Rural women's participation and constraints in agricultural activities: a case study of district Nankana Sahib, Punjab.

The role of rural women’s in agricultural activities is substantial in Pakistan in general and in the Punjab province in particular. Their contribution in the agriculture and livestock is underestimated. In this milieu, this study was planned with the objective to determine the problems faced by rural women during agricultural activities. District Nankana Sahib was selected as case study. Multistage sampling technique was used for this study. At the first stage, out of three Tehsils, two Tehsils were selected randomly. Then from two selected Tehsils, six villages were selected. Finally at the third stage, 120 respondents (rural women) were selected by using convenient sampling. The data thus collected were analyzed and interpreted by using appropriate statistical package to draw the conclusions. The results revealed that that majority of the working women were participating in diverse agricultural activities including sowing, harvesting and picking. Majority of the working women were doing work to increase their family income but they were facing many problems in looking after their children and household chores. Negative attitude of the landlord is found to be one of the main problems. It is suggested that negative stereotype image of working women in rural areas should be changed with the help of mass media.