The Extension of Rural Women’s Labour

Abstract

The shortage of agricultural labour is reflected in the extensive scale of the net loss in rural population, especially of the younger and physically more able age groups (see Chapter 8). This scarcity of labour has also been expressed in significant increases in the general level of agricultural wages. Almost all the respondents in the sample villages commented that their problem was not only the increasing scarcity of labour, but also that wages were too high for them to afford to hire farm labour to make up for this scarcity. The trend toward increasing family labour input in proportion to other types of human labour input, such as exchange labour or temporary hired labour, further substantiates this view (Table 8.23).