Income and Inequality among Farm Households in Indian Punjab

by Rohit Saini, Manjeet Kaur

ISBN: 9789359193731
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Imprint : Scholars World
Year : 2025
Price : Rs. 3895.00
Biblio : viii+102p., figs., tabls., ind., 25cm

Author Profile

Dr. Rohit Saini is a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics currently working as Fellow at Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi, India. His research interests include status of income of the agricultural households with special reference to landless, marginal and small farmers. His special interests include addressing the income stress in rural economy and analysing the potentials of creating decent opportunities in the vicinity of the rural households. Dr. Manjeet Kaur is Principal Agricultural Economist at Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. Her area of interest includes farmers' income, indebtedness, stress faced by agricultural households. She has extensively worked to address the problems faced by agricultural labourers in Punjab and currently working on the rural distress and cause of suicides among persons engaged in agriculture.

About The Book

The book captures the existing inequalities among farm households in Indian Punjab and proposes viable policy solutions to address them in the rural landscape. These households predominantly belonged to upper caste, have an average family size of 5.49 members and primarily engaged in wheat and paddy cultivation. By shedding light on the economic hardship faced by a marginalized subset of agricultural households even in the 21st century, we hope that the book will serve as a valuable resource for both, practitioners as well as aspiring scholars, who seek to gain a comprehensive understanding of the rural economy.

Table of Contents

Preface v 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Need of income inequality study: why to estimate inequality within sub-groups 1 1.2 Importance of agriculture sector in Indian economy 2 1.3 Challenges in estimating income of agricultural households 2 1.4 Income distribution in Punjab since green revolution 3 1.5 Farm-size and productivity relationship in Punjab 4 1.6 Major challenges in front of Indian economy 5 1.7 Scope and objectives of the book 6 2. Income and Inequality Among Rural Households in India and Punjab: A Review 9 2.1 Income sources and income inequality among rural household in India 9 2.2 Income sources and income inequality in among rural household in Punjab 14 3. Farm-size and Productivity Relationship in India and Punjab: A Review 19 3.1 Farm-size and productivity debate in India 19 3.2 Farm-size and productivity debate in Punjab 27 4. Concepts and Methodology 31 4.1 Locale of the study 31 4.2 Data source 32 4.3 Important concepts and terms used in the study 32 4.4 Analytical procedures 36 viii Income and Inequality Among Farm Households in Indian Punjab 5. Scio-Economic Profile of the Farm Households in Punjab 43 5.1 Family size of the farm households 43 5.2 Composition of operational holdings for different farm-size categories 44 5.3 Distribution of farm households on the basis of caste 44 5.4 Education of the head of farm households 45 5.5 Age of the head of the farm households 46 5.6 Gender of the head of the farm households 46 6. Cropping Pattern, Cost and Returns Structure Among Farm Households 49 6.1 Cropping pattern among farm households 49 6.2 Gross returns in crop cultivation among farm households 51 6.3 Paid-out cost structure in crop cultivation among farm households 52 6.4 Returns over paid-out cost in crop cultivation among farm households 56 7. Farm-Size and Productivity Relationship in Punjab 59 7.1. Crop-wise analysis of farm-size and productivity 60 7.2 Value productivity analysis for farm-size and productivity relationship 62 7.3 Relationship between input-use and farm-size 67 8. Level and Pattern of Income Among Farm Households in Punjab 69 8.1 Sources of income among farm households 69 8.2 Extent of pluriactivity among farm households 70 8.3 Source-wise level of income of farm households 71 8.4 Per capita income of farm households 72 8.5 Share of different income sources in total income 73 9. Income Distribution and Inequality Among Farm Households in Punjab 75 9.1 Distribution of income among farm households 75 9.2 Decomposition of income inequality among farm households 79 10. Summary, Conclusion, Suggestions and Policy Implications 89 References 95 Index 101