Levels, Pattern and Distribution of Income of Women Labour Households in Rural Punjab

Based on primary data collected from 1017 women labour households spread over four districts of Punjab, the present study reveals that the women labour households, on an average, earn 77198.48, annually in the rural areas of Punjab. These households earn only 24.91 per cent of their total income from hiring out (contractual as well as casual) labour in agriculture, which is too low to meet their basic necessities. Most of the time, the agricultural labourers have to remain unemployed due to seasonal employment in the agricultural sector. Therefore, they have to search other sources of income which include income from hiring out labour in construction work, salaries, MGNREGA, self-employment, domestic servants, white-washing and so on. From the other sources, they earned 71.23 per cent of their total household income. Beside of this, an average woman labour household receives a very small proportion of the total income, (3.86 per cent) as transfer income. There are more disparities in the distribution of per capita income in comparison to that of household income among the women labourers in the rural areas of Punjab.