The theoretical framework of this paper takes into an account the relationship between women’s work in subsistence agriculture and the rural development strategies, both at the local and national levels.

During the last decade the ‘women and development’. Debate has incontestably advanced the frontiers of our knowledge, accumulating evidence no matter what the growth models, that development increases differentiations by class and gender.

The concern of this paper is limited to the approaches to rural women's development and an understanding of their work roles in the planning strategies.

There are two major competing explanations for the relation betwee

I have divided the paper into three parts.

I was born and brought up in Shakthikula

It is by now almost an axiom with demographers, labour economists and economic historians th