Abstract
The role that women play in fisheries around the world is receiving increasing international attention yet the contributions by women to fisheries catches continues to be overlooked by society, industry and policy makers. Here, we address this lack of visibility with a global estimation of small-scale fisheries catches by women. Our estimates reveal that women participate in small-scale fishing activities in all regions of the world, with approximately 2.1 million (± 86,000) women accounting for roughly 11% (± 4%) of participants in small-scale fishing activities, i.e., catching roughly 2.9 million (± 835,000) tonnes per year of marine fish and invertebrates. The landed value of the catch by women is estimated at USD 5.6 billion (± 1.5 billion), with an economic impact of USD 14.8 billion per year (± 4 billion), which is equivalent to 25.6 billion real 2010 dollars (± 7.2 billion). These catches are mostly taken along the shoreline, on foot, or from small, non-motorized vessels using low-technology, low-emission gears in coastal waters. Catches taken by women are often for home consumption, and thus considered part of the subsistence sub-sector. However, in many contexts, women also sell a portion of their catch, generating income for themselves and their families. These findings underscore the significant role of women as direct producers in small-scale fisheries value chains, making visible contributions by women to food and livelihood security, globally.
Highlights
“The lack of acknowledgment of women’s fishing participation or of the significant contribution to the livelihoods of coastal people is due, in part, to the non-remuneration of their fishing activities
Dividing the globe into geographic subregions based on the United Nations Statistical Division geographical classification system [53], we selected the top three maritime countries by smallscale fisheries catch value for each of the 21 subregions of the world, which resulted in a sample size of 62 countries
The economic value associated with catches taken by women was calculated using female participation rates for small-scale fishing activities and the landed value of small-scale fisheries catches, averaged over a ten-year period, 2005–2014 (S3 Fig)
Summary
“The lack of acknowledgment of women’s fishing participation or of the significant contribution to the livelihoods of coastal people is due, in part, to the non-remuneration of their fishing activities. Small-scale fisheries, where women are more likely to participate, generate catches that have been substantially under-estimated in many countries of the world [29,30,31,32,33] Overlooking these contributions by women adds to the marginalization of small-scale fishers and fisheries, and this subsector provides food and livelihoods to millions of people globally [34], it receives far less government support or management attention as industrial sectors [35,36]. Highlighting the marine fisheries catches taken by women in smallscale fisheries will provide more comprehensive accounting in fisheries with a more inclusive set of actors, activities, and subsectors, further emphasizing the contributions from small-scale marine capture fisheries to food and livelihood security in coastal regions around the world Accounting for these contributions is crucial for advancing policies and programmes that promote the wellbeing of families, children, and future generations and the sustainability of the resources that support them [10]. We focus here on the first segment of the fish value chain, as this is an area where perception bias and assumptions about gender roles have resulted in women being largely invisible in this portion of the fisheries value chain
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