Who Takes Over When Men Move Out of Farming?

Neerad Deshmukh , National Council of Applied Economic Research
Sonalde B. Desai, India Human Development Survey

Recent economic growth, particularly growth in construction industry, combined with crowding in agricultural sector has led to significant movement of men away from farming into non-farm labor in India. This paper examines changes in labor inputs to family farms to explore who takes over the farm work when men leave family farm for other opportunities. The paper explores intra household labor distribution on family farms between husbands and wives using bivariate probit models. The data for this analysis comes from two rounds of India Human Development Survey (IHDS). IHDS is a panel data set covering over 42,000 households located in rural as well as urban India. Prima facie evidence suggests that, when husbands move away from farm activities engagement in farm work by wives increases.

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 Presented in Session 4. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions