Email: anymemon15@yahoo.com

Affiliation: Government College University, Hyderabad, Pakistan

Nationality: Pakistani

Women Peasant as pillar of resilience: Gendered labor and agrarian livelihood in Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

This study explores the key role of peasant women in sustaining agrarian livelihoods and household resilience in Sindh province of Pakistan. Illustrating women's working efforts as labor, role in resilience and social reproduction, the study examines how unpaid labor of women plays a key role in the survival and economic welfare of peasant household. Despite this, the contribution of women in Sindh is widely marginalized in both economic rights and policy framework and their working value continuously undervalued and overloaded.

In Sindh, Pakistan women's efforts are the key contribution in agrarian tasks which include livestock domestication, agricultural labor work from sowing to harvesting and postharvest value - added activities, home based handicrafts, cooking and home-based work. These tasks play a key role in economic support of peasant households, but they are often not recognized as productive work and not given their economic rights. Women peasants in agrarian households support their families to cope with economic crises, adaptation to climatic change and alleviate rural poverty. However, these tasks remain embedded in a deeply male-controlled and gendered labor structure in which women's work is considered an extension of their role. This study argues the resilience of peasant households is basically supported by both genders. Farmers work with side support and backward efforts of women's labor, which not only support agricultural production but also secures the social survival of households. Women's unpaid labor works diversify the sources of income and helps rural households in different ways of income to combat economic shocks, whether from market fluctuation, environmental challenges, or socio-economic factors. By investigating household survey-based data of rural Sindh, the study explores the role of women in resilience of households with climate change, occurrence of disasters and economic crises which often cause serious issues in household economic status. Women are actively engaged in livestock and poultry rearing, which serve as a crucial financial safety net for poor households during periods of climate-induced shocks and agricultural losses. In times of crisis, income generated through the sale of livestock and poultry helps sustain household livelihoods and acts as a buffer against further vulnerability, underscoring the central role of women in resilience-building within agrarian communities. The study exposes how resilience is built on unequal gendered labor regimes. There is an urgent need for development policies that are not only inclusive but explicitly gender-sensitive, recognizing women not merely as vulnerable subjects but as active agents whose labor sustains rural economies.

This study supports how resilience is conceptualized, to one that acknowledges the structural inequalities that underpin the labor of peasant women. Thus, this study is important and contributes to the field of serious agrarian studies by putting the experiences of peasant women in rural Sindh, Pakistan, which demonstrate that their labor is not merely supportive but central to the resilience of agrarian households. Its supporters for a deeper recognition of women's roles in the agrarian economy, urging policy interventions that support gender justice, ensure women's access to resources, and foster more equitable agrarian transformations.

Bio

Dr. Qurat Ul Ain Memon is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Government College University, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. She holds a PhD in Regional Rural Development from Anhui Agricultural University, China, and both her Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Agricultural Economics from Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan. She is a recipient of the Outstanding Student Award from the China Scholarship Council (CSC), recognizing her excellence in research and academic performance.

With over five years of teaching and research experience, Dr. Memon has held research and academic roles at several institutions, including as Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Institute, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, and as visiting and full-time faculty at the University of Sindh Jamshoro, HANDS–Institute of Development Studies, and Sindh Agriculture University. Her doctoral research examined rural poverty and poverty alleviation policies in China and Pakistan, and she continues to work on intersecting themes in agricultural development, land and property rights, climate adaptation strategies, and gender studies.

Dr. Memon has contributed to international research collaborations in Asia, North America, and Australia, focusing on rural transformation, land protection policies, and women's roles in agrarian economies. Her scholarship is grounded in a critical feminist political economy approach, emphasizing the voices of marginalized rural women and the need for gender-equitable, resilient, and inclusive development pathways. She is committed to advancing academic and policy dialogues on agrarian change, social reproduction, and the structural conditions shaping rural livelihoods in the Global South.