Gendered effects of work and participation in collective forest management

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a statistical investigation of the relationship between labor time expended in rural livelihoods, social structure, and community forest management. The object is to understand the impact of labor constraints to collective action. There are three main results. First, increasing time burden of work has a negative impact on collective forest management. Second, the gendered nature of work imposes a high burden on women and hence impedes their ability to participate in collective management even if incentives exist. In addition, lower access to social infrastructure further increases work burdens and decreases ability to participate. Finally, high levels of wealth lead to lower individual participation but this not because of high opportunity of time worked.time use; collective action; gender; forests; South Asia; India