Page 135 - CONFERENCE BOOK OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GENDER, CULTURE AND SOCIETY (ICGCS) 2021

CONFERENCE PROGRAM AND ICGCS 2021

ABSTRACT BOOK

Gender and Agriculture Activities

The Involvement of Women and Children in Working in the

Plantation Sector and the Impact on Income, Children's

Education, and Family Health in Jambi Province

Heriberta, Sri Wachyunni, Guspianto

Universitas Jambi

Working women and working children who work in plantation have several characteristics. In

addition, the involvement of them in the plantation is also provoked by various reasons in

which and at the same time will affect the family life. Related to this context, the current study

tries to portrait such phenomena. Specifically, this study aims to 1) identify the characteristics

of women and children who work in the rubber and oil palm plantation, 2) analyze the factors
behind the decisions of working women and children, both male and female to work in rubber

and oil palm plantations, and 3) analyze the extent to which the public knows about

government policies that prohibit young children working in the rubber and oil palm

plantation sector in order to reduce gender bias. To achieve these objectives, a qualitative

approach through observation, in-depth interviews, documentation, and open-ended
questions is used to generate more perspectives on the experiences of women as agricultural

laborers and owners of rubber and oil palm plantations as well as children both boys and girls.

The participants of this study are 40 respondents consisted of women and children who are

collected randomly in one of regencies in Jambi Province. The analysis of data is carried out

based on the results of data reduction and display, both manually and the results of
processing using the Nvivo 10 software. The Nvivo 10 software is used to analyze the interview

data. The results of the study show that the reason why women work in the rubber and oil

palm plantation sectors is to support family income, due to greater expenditure as a result of

many dependents in the family in the rubber plantations. Meanwhile, in the palm oil

plantations, women's income is as an additional income (for saving/investment), because

family expenses have already covered by the breadwinner (husband) no matter how many
dependents they have. Likewise, the involvement of male and female children laborers in

rubber plantations is 30 percent higher for male children. The motivation of children to work

in the plantation is to help and support their parents' daily needs, fulfill their own necessities

and to pay their tuition fees. There are 10 percent of male graduates, 5 percent of girls who

have a bachelor's degree, 5 percent of boys and 8 percent of girls who are currently going to

university. On the other hand, the impact of working in the plantation for children, both male
and female in the health sector, is that it hinders their growth and development, both

physically and psychologically. Therefore, the government needs to do some efforts to

overcome this issue. Among them are to reduce the number of working children by sharing

information about the regulations that protect children by taking legal action for plantation

owners or anyone who employs children in plantations and implementing nine years of
compulsory education.

Keywords: working women and children, palm oil and rubber plantation, income

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