---
title: "Feminisation of Agriculture: Meaning & Causes"
description: "Feminisation of agriculture refers to the increasing role of women in farming as men leave for non-farm jobs, highlighting land rights issues in India."
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/feminisation-of-agriculture"
---

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Model Diplomat Research Team · Last reviewed June 22, 2026

TL;DR

- Feminisation of agriculture is the rising share of women in agricultural labour as men migrate to non-farm work, increasing women's role in cultivation without commensurate land rights.
- What is the primary driver of the feminisation of agriculture in India?
- How does feminisation of agriculture differ from feminisation of poverty?
- Why is feminisation of agriculture described as a transfer of burden rather than empowerment?
- Which policy measures address the feminisation of agriculture?

[Civil Service & Diplomatic Exams](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/civil-services/glossary)Updated June 22, 2026

Feminisation of agriculture is the rising share of women in agricultural labour as men migrate to non-farm work, increasing women's role in cultivation without commensurate land rights.

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### Supporters

A second mechanism is the divergence between work and authority. The feminisation process is overwhelmingly a feminisation of labour rather than a feminisation of management or asset ownership. Women who run farms in the physical absence of migrant men frequently lack the formal status of cultivator because land titles, tenancy agreements, and Kisan Credit Cards remain registered in male names. This produces what scholars term the "feminisation of agrarian distress": women shoulder rising labour burdens and decision-making responsibility while being denied access to institutional credit, crop insurance, extension services, subsidised inputs, and minimum support price procurement, all of which are gated on documented landholding or recognised cultivator status.

### Opponents

Controversies centre on measurement and interpretation. Critics note that India's official statistics chronically undercount women's farm labour because survey enumerators classify women reporting domestic duties as outside the workforce even when they perform substantial unpaid family farm work, so the true degree of feminisation is likely understated. Others caution that the "men leave, women stay" narrative obscures regional heterogeneity — feminisation is pronounced in eastern and central India but weaker in states with mechanised, capital-intensive agriculture such as Punjab and Haryana, where male wage labour and migrant labour persist. A further debate concerns whether MGNREGA, by offering local wage work, slows distress-driven feminisation or reinforces women's confinement to low-productivity rural labour.

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India's Economic Survey 2017-18 formally recognised the feminisation of agriculture, noting that rising male out-migration from states such as Bihar and Odisha had left women managing a growing share of family cultivation.

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