Rural Women's Participation in Agricultural and Non- Agricultural Activities: A Case Study of Manshiet Dahshour Village, El – Badrashen District, Giza Governorate, Egypt.

Abstract

Egyptian rural women play critical, diverse roles in agricultural and non-agricultural activities in the rural economy as unpaid family workers, own-account farmers, and plantations.The multiple role of women in agriculture, allied occupations and household activities are generally, underestimated and undervalued. By and large, they have remained as invisible hands .The present study was undertaken to determine the nature and extent of participation of rural women in various agricultural and nonagricultural activities, and their contribution in generating household income.A sample size of 100 farm households of Manshiet Dahshour village were selected randomly, and the housewives of the households, who worked outside along with their household work, were the respondents of this study. Data were collected through structured interview questionnaire during September an October 2016. The obtained data were analyzed by using tabular and statistical techniques. The findings showed that most of the respondents constitute economically active age group who were mostly illiterate.Contribution of women to total family income in low, medium and high income household categories were 34.5 , 25.0 and 13.9 per cent respectively. It was evident that, female participation of low and medium income households is markedly higher in non-agricultural activities than the high income households. Women were involved in various agricultural and non-agricultural activities and largely took part in " rearing poultry"," harvesting croups ", " postharvest operations", "milking and milk processing", " petty trading ", " labor selling " and " sewing " (dress marketing).The values of correlation coefficient indicated that only household size is positively and significantly associated with women respondent participation in agricultural and non-agricultural activities.