Women in Agriculture

Lesson 22 : Feminization of Poverty & Livelihoods

Reasons for feminization of Poverty

Societal Factors

• Low payment of wages for the hours and load of work turning over
• Inadequate attention towards education of women
• Denied access to productive assets
• Employment in unorganized sector
• Seasonal employment, as most of the women are agriculture labourers
• Exercise of gender specific process while designing programmes and policies
• Burden due to structural adjustments
• Low access to food and other primary needs
• Femaleheaded families are disproportionately represented.

Personal Factors

• Illiteracy
• Ignorance
• Illiteracy
• Insecurity
• Inferiority
• Inability
• Injustice

Low Capabilities

• Low capabilities to be well nourished and healthy ( the proportion of children under five who are underweight)
• Low capabilities to reproduce healthily (the proportion of births unattended by trained health personnel);
• Low capabilities to be educated (represented by rates of illiteracy).