with inputs from Ritam Dutta

Women’s control over land and property is recognised to be an important factor in women’s socio-economic status and empowerment. We report some interesting results on the subject from a quick analysis of data from eight villages (located in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab and Karnataka) surveyed by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.

Households in which women held some agricultural land in their name accounted for 10 to 32 per cent of all resident households in the eight villages. The two villages of the eight with relatively high occurrence of land ownership among women were Gharsondi in Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh, and Alabujanahalli, Mandya district, Karnataka. In Gharsondi, some households with large landholdings registered land in the name of women, as the registration fees were reported to be lower for females than for males. In Alabujanahalli, several male heads of household reported that title deeds were still in the name of their mothers although all control of land was in their hands.

The extent of land registered in the names of women as a proportion of the extent of all ownership holdings was only 5 to 16 per cent in the study villages. As shown in Figure 1, other than in two villages, the proportion of households in which at least one woman had land registered in her name land was less than the proportion of the extent of land land owned by women. The two exceptions were two villages of West Bengal, Amarsinghi (Maldah district) and Panahar (Bankura district). As is known, one of the features of the land reform in West Bengal carried out during the period of the Left Front was the introduction of joint pattas or ownership titles jointly in the name of husband and wife.

It is of interest that the large majority of women that owned agricultural land were not in women-headed households. In Zhapur village of Kalaburagi district, Karnataka, for example, while 24 women reported owning agricultural land, only seven of them lived in women-headed households.