Women agricultural workers in rural Bangladesh continue to earn significantly less than their male counterparts despite performing identical tasks — a disparity now confirmed by official statistics and illustrated by field reports from Thakurgaon district. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) 2025 quarterly report, the average daily agricultural wage in December 2024 stood at Tk 625 for men and Tk 462 for women — a gap of Tk 163 per day for the same work.

Voices from the Field

Field observations and worker interactions in Thakurgaon district, as reported by leading Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, put a human face on the data. Sumita Bala, 40, told the publication that female workers earn a maximum of Tk 250–300 a day even after working "all day in the sun and rain", while male workers receive Tk 400–500 for comparable hours and effort.

Nirmala Rani, observed measuring and packing dried chillies into sacks at the time of the interaction, stated plainly: "It's the same work, yet the pay is lower." Another worker, Rehana Begum, 42, questioned the rationale directly: "Do we work any less than men? Then why are we paid less?"

Begum added that landowners justify the disparity by claiming women cannot perform all tasks like men — a reasoning workers and experts alike contest. Arfiya Begum, quoted by The Daily Star, said women are paid Tk 150 to Tk 200 less than male workers even in daily field labour, adding: "No one, including the government, speaks about this. We are deprived in every way."

The Normalisation of Disparity

Afiya Begum, a housewife in the area, noted that women shoulder multiple responsibilities — from childcare and household chores to livestock rearing and agricultural assistance — yet their contributions remain systematically undervalued. Compounding the problem, many women have come to accept the gap as inevitable. Nihar Rani captured this resignation: "If we demand higher wages now, we may not get work at all." This fear of exclusion effectively silences wage demands before they are made.

Expert Assessment and Institutional Failure

Muhammad Shahid Uz Zaman, Executive Director of the Eco Social Development Organisation (ESDO), said that despite women's significant role in agriculture, they continue to endure long working hours, lower wages, and persistent discrimination. He attributed the persistence of the gap to inadequate monitoring of wage policies, which enables employers to exploit workers through lower pay. Zaman warned that such disparity weakens women's economic empowerment and discourages their participation in agriculture.

Md Mazedul Islam, Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Thakurgaon, noted that women are engaged in more than half of all agricultural activities in the region. He called for coordinated efforts to formally acknowledge their contributions and systematically reduce wage gaps — signalling that institutional recognition, while nascent, remains without a concrete enforcement mechanism.

What Needs to Change

Experts point to the absence of robust wage monitoring as the central policy failure. Without mandatory reporting or independent verification of agricultural wages, the gap documented by the BBS is likely to persist. Women workers themselves have indicated that fear of job loss prevents them from negotiating, making structural intervention — rather than individual advocacy — the only viable path to closing the disparity. The question now is whether Bangladesh's labour and agriculture ministries will translate acknowledgement into enforceable wage parity measures.