If Women Hold Up Half the Sky, How Much of the World’s Food Do They Produce?

Abstract

This chapter explores—and explodes—the oft-quoted stylized fact that women produce 60–80 % of food in the developing world. It uses three approaches to shed light on this issue: (1) analyzing labor inputs to agriculture, using both employment data and time-use data; (2) analyzing different ways of assigning agricultural output to men or women, based on four nationally representative household survey datasets; and (3) estimating women’s labor productivity relative to men at the macro level, using national-level agricultural productivity data across time and countries. While it is not possible to substantiate the claim that women produce 60–80 % of the food in developing countries—or even that they provide 60–80 % of the labor in agriculture, women contribute a large portion of the measured contributions to agricultural labor and women’s share of the measured agricultural labor force has a positive impact on national-level agricultural productivity. While women are not the majority of agricultural workers, the agricultural sector is important for women: 48 % of the economically active women in the world—and 79 % in developing countries—report that their primary activity is agriculture. The “60–80 %” statistical claim obscures the complex underlying reality, that it is difficult to separate women’s labor from other uses and from men’s labor, and that it cannot be understood properly without considering the gender gap in access to land, capital, assets, human capital, and other productive resources.

Appendix Tables

Table 4.6 Agricultural productivity and female share of total population active in agriculture–Developed and developing countries, high and low income countries

Table 4.7 Agricultural productivity and female share of total population active in agriculture