general trend across
all countries, but is
more pronounced in
South Asia than in
other regions of Asia
and the Pacific
Moreover, the share of women’s employment in agriculture varies from crop to crop, and from animal to animal in livestock. In the PRC for instance, the traditional division of labor has women raising pigs and chickens, and men taking cattle, sheep, and goats to mountain grasslands for grazing (Shen and Qian 2009). In Nepal, women are responsible for forage collection, transportation, and feeding animals, whereas men do the milking and sale of milk (Paudel et al. 2009). It also varies from activity to activity, with planting, for instance, more frequently practiced by women, whereas plowing is generally performed by men. It also differs from age group to age group. The younger female cohorts usually join off-farm employment in greater numbers, whereas relatively older women (beyond the age of 35) tend to remain in rural communities even as rural-to-urban migratory patterns develop (Pang, de Brauw, and Rozelle 2004; Zhang, de Brauw, and Rozelle 2004).
Underreporting of women’s activity in agriculture is another major obstacle. The role of women in agriculture is often not well recognized, due partly to the fact that women’s work in subsistence agriculture is often part of the non-cash economy of the household (since little or none of the output gets marketed). Such work may thus not be classified as productive activity and is often not reported or recorded in official accounts, including agriculture or population censuses. This may explain, for instance, some disagreements among scholars as to the extent of the feminization of agriculture in the PRC (de Brauw et al. 2008; de Brauw et al. 2012; Chang, MacPhail, and Do 2011; and Mu and van de Walle 2011).
Despite methodological difficulties, available data clearly show that in many regions undergoing a rapid rise in industry and services as well as urbanization, both migratory patterns and agrarian transitions (the two often combined) are strongly gendered. Men more than women are likely to exit agricultural work at home and seek income in other sectors. Men migrate first, for longer periods and to more distant destinations, in part because of social norms concerning gender roles. Higher levels of education, on average, provide men more opportunities for off-farm employment. Women who are left behind sometimes must shoulder debts incurred to support the migration of men, in addition to coping with and managing household production activities. This may cause women to abandon household production and take up waged labor in their vicinity, as has been seen in Nepal (personal communication, 2013). They must, in any case, shoulder the burden of production work on the family plot of land and meet the bulk of household food security needs in addition to their reproductive and care work. Remittances may offer support, enabling the purchase of inputs or the hiring of labor for more heavy tasks not generally seen as suitable for women. This appears to be quite common in Southeast Asia, where the productivity of land can be maintained in part thanks to remittances (Paris et al. 2009). Weak or nonexistent legal protection and rights to property ownership, as well as cultural and social norms, however, may severely limit women’s ability to improve productivity as much as they could in the absence of such barriers. Reconciling a role as small-scale food producers with their care responsibilities may also be difficult for women, an obstacle men agricultural producers typically do not face. This has raised concerns about the impact of feminization of agriculture on local food security if women are less productive than men (UNDP 2003).
There are exceptions to this pattern. In countries such as Malaysia and Sri Lanka, young women in particular out-migrate to urban centers to work at transnational production sites or free trade zones. Well-documented tensions are often created between the traditional values of the peasant society from which the women originate and the values at industrial sites where they work (Ong 1987). Young women from Cambodia, the PRC, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, as well as other countries in Asia and the Pacific, increasingly migrate to other countries (particularly in the Middle East) to serve as domestic workers, or sometimes as sex workers (especially in Thailand and Malaysia) (Adams and Dickey 1999; Brochmann 1993; Henshall 1999; Mason 1999). Female migrants formed three- quarters of those migrating from Sri Lanka, and over half of those migrating from the Philippines
23
Better Availability—Improving the Productivity of Women Food Producers
in recent years (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development [UNRISD] 2005). They often become part of heavily segmented employment markets (Salazar Parrenas 2001). While precise data are lacking, UNRISD estimates that by 2002 there were at least 1.3 million foreign women working in the major labor-importing countries in East and Southeast Asia, including Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. These women constituted a high proportion of the total immigrant labor force in some of these countries (UNRISD 2005, p. 115). The illegal and often clandestine nature of prostitution and the associated trafficking and exploitation, severely limits data on these activities, but the phenomenon is known to expand in times of economic crisis (Lean 1998). Studies of the moral and social repercussions of outmigration for women show that even when women contribute income to meet household and family needs, it is not always directly correlated with an increase in their valuation (Gunewardena and Kingsolver 2007).
Expanding opportunities for women outside agriculture, particularly by raising the level of education of women and by delaying the age of marriage, is crucial to countering these trends. Challenging the existing segmentation of the labor markets is also required. Women are now often relegated to the lowest-paying jobs and to the informal sector, particularly in the care economy— one of the few sectors where, as domestic workers often migrating from their families, they are overrepresented (FAO, IFAD, and ILO 2010, p. 12). The creation of more opportunities for women requires that parents be provided incentives to invest in the education of girls. However, improved access of women to waged employment, especially off-farm, is only part of an appropriate response to the feminization of agriculture. Given the gendered nature of the agrarian transition and the large number of women that depend on agriculture, it is equally important today—and urgent—to improve women’s prospects as producers (Figure 6). Past practices of providing support to agricultural producers on a gender-blind basis has usually resulted in all intended beneficiaries being treated as if they were men. This has proven misguided. Inadequate attention to the specific needs of women commonly results in them being left out (World Bank 2007b).
Figure 6 The Gendered Nature of the Agrarian Transition
Source: Author.
Men seek off-farm employment in the industry and services sectors
Gendered norms reinforced and women
in charge of the care economy
Women stay behind with the children and
the elderly, facing discrimination as food producers
Education opportunities for women and girls diminish because of increased time poverty
Lower levels of education of women
Expanding
opportunities for
women outside
agriculture,
particularly by raising
the level of education
of women and by
delaying the age of
marriage, is crucial
to countering
these trends
The following sections explore the principal obstacles women face in Asia and the Pacific as food producers: inadequate access to land, extension services, financial services, and markets; and little benefit from agricultural research and development efforts. They assess the nature of these obstacles, and describe gender-sensitive approaches to their removal. They also draw attention to critical choices and dilemmas implicit in such policy decisions. The role of women in the fisheries and aquaculture sector is discussed in the final section.