Women’s work in agriculture in Eastern Indo-Gangetic plain exploring multiple stressors and emerging futures

The Indian part of the Eastern Indo-Gangetic plain is an agrarian region that continues to grapple with unemployment, poverty, and inequality. A jobless growth process has worsened employment opportunities in this region and intensified the process of male-selective out-migration in search of employment opportunities in the urban informal sector.

COVID lockdowns created overlapping marginalities from multiple stressors. These stressors intersect in nuanced and often divergent and create gendered and socially differentiated impacts and vulnerabilities for these agrarian communities. These intersections of multiple stressors during the COVID lockdowns have been lesser studied and understood with regard to changing outcomes for women’s work participation in agriculture. Against this backdrop, there is a need to critically understand the changing roles of women in agriculture in the EGP in India in the context of COVID-19.