorated in the post-reform decade compared to the pre-reform decade. In some states it has recorded negative growth rate between 1990-91 and 2000-01 with the lowest value of -3.20% for Karnataka. In states like Haryana and HP, it is as high as (23-24)%. Another retrogressive feature is that except Tripura, UP, Orissa, Bihar, Haryana, MP and Punjab, female real wage stands at around 65% of male wage. It means that there does not appear to have any parity between level of development in a state and male to female wage ratio.

It is, therefore, obvious that (i) whereas supply of unskilled female workers has been rising in poorer states, gender-wise earnings have been moving against women labourers across board, and (ii) minimum wages legislation as well as proactive wage policies for the most vulnerable classes of unskilled female population have not been uniformly implemented across board in rural areas,. These findings bear adequate testimony to the unpopular suspicion about the fulfillment of the MDGs in many regions of India within the professed deadline. Sadly enough, we could not probe deeper into the district level due to limitation of wage data.