Women in Agriculture: Counting the Labor Force in Developing Countries

Abstract

The undercounting of women in the labor force by censuses and labor force surveys has attracted considerable comment. This paper examines conceptual problems in the farm labor force (self-employed wage laborers and unpaid family workers) obtained from population censuses and surveys from estimates prepared by the International Labour Office (ILO) and from censuses of farm holdings coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN--each of which follows different definitions and procedures. Of the 3 sources population censuses including labor force surveys and official estimates generally yield the lowest proportion female in the agricultural labor force whereas the censuses of agriculture conducted under sponsorship of the FAO yield the highest proportions. The total farm labor is generally larger and women and children form a higher proportion of the total when the definition of economic activity includes farm production for subsistence only unpaid work by family helpers and homestead-based crop processing and similar activities in addition to field-based production and processing activities. A regression of FAO agricultural censuses of ILO estimates for comparable years from 21 countries is used as a basis of making new estimates of the proportions female in the agricultural labor force in 82 countries of sub-Saharan Africa North Africa the Middle East Asia and the Caribbean for which standardized ILO estimates are available for 1970. For all 82 countries combined the proportion of women in the agricultural labor force increases from 30 to 42% and the variation around the mean is substantially reduced. The plausibility of the new estimates is supported in many cases by similarity to figures from population censuses not accepted by the ILO. The new estimates are relevant to agricultural development planning and to theories of gender role and labor allocation.