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pre-capitalist institutions in ways that often were inimical to women (Hartmann, 1976; Leacock and Safa, 1986). In India, where the population is predominantly rural, few women own land or have access to other resources, including knowledge systems. In fact, the low status of women is reflected in a variety of indicators. In the agricultural sector, for example, most women workers are either landless laborers working for wages on other people's farms or unpaid laborers working on their own family farms. In the meantime, agriculture in India is changing. As a result of the agricultural development spawned by the five-year plans since the 1950s and the Green Revolution in 1970s, India has seen significant changes in its cropping patterns and cropping intensity. As for related developments, since the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, India has been committed to a population policy that is pro-poor, pro-nature, and pro-women.

How, then, have women fared in India in the context of a growing population and changing land use? To answer this question, this study will examine the gender dimension of the relationship between population and land use in two states of India, Kerala and Haryana. More specifically, it will examine the following: