Rural Women and High Yielding Variety-Rice Technology

Rice Technology Bina Agarwal The absence of gender analysis in the vast body of literature on the socio-economic implications of the new agricultural strategy reflects uncritical acceptance of the assumption that the household is a unit of converging (perhaps even homogenous) interests, wherein the benefits or burdens of technological change will be shared equally by all members. This paper questions this assumption and focuses attention on some of the implications of HYV rice technology on women of different socio-economic classes. Consideration of the impact on women of the poorest households in particular is seen as important, because many of these women are the primary or sole income-earners in their familiesand their access to employment and income is crucial for their own and their families' statical.