A Study On Social Change And Its Impact On Rural Women

Abstract

Rural women play a vital role in sustainable agricultural development and inclusive growth newlineof rural economy. The major occupation of rural women is farming. Farming was a pursuit in the newlinepast, essentially a subsistence farming system. But, now it is imperative to work for the national food newlinesecurity, it has become a surplus farming system, auxiling the green revolution technology. newlineEventually agriculture has been transformed as feminisation occupation in this country, owing to the newlinegrowing rural to urban migration of men in search of some other non-farm occupations for their newlinelivelihood. Due to feminisation of agriculture, rural women have to shoulder the responsibility of newlineintegrating management and use of diverse natural resources to meet the daily household needs. newlineThe study entitled A Study on Social Change and Its Impact on Rural Women aimed to newlinestudy the changing aspects structural, functional, impact of rural women with regard social change, newlinedevelop and measure attitude and social change index. In addition, an investigation was made to newlineknow the association and contribution of impact of social change on rural women in the sense of newlineempowerment and attitude of rural women towards social change. newlineThis study was conducted in Melur and Usilampatti blocks of Madurai and Karamadai and newlineSulthanpet blocks of Coimbatore districts with a sample size of 237 respondents. Ten structural newlinevariables and eleven functional variables with impact and attitude of rural women towards social newlinechange and social change index as dependent variables were studied. The data were collected using newlinea well-structured and pre-tested interview schedule. The data were analysed by using appropriate newlinestatistical analysis. newlineChanges at varying degree had occurred in all the ten structural variables aspects viz., newlinenature of family, occupational status, migration pattern, family income, awareness on rural credits, newlineland operation pattern, labour availability, types of farm labour gender preference and labour newlinemobility changes were found to be significant at 0.01 p