Post-MGNREGA Agricultural Wage Trends in Uttar Pradesh: Regional Disparities and Gender Gaps

Agricultural wages are a key indicator of rural labour market conditions and livelihood security in India. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is particularly significant in this regard, with agricultural labourers constituting 27.11 per cent of total rural workers as per census, 2011. This paper analyses the dynamics of agricultural wages in Uttar Pradesh in the post-MGNREGA period against the backdrop of broader transformations in rural labour markets, including the expansion of non-farm employment, migration, and institutional wage interventions. This paper addresses four interrelated questions. First, it examines whether agricultural wages in Uttar Pradesh have followed the all-India trajectory of post-MGNREGA acceleration and subsequent slowdown after 2012-13. Second, it analyses regional disparities in wages within Uttar Pradesh, assessing whether wage growth has contributed to regional convergence or merely reinforced existing spatial hierarchies. Third, the paper investigates how gender mediates access to regional wage gains by examining male-female wage differentials across regions, and whether higher-wage regions exhibit greater gender equity or reproduce entrenched forms of gendered labour segmentation. Finally, it assesses the role of MGNREGA in shaping agricultural wages across regions and genders, focusing on its effectiveness as a statutory wage floor and a gender-neutral reservation wage. By situating wage outcomes at the intersection of market forces, social structures, and institutional interventions, the paper contributes to a more disaggregated understanding of agricultural wage determination in a large and internally diverse state.