Male migration among agriculture-dependent households has emerged as an important livelihood strategy for coping with poverty, food insecurity, climate change, and several other risks and shocks in the Global South. Emerging research on the impacts of male migration on women’s agency, especially in agricultural production and decision-making, paints a one-size-fits-all picture. This paper, through a comparative, qualitative analysis of the implications of male out-migration on gender roles and responsibilities in agriculture across four different agroecologies in India – forested, mountainous, semi-arid, and coastal – highlights the heterogeneity in women’s experiences of male migration in the Indian context. While the nature of migration and the amount and regularity of remittances shape the increase or decline in women’s work and responsibilities, factors like age, caste, class, life stage, and context also play a significant role. Authors note that current scholarship has given too much importance to the narrative on remittance-driven livelihoods at the cost of multiple factors that shape women’s roles, experiences, and strategic choices in migrant-sending communities. What appears critical for transformative change is state policy that facilitates and enables collective action, central to overcoming the patriarchal constraints women encounter, especially as they shift from labouring to managerial roles in farming.
