A Study On Agricultural Wage – Productivity Relationship With Reference To Groundnut Crop In Chittoor District (Andhra Pradesh)

The increase in production and productivity are influencing agricultural wages. But the results of empirical studies have shown a positive relationship between real wages and productivity. It is also observed that the real wages seem to have declined or remained stagnant in spite of increasing agricultural production. However, a close relationship may be found between wages and productivity. There are number of studies on the agricultural sector in Chittoor district. But the research on agricultural wage – productivity relationship is very limited. This paper aims to study the Agricultural Wage – Productivity Relationship with reference to Groundnut crop in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. An attempt has been made to study the relationship between wages and yield, output price of major crop ‘Groundnut’ for entire district as a whole. A regression model is used to study the relationship. In the present study, the relevant secondary data for explanatory and explained variables is collected from the Census of India 1991 : Population Census and also from handbook of statistics and other unpublished official records of the Chief Planning Officer, Chittoor. The primary data required is collected through field survey : 1998-99. In case of female agricultural labour, regarding the lagged yields, the rate of increase in real wages (0.19) is twice as compared to that of money wages. This increase in real wages over money wages reveals that the economic position of the female agricultural labour may be increased due to raise in lagged yields. Owing to the lagged price, the rate of increase in real wages of female agricultural labour (0.39) as compared to the female agricultural money wages (1.41) is approximately one forth. This result shows that about 3/4 of the monetary gains of the female agricultural labour has been taken away by consumer price rise. From this rate of increase in real wages, it may be concluded that the real economic position of the female agricultural labour has been deteriorated marginally. The same variables for the male population is studied and analysed . Further, the same was calculated separately for the three revenue divisions of Chittoor District. KeywordsAgricultrual Productivity; Female Money Wagerate; Female Real Wagerate; Male Money Wagerate; Male Real Wagerate; Regression Co-efficients;