Gender, Environment and Poverty Interlinks (academic)

In the paper “Gender, Environment, and Poverty Interlinks: Regional Variations and  Temporal Shifts in Rural India, 1971-91,” Agarwal argues that the effects of  environmental degradation are more heavily felt by female members of poor rural communities.  However, Agarwal does make it clear that one variable does not necessarily cause the other.  Such as in United Arab Emirates, where gender discrimination widespread, but poverty is a non issue.

In India, environmental degradation takes the takes the form of deforestation, soil erosion, and water depletion.  Deforestation, because of expanding cities, agriculture land expansion, timber demand, and firewood collection have left only about 20% of India forested.  Loss of ground cover has caused much of the nutrient rich top soil to wash away, and the overuse of chemical fertilizers as caused a reduction in soil fertility.  Heavy reliance on wells for drinking water and agriculture has drastically lowered the water table, causing many wells to go dry.

In poor rural villages, forests are considered commons, but privatization and deforestation of these lands has caused these already poor villages to lose one of their few resources, accelerating the cycle of poverty.  The poor in rural villages depend on the commons for 90% of their firewood,  without the commons, the poor have lost a valuable resource used for cooking fuel, and warmth.  Because deep tube wells are expensive to install and maintain, they are mainly utilized by wealthy farmers, and because of their widespread use, water tables have fallen, drying up shallower wells that poor villages depend on.  Polluted groundwater tends to be found in the shallower areas of the water table, wealthy individuals can afford to sink deeper wells to access cleaner water, whereas the poor are forced to continue use of polluted shallow wells.  

Gender discrimination is widespread throughout India, but is especially prevalent in poor rural areas.  In rural areas, men almost always control the finances, and thus control access to food, education, and health care.  However, when women do share access to finances, they allocate the resources to meet the needs of the family, whereas men tend to allocate the resources to please themselves.  Both because of law and tradition, women have historically been denied the right to inherit arable land, a practice that has forced some women to forage on common lands for survival.  Considering women’s restricted access to private property, fewer employment opportunities, and lower wages, access to common resources are essential for the well being of both the women and the children.  The privatization of once common land, has taken away vital resources for women and children.

Much of the foraging in poor rural communities is done by the women, so the combination of land privatization and environmental degradation has decreased the productivity of women while foraging.  Another problem associated with less availability of fuel wood is the consumption of lower quality and less nutritious foods, that take less fuel to prepare.  Less nutritious food has negative health effects, and can lower the productivity of workers.  Now, women and girls taking over even more of a role in manual labor, because the male children are sent off during the day to attend school, likening the possibility that the gender gap will widen, at least in rural areas.

In northern India, gender discrimination plays an even greater role in everyday society, than the rest of India.  In general, the northern states have lower literacy rates for women, and higher fertility rates.  In the state of Rajasthan, literacy rates are only 9.24, and fertility rate is 4.8.  Rajasthan also has much lower percentage forest cover than almost every other state in India.  The lack of education, the toll high rates of child birth play on ones health, and lack of forested area for food collection, can play a major role in keeping women marginalized in society.

Although Agarwal’s analysis provided good insight into the condition of women, poverty, and the environment during the period studied (1971-1991), over the last two decades there have been significant improvements in the treatment of women.  Although not always followed, there are laws in place to stop gender discrimination and allow for the advancement of women.  Poverty is being fought through social programs such as micro loans, and there have been efforts to reverse environmental degradation through reforestation.  If small improvements can be made in these three categories, it is possible that feedback loop discussed by Agarwal could be reversed.