ABSTRACT
The Rural Dynamics Survey conducted by Bogor Agricultural University reported that more than half the employed women work for fewer than 35 hours per week on income-yielding jobs. Modernization throughout Asia has brought advantage to different groups unevenly, élite urban groups, including some women, and large landowners, predominantly male, being the first to benefit. The availability of non-farm employment, particularly in small factories, has an important bearing on agricultural wages; this, in turn, influences the degree to which farmers adopt mechanization and chemical weedicides and reduce the employment of human labour. In West Godavari, India, over three-quarters of the female workers belong to labouring households. The introduction of the sickle has allowed a few men from other localities to take the place of many local female kin or neighbours working with the traditional ani-ani; one man works with a tiller instead of many women working by hand.
