ABSTRACT
Components of the liberalization agenda have included trade and financial liberalization, deflationary macroeconomic policies, fiscal restraint, privatization of state-owned enterprises, labour market liberalization and the introduction of market principles (“quasi markets”) into public management and the provisioning of public services. National labour force surveys are supposed to cover the population residing in rural areas and to provide data on their economic activities. While efforts have been made over the past three decades to capture more adequately women’s economic activities, and while recent surveys provide more accurate estimates of women’s work, the nature of women’s work the fact that much of it is seasonal, unpaid (“family labour”), subsistence based and small-scale means that it is likely to remain undercounted. Clearly women have become more visible in the agricultural labour force, as casual and seasonal wage workers in some regions and countries.
