Why is it important for women to have
unmediated right to land?
Govind Kelkar
Landesa/Rural Development Institute
International Workshop on Feminist Economics in China and India
11-12 November, 2013
Footer Text
1
Common knowledge on the following
issues;
• The feminization of agricultural production
– 84-86% of rural women work in agriculture
– They work in fields largely owned by men of the
households
• Gendered system in agriculture
– State level studies show that women own less tha
9% of land titles
– The wage disparity – women get 60 to 70% of
male wages (with the exception of MGNREGA)
Women who would like to Inherit land
• Lack of control rights to land and related assets show that
economic inequality accumulates over the life course of
individuals and cripples their economic agency to manage and
innovate with agricultural assets.
Women who would like to inherit land
Bihar
Andhra Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
26.8
24.0
23.6
18.7
14.7
11.9
11.0
10.0
10.3
8.6
5.4
5.4
5.6
4.4
9.2
9.3
4.3
0.0
Overall
SC
OBC
Other
Agriculture Nonagriculture
Social and economic justice and
inclusive development
• Have women earned their right to own land?
• What do they say?
• Their voices in the past decade show their
explicit demand for and appreciation of such
rights
What do Women say?
• We were there in harvesting the fields. We were there
in carrying ploughs and snatching arms from the
zamindar’s goondas. We fought for our rights and
actively participated in the land struggle. Why, when
the land is distributed, do we not get our independent
rights to land? (Dallit women, Basuhari, 1990)
• When the land is in the husband’s name, I am only a
worker. When it is in my name, I have some position in
society and my children and husband respect me. So
my responsibility is much greater to my own land and I
take care of my fields like my children (Nandkhora
village, August 2010)
What do Women say?
• “If I have land in my name, my son and daughter-in-law
will look after me in my old age with respect and dignity
for me, otherwise no,” says Santosha from Andhra
Pradesh
• “If both men and women have land, they can get credit
and subsidies from the government, in addition to
respect from children and husband,” says Yashodamma,
from Andhra Pradesh.
• “Our independent right to have land in our own names
is a way to have access to other resources such as
water, seeds, new technologies and bank loans,” says a
woman farmer from Bundelkhand , UP.
Two contradictory trends in the past decade
• Enactment of a series of progressive laws
• Resilience of patriarchal social norms that
create/reinforce unfavorable conditions for women
to make use of laws to overcome risk of violence
• Multilateral reports (FAO 2010-11 and World Bank
2011-12)
• Civil society organizations and women’s groups in
particular
• Draft National Land Reform Policy, 2013
Benefits from plots titled in the women's names:
• Sole ownership of land by women increases their
productive possibilities and livelihood that women will have
access to credit, technology assistance and greater
information.
• With land in her independent name, she receives more
respect from her husband, her children and her community.
• With land titled in her name, she is in a position to escape
violence and avoid marital conflict
Benefits from plots titled in the women's names:
• Land titled in her name reduces the risk of her
eviction from the marital household.
• With land titled in her name she is in a position to
decide on land-use priorities and prevent from selling
land without her knowledge and approval.
• Land titled in her name enhances her self-esteem as
she is recognized as a farmer and is more likely to
access institutional credit for measuring production
and productivity from land.
Asset Ownership Superior
• Despite policy silence, or incremental changes, such as joint
pattas, there is an official admission of the fact that asset
redistribution is superior to income redistribution
• It provides basis for overcoming distortions in the functioning
of markets and for restructuring gender relations, with access
to economic rights, technology, health care and governance
• Capacity development is not just a technical skill; it is a
combination of knowledge, skills and effective rights to own
land and productive assets and thereby changing gender
based power dynamics.
Incentive problem
• Progress is not linear
• Incentive problem of the maximization of
production
• The principal (man) as the land owner ensures
that the agent (woman) as the labourer, has an
incentive to bring about the maximization of
income.
• But this is not the case.
• Women’s lack of decision making power and
autonomy can affect the extent and quality of
work done on the farm
Incentive problem
Micro studies and anecdotal evidence throughout
Asia and Africa suggest:
• When women do not have unmediated right and
control over their fields, they do not work as well
on such plots as they do on their own plots
• Several studies in recent years (ILO 2004, FAO
2004 and World bank 2011-12) point out that
secure and inalienable use rights, with full
control, if not full ownership, are necessary for
investment in agriculture
Efficiency of Resource Use
Women’s ownership and control rights over land could lead to
higher and better quality of production
FAO study:
• If women had the same access to productive resources as
men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30%
• This could increase total agricultural output in developing
countries by 2.5 to 4%
• This, in turn, could reduce the number of malnourished or
hungry people in the world by 12 to 17%
• Women’s control over the use of household income,
enables them to use it for their own well-being as well as
for other household members, children in particular
Women’s Asset Ownership and
reduction in violence
• Evidence from
– Chenchu study in Andhra Pradesh
– Prem Choudhury’s study of Haryana
– Panda and Agarwal’s study of Kerala
• OECD’s index of SIGI (Social Institutions and
Gender Inequality) suggests that social and
legal norms, such as property rights, marital
practices and liberties, affect women’s
economic development.
Security of tenurial rights
• Demonization of women as witches in
Jharkhand and numerous states of India, more
so in forest dwelling peoples – is largely
related to women’s use rights to land
• Attack on male-unsupported women or single
women, by close relatives in the family
Violence against Women
• In the last four years from 195,856 cases in 2008 to 244,270 in 2012 within
home and outside (underreporting, e.g murder in general crime)
• Delhi government data shows
Crime
2009
2010
2011
Rape
469
507
572
706
1330
Molestation
552
601
657
727
2844
Eve-teasing
238
126
165
236
793
Kidnapping/Abduction
1655
1740
2085
2210
2906
Cruelty by husband and
in-laws
1297
1410
1585
2046
2487
141
143
142
134
123
6
15
7
15
14
Dowry murder
Dowry Prohibition act
2012 2013 upto
October
15
Security of tenurial rights
• Security of land rights is important for all
women, married or single
• This security comes with unmediated rights,
and not through joint pattas
• In the absence of unmediated rights, joint
pattas may be considered provided there are
partitionable and inalienable rights (the latter
for 15-20 years)
Single women
• Priority to single women, while it is needed,
has two problems:
– Perception of single women as ‘bechari’ (helpless)
without a man. [They are very much so even
within marriage or in the parental home, because
of their assetless position.]
– Development attention gets limited by attention
to only single women
Policy assistance
Attention to
• Systematic gender sensitization workshops /
trainings with agriculture ministries, rural
development and land institutions, and local
resource officials. They may be unaware of
HSAA or other gender equity/equality
measures and may lack the will to implement
them.
Policy assistance
• Laws need to be strengthened by gender
specific guidelines and regulations to educate
local officials, including promotion incentives,
with regular monitoring and evaluation
measures
• Increasing women’s legal literacy and
awareness about their legal rights in land,
with role models to deconstruct the selfsacrificing orientation of women/girls.
Policy assistance
• Building capacities of revenue officials and
Block and Tehsil level officers in implementing
HSAA, rather than treating the legal measures
as a private matter within the family.
Policy assistance
Need for bold, transformative changes based on
recognition of
1. The changing nature of women’s productive
work in agriculture and the unorganized sector
2. Productivity implications of gender asset
inequality; and
3. The context specific policy change in the
ownership and control rights to land and other
productive assets.