The third day of the Conference on “Women’s Work in Rural Economies,” organised by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) in partnership with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, began at 9 a.m. on December 2, 2018. The first session for the day was on women’s work in agriculture and non-farm work, and was chaired by Praveen Jha, with A. V. Jose and Amit Basole as discussants. Four papers were presented, beginning with a presentation by Seema and Jayan Jose Thomas from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, on women’s work in rural India using evidence from an inter-State analysis and survey villages in Haryana. This was followed by a presentation on the determinants of non-farm work in rural Asia, particularly in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India, by Fernanda Barcia de Mattos from the International Labour Organisation, and a paper by Nidhi Sadana Sabharwal from National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (presented by Aardra Surendran) on discrimination faced by Dalit women workers in rural India. The final paper in the session was presented by Arindam Das from the Foundation for Agrarian Studies, and was titled “Gender Wage Differentials in Rural India.”

The second session, chaired by Vijoo Krishnan, Joint Secretary, All India Kisan Sabha, was titled “External interventions – group farming and access to credit by rural women.” The first paper discussed the structure and functioning of Kudumbashree, a community network aiming towards economic and social empowerment of women in Kerala. Smt. Vijayam, assistant district mission coordinator at Kudumbashree made a detailed presentation. This was followed by a presentation by Arindam Das and Madhav Ramachandran on the farm business incomes earned by joint liability farming groups organized by Kudumbashree. The final presentation in the session, by Pallavi Chavan, examined women’s access to banking services in rural India. The session closed with a discussion led by Richa Govil.

The third session was on issues of non-agricultural work and migration. The session was chaired by D. Narayana, with Jayan Jose Thomas and Smita Gupta as discussants. Indu Agnihotri and Indrani Mazumdar presented a note on migration by rural women. Their study showed that migration is not confined to younger women, as older women also migrate for work. Kiran Moghe from the All-India Democratic Women’s Association made a presentation based on a study of domestic workers and their rural origins. The final paper in the session, “Women Scheme Workers in Rural India,” was by K. Hemalata, National President, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), and was presented y Usha Rani from the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

The closing session was chaired by Madhura Swaminathan and Sandipan Baksi. The session began with a brief address by Helen Jack, District Secretary of the South African Communist Party, from the Basil February district.

This was followed by an open discussion and a vote of thanks by Shruti Nagbhushan, the Conference Coordinator.