Female participation in livestock rearing

A study was undertaken to analyse the association between the socio-economic characteristics of farm women and the extent of their participation in livestock farming . The sample households consisted of 30 women respondents each from the categories of landless, marginal, small and large farmers in the Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. On an average, farm women in the family spent 294.34 minutes daily for large ruminants keeping with the imputed value of Rs.73.53 .The coefficients of multiple determination (R2) obtained for the linear regression model fitted for average time spent on animal keeping by farm women were 0.946. The independent variables, educational status of female head, total economically dependent members of the family, community, average hired labour hours per day for large ruminants and total large ruminants in animal units were significantly affected the average time spent by women in the farm households on large ruminants keeping.Highly significant positive coefficient for factor, community, indicated that SC women spent more time on large ruminants keeping. The significant negative coefficient for the variable, educational status of the female, indicated that literate females spent lesser time on large ruminant keeping than illiterate females.