44 SOCIAL SCIENTIST been raised regarding the concepts and definitions of 'workers' in rural areas in connection with the results of 1971 Census also. The 1971 Census used the 'labour time disposition5 criterion over the reference period (one year for agricultural activities), and defined workers as only those who spent the major part of their time in economic activities. Thus, according to the concerned research workers, all irregular, marginal, part-time workers came under the category of 'non-workers'. They argued that the marginal, irregular workers were more likely to be concentrated among women, children, aged persons and that therefore the results could not provide the real picture. However, subsequently, the Censm Commissioner's office, in a report based on sample resurvey designed for the purpose, gave estimates of two sets of adjustment factors: one for adjusting the 1961 figures in terms of the 1971 concept and the other for adjusting 1971 figures in terms of the 1961 concept. Whichever concept and set of adjustment factors is used, it is observed that the worker participation rates declined between 1961 and 1971—a genuine decline among rural women in particular.3 Thus, the declining trend of female work participation over the years is of obvious interest in understanding the dynamics of operation of the female labour force in agriculture. In this context, it has been argued quite some time ago that a little education or enlightenment leads a woman to wish to become more lady-like and work less hard, and that this factor is possibly to some extent now more prevalent in rural areas4. In fact, we have no empirical evidence to accept or refute this hypothesis for explaining the declining tendency of female labour participation in agriculture. On the other hand, it is argued that much of the productive work that the women of farm families do is quite often not qualitatively different from some of the purely domestic chores and tends to be under-reported. This sort of underreporting of female self-employment in rural areas would naturally affect famale participation rates. A very similar argument was that the drastic reduction in female labour participation in rural areas was due to the exclusion of housewives who were helping in economic activity largely in household industry or cultivation.5 However, one plausible explanation for the sharp decline in the participation rate of female workers in agriculture arises from the consequence of agricultural development, particularly of the technological changes taking place in agriculture. It is argued in this context that agricultural development with its accompanying technological changes-use of HYV technology, use of mechanical devices etc. - will release the marginal workers, i. e., women, children, elderly men, from agriculture, and thus female workers will devote more time to their homes, children and education, setting in motion a whole process of social change in the rural areas6. This hypothesis