Volume-XII, Issue-IV, July 2026 |
A Systematic Literature Review on Livelihood Diversification of Agricultural Labourers in India Pulakesh Pradhan, Research Scholar, Dept. of Geography, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha, India Dr. Ranjana Bajpai, Professor, Department of Geography, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha, India |
Received: 13.07.2026 | Accepted: 18.07.2026 | Published Online: 31.07.2026 | Page No: 141-158 | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.12.issue.04W.353 | |||||||
ABSTRACT | ||
Agricultural workers are ones who work in fields as cultivators in exchange for cash, kind or share of produce. In order to ensure global food security, they play a prominent, although invisible role in it. The rural labour economic restructuring and transition of small independent farmers to wage labourers due to property division, is increasing the labour households while declining those of cultivators. More labour and less work means job uncertainty and rising livelihood constraints. In India, the growth in absolute numbers and proportion of agricultural labour has suppressed the cultivators, leading to livelihood uncertainties and rising economic imbalances. This study provides an extensive bibliometric and meta-analysis on diversification of livelihoods of agricultural labourers in India. The initial search in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and ScienceDirect for the current purpose resulted more than 1339 records but after careful filtering only 476 records were taken for further investigation. After going through a duplicate check, inclusion and exclusion criteria finally 85 studies from 2002 to 2025, focused on India were taken up for in-depth investigation. These reviewed the evolution of agricultural labour livelihood, their problems, and how livelihood patterns and determinants have changed over time. The results showed that West Bengal and Kerala had the most studies on agricultural labour, with studies on economics, geography, health and other disciplines. Thematic assessment of literature was later conducted to provide more specific information, and the results show that agricultural labourers need immediate attention to their alternative livelihoods. | ||
Keywords: Agricultural Labour, Livelihood Diversification, Agrarian Distress, Bibliometric Analysis. |