ABSTRACT
Women not only sustain children through pregnancy and breastfeed them, usually for some months, but sometimes years, following birth; in addition, through raising crops of staples, vegetables and fruit, through livestock-rearing and to a small degree through fishing, widely unrecognised, they feed a large proportion of the world’s population. As soon as the term “farmer” is used, the immediate response in the minds of very many Western males – and females – is “farmer” = man. In fact, in some countries farmers are predominantly female and even where, according to statistics, they are in the minority, they may still form a significant proportion of the total labour force (see Table 6.1). In official statistics, forestry work is generally grouped with agriculture and other food production work; forests provide fruit and grazing as well as materials for furniture, building and fuel. Women's share of food production work and proportions of women in various categories of workers, mid 1980s-1990. https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Country
W 20% & over of total economically active
Country
W 20% & over of employers and own-account workers
Country
W 30% & over of unpaid family workers
Denmark
100
Australia
64.7
Malawi
58.6
Hungary
95.8
Malawi
58.6
Portugal
53.6
Fed. Rep. of Germany
85.5
Zimbabwe
56.2
Australia
51.8
Netherlands
84.8
Botswana
51.5
Cyprus
46.2
Rep. of Korea
84.5
Fed. Rep. of Germany
47.5
New Caledonia
36.2
Japan
83.3
Portugal
50.1
Finland
36.0
France
82.5
Japan
49.3
Austria
35.0
Bolivia
82.5
Cyprus
46.8
Haiti
26.6
Greece
80.1
Austria
46.1
Italy
24.2
Austria
77.2
Rep. of Korea
45.3
Sweden
24.1
Australia
74.0
Soviet Union *
45
Hungary
22.8
Canada
73.7
Greece
44.7
Spain
21.4
Turkey
72.4
Barbados
44.4
Greece
21.4
Italy
69.6
Indonesia
40.8
Norway
66.6
Guinea
39.8
Sweden
66.6
Hungary
38.9
Indonesia
65.7
New Caledonia
36.7
USA
64.5
Malaysia
35.3
Malaysia
62.6
Italy
35.2
Spain
59.2
France
35.1
Malawi
56.8
Finland
34.5
Trinidad & Tobago
52.9
China †
34.3
Philippines
51.2
Mauritius
31.0
Nigeria
50.6
Switzerland
29.4
Fr. Polynesia
37.0
Haiti
27.8
Finland
33.3
Norway
27.2
Haiti
32.5
Spain
27.0
Nigeria
25.7
Syria
25.4
Philippines
24.9
Sweden
23.6
Netherlands
23.2
Trinidad & Tobago
21.1
Canada
20.4
French Polynesia
20.3
Tunisia
Egypt
20.2
Collective farms only: in Rep. of Uzebekistan, 55%; in Azerbaijan, 52%; in Turkmenstan, 52%.
State-owned units and urban collectives.
Sources: ILO Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1989–90, Tables 2 A & 2B; Zhenschina v SSR 1990, p. 25; Statistical Yearbook of China, 1990, pp. 120, 124, 129
