Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227239 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13712
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Technological change in production processes with gendered division of labor across tasks, such as agriculture, can have a differential impact on women's and men's labor. Using exogenous variation in the extent of loamy soil, which is more amenable to deep tillage than clayey soil and therefore more likely to see adoption of tractor driven equipment for primary tilling, we show that mechanization has led to significantly greater decline in women's than men's labor on Indian farms. Reduced demand for labor in weeding, a task that requires precision and is thus more often undertaken by women, explains our findings. The estimates suggest that increased mechanized tilling led to a more than 22% fall in women's agricultural labor in India during 1999-2011. Our results highlight the gendered impact of technological change in contexts where there is sex-specific specialization of labor.
Subjects: 
gender
specialization of labor
agriculture
technology
mechanization
JEL: 
J16
J23
J43
O33
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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