An Overview of Rural Finance for Rural Women
Uploaded by nkavithambassm on Apr 13, 2007
RURAL FINANCE FOR RURAL WOMEN AN OVERVIEW
By
N.Kavitha MBA., M.Phil.,(P.hD)
Lecturer in MBA Department,
SSM College of Engineering,
Komarapalayam – 638 183
Namakkal – Dist. INDIA
E.mail: nkavithamba@yahoo.co.in
Introduction
Poverty hits hardest at the female half of humankind. If woman living in a rural area of a developing country, they are likely to be poorer than a man, more vulnerable, own no land, be less educated and in poorer health. And you are unlikely to live as long. Struggling to combine a ‘double day’ of low-paid work with care for the home, rural women often have to cope with frequent pregnancies and child mortality. For women, perhaps the cruelest reality of all is that they have less chance than men to escape from poverty. A rural woman is likely to have little or no say in the way the family spends its income. Discrimination in education is the start of the vicious spiral of poverty. A girl may be deprived of schooling and literacy for no other reason than that she is female. Seventy per cent of poor women in India cannot read or write. Illiteracy often excludes people from written knowledge and decision-making. Some rural women have been affected by trade liberalization They are unable to participate in the marketing of export crops as they lack land rights and access to essential farm inputs. On the other hand, some women have gained by securing jobs in new export activities. Investment in rural women pays off.
•Indian population is 48.1% women and 51.9% men
• Female illiteracy is 62% whereas the male illiteracy rate is 34%
• The labour force participation rate of women is 22.7%, less than half of the men's rate of 51.6%
• In rural India, agriculture and allied industrial sectors employ as much as 89.5% of the total female labour
• Women have extensive work loads with dual responsibility for farm and household production
• Women's work is getting harder and more time-consuming due to ecological degradation and changing agricultural technologies and practices
• Women have an active role and extensive involvement in livestock production, forest resource use and fishery processing
• Women contribute considerably to household income through farm and non farm activities as well as through work as landless agricultural labourers
• Women's work as family labour is underestimated
• There are high degrees of inter-state and intra-state variations in gender roles in agriculture, environment and rural production
Rural Women at a glance
Rural women comprise...