the fact that female labour force participation rose substantially in the rural employment nrega programme see below that provides equal pay with men suggests that this can be the case however ownwage information is not available for the selfemployed which constitute about half of the female labour force which makes testing this hypothesis more difficult it was enacted in and guarantees days of work per year for a minimum salary fixed by the state same for men and women for all members of rural households willing to do unskilled manual labour with quotas for women according to existing literature this programme has had a significant impact on rural employment increasing both public and private employment and casual wages imbert and papp