Higher Farm Wages, Unequal Pay: What Three Decades of Data Reveal About Women in India

The study draws on the Labour Bureau’s Wage Rates in Rural India publications, covering 20 states from 1995–96 to 2023–24.

A bigger daily wage can make room for groceries, school expenses or a little breathing space in a farming household, without giving women an equal share of what their work is worth. Research published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, titled "Exploring the gender wage gap in Indian agriculture—an interaction-based panel regression approach," examines this divide across nearly three decades of agricultural wage records.

Researchers Padma Lakshmi Govindarajan and K. Thomas Felix found higher agricultural wages in the period following the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA, in 2005. Their analysis found no consistent evidence that the difference between men's and women's pay narrowed across agricultural work, with the size and significance of that gap depending on the job and the state.

Nearly Three Decades of Farm Pay Tell an Uneven Story

The study draws on the Labour Bureau's Wage Rates in Rural India publications, covering 20 states from 1995–96 to 2023–24. Its 11 activities include ploughing, sowing, weeding, transplanting, harvesting, winnowing, threshing, picking, animal husbandry, general agricultural labour and cane crushing. An overall wage measure uses six activities with continuous records across the study period. Changes in occupational categories and limited records meant that every activity could not be followed for the full span.

The researchers adjusted wages for inflation using the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers, with 1986–87 as the base year. The rupee figures in the analysis represent purchasing power at that historical price level, making them different from the cash wages workers receive today.

The data follow groups defined by state, gender and activity, rather than the same people year after year. Missing records, accounting for about 2% of observations, were estimated from surrounding years; repeating the analysis without those estimates produced similar findings.

A statistical model compared wage patterns across groups and years, with adjustments for recurring patterns and uneven variation in the data. This approach offers a broad view of agricultural pay, without showing how any individual worker's earnings changed.

The Job and the State Shape the Pay Gap

Clear gender wage differences appeared in ploughing, harvesting, threshing, animal husbandry, general agricultural labour and cane crushing, with men receiving higher pay. The model's baseline estimates included male wage advantages of roughly ₹7.78 a day in ploughing, ₹7.61 in general agricultural labour and ₹6.85 in cane crushing, expressed in the study's historical purchasing-power terms. The aggregate model reported a baseline gender difference of approximately ₹5.01 per day.

Sowing, weeding, transplanting, picking and winnowing did not show baseline gender gaps. That finding means the analysis could not confidently establish a difference for those activities; it does not prove that every workplace paid women and men equally. Several of these jobs involve substantial female participation, and the authors suggest that more standardised wage practices could help explain their comparatively similar pay.

The state comparisons reveal another layer of inequality. Kerala and Tamil Nadu recorded relatively large average gender wage gaps, Gujarat and Haryana showed smaller differences, and Jammu and Kashmir's recorded an average that favoured women.

Regional farming systems, access to education, caste relations, local employment conditions and gender expectations could help explain these contrasts. The model accounts for only a limited share of the lasting differences between states, leaving those explanations open for further research.

Higher Wages Did Not Bring a Clear Move Towards Equal Pay

MGNREGA's equal-pay provision for public employment gives the study an important question to explore: could access to that work influence what women earn on private farms?

The authors describe several possible routes, including stronger bargaining power, higher expectations about acceptable pay and competition between public works and farm employers for labour. These are proposed explanations for wider wage changes, rather than mechanisms directly measured by the research.

The model reported positive post-2005 wage associations across all 11 activities, ranging from approximately ₹7.50 per day for winnowing to ₹15.87 for sowing in inflation-adjusted terms. Its aggregate post-period estimate was about ₹15.43.

A general rise in wages does not establish that women caught up with men. Statistically significant differences in how male and female wages changed appeared only in ploughing, harvesting and winnowing; the aggregate result did not establish a significant change in the gender gap.

The figures require care when judging MGNREGA. Both men and women were eligible for the programme, leaving no clearly untreated comparison group. A check using 2000 as an artificial policy starting point detected gender wage changes before MGNREGA existed, showing that earlier trends could influence the results.

The findings describe associations with the post-MGNREGA period and cannot prove that the programme caused wage increases or changes in inequality. Shifts in the people represented by each group and unmeasured regional characteristics create further uncertainty.

Fairer Pay Needs Attention to the Work Women Can Access

The authors recommend closer wage checks in ploughing, harvesting, threshing, animal husbandry, cane crushing and general farm labour, where gender pay gaps are clearest. Checking pay for each task, keeping separate wage records for men and women, inspecting workplaces and providing easy local complaint options could help uncover unfair pay.

Women's access to better-paid jobs can be limited by a lack of training, equipment, land and credit, as well as household duties and social expectations. Training, machinery access and farming advice could help women enter jobs usually held by men, though the study did not test whether these steps would raise earnings.

Further research could examine how pay is negotiated in jobs with smaller gender gaps and whether women's participation influences wages. Fairer farm work requires both equal pay and access to better-paid opportunities.