Author : Maimunah Ismail

Summary : The study was conducted in two villages in the district of Kuala Langat, Selangor, Malaysia. Interviews with 143 household spouses from the two villages were conducted. In-depth interviews with selected women on women's life history were carried. The analysis comprised two components. The first component involved hypothesis analysis and answering research questions related to women's access to land as owners. This component used quantitative tools such as T-test, Chi-square test, and regression analyses. Tobit and Multiple Regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between the selected independent variables and the land size owned by women and men as the dependent variables. The second component of the analysis was on the associated situations leading to women's access to land as farm workers. Qualitative data were used for the analysis. Results of the statistical analysis showed that there was a significant difference between land size owned by women and men, which averaged 0.461 and 3.787 acres respectively. Women acquired land mainly through inheritance. In addition to inheritance, men also acquired land effectively through government land allocation programmes and purchases. The Tobit analysis showed that older women were more likely to own land than the younger ones. Women from male-headed families and so were the non-uxorilocal compared to uxorilocal. Family income, family size, types of family phase, and length of residence did not contribute toward explaining the dependent variables. Among men, there was a significant positive relationship between family income and their land's size. Other variables did not appear to contribute to land size owned by men. The qualitative data showed that women had continual access to land as farm workers since they settled in the village. Some of the factors that led to their continual access to farm work were family-related: women had been very important family labour in farm production; they had to play the role as family income.