Involvement of rural women in rice farming as influenced by selected factors : A comparative study of an irrigated and a rainfed Philippine villages
Date
1989
Authors
Dibya Timsina
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Abstract
This study sought to determine rural women's extent of involvement in decision making and physical participation in different rice farming activities under two varying environments.
This research was conducted in two villages of the municipality of Guimba, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. One of the villages is irrigated (Kawayang Bugtong) and the other is rainfed (Bacayao). A total of 124 women respondents were selected, representing 20 percent of the total farming households in each village. They were interviewed using a pre-tested interview schedule.
Majority of the respondents were about 41 years old and the level of their education was relatively low in both villages. The mean household size of the respondents was 6.7 and 6.2, respectively in the irrigated and the rainfed areas. Mean farming experience was 19 years in the irrigated area and 17.8 years in the rainfed area. Family and non-family (exchanged and hired) labors were used in rice production activities in both villages. The family provided the main source of labor in the rainfed area while non-family labor was used slightly higher in the irrigated area. On the whole, women's labor participation was higher in the rainfed area (39% of the total mandays) than in the irrigated area (37.5% of the total mandays).
Most of the respondents had a farm size of less than 2 ha in both villages. The total household income was slightly higher in the rainfed area. Rice was the main source of total income in both villages. majority of the households ion the two villages were leaseholders.
Women in both villages had good access to credit which was mostly obtained from private money lenders. They were also accessible to labor in both villages. Exchanged laborers, however, were more available in the irrigated area whereas hired laborers were available in both areas. Some of the improved technologies that were available and used in both irrigated and rainfed areas were improved seeds, chemicals, fertilizer5s, isecticides, and machineries.
Rural women, regardless of the ecological environments, participated in almost all of the physical and decision making activities related to rice farming. Those activities encompassed seed selection, pulling and bundling of seedlings, transplanting, replanting, fertilizer and herbicide application, weeding, harvesting, threshing and other post harvest activities. The extent of women's participation, however, was greater in the irrigated area. In the irrigated environment, the factors that significantly affected rural women's involvement in decision making were their farming experience, beliefs and tenurial status. Also belief was significantly related with their physical labor. On the other hand, land type affected decision making as well as labor participation of women in the rainfed area. However, accessibility to credit and labor were found to be significantly related to decision making and physical labor in some rice farming activities in both areas.
On the other hand, all of the psycho-cultural variables, i.e. attitude towards sexual behavior, family planning and population education were highly significantly in related to perception on population problems.