Adapting household behaviour to agricultural technology in West Bengal, India: wage labor, fertility, and child schooling determinants
Mukhopadhyay, S.K.
Economic Development and Cultural Change 43(1): 91-115
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0013-0079 Document Number: 285513
The paper uses cross-section data from a survey of rural households in West Bengal, India, to examine the determinants of adoption of HYV technology by farm households, labour supply by their male and female members to the agricultural labour market, fertility, and child schooling. The empirical findings suggest that farmers' decisions to adopt new technology depend mainly on the quality of their land, access to irrigation, and profitability. The wage rate of male labour is negatively related to the proportion of land under HYV, while the wage rate of female labour is positively related to HYV adoption. This is consistent with efforts to minimize labour costs because HYVs use a higher proportion of male-to-female labour than do traditional varieties. Both men and women respond positively to their own wage rates in working for the agricultural labour market. But education, land ownership, and value of household assets tend to reduce wage labour participation in off-farm work in agriculture. The extent of HYV technology in the village has a negative influence on women's wage labour supply. Fertility, or the demand for children, is affected negatively by women's wage rate and positively by men's wage rate. Land ownership and technology have positive effects on fertility. Education of both men and women have strong negative effects on fertility. Education has also unequivocally positive effects on the schooling of children, both boys and girls, even in poor areas and areas with a less educated population. In sum, while the new agricultural technology may have raised the income of farm households, its impact on the status of women is more ambiguous. The increase in fertility associated with many aspects of HYVs also suggests that some of the income gains achieved through the new agricultural technologies are being invested in larger families rather than in increased schooling of children.