Women and Technological Change in Agriculture: The Asian and African Experience
Bina Agarwal
Abstract
This chapter seeks to examine the ways in which, over the past several years, the introduction of agricultural modernisation schemes, including new inputs and practices, have affected rural women in the Third World. It examines the impact of technological change by class and gender, focusing first on the Asian experience and then on the African experience. Women of landless and small cultivator households are found, in virtually all parts of the Third World, to have high workloads, often higher than those borne by the men. In addition to their work contribution in the fields, the primary burden of child care, cooking and cleaning, and of tasks such as water carrying, firewood gathering and grain grinding, tends to fall on women. Undertaking a disproportionately large share of the family’s work burden, however, does not necessarily give women access to or control over a proportionately larger share of the household cash income.