A study released by state-owned think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (Pids) confirmed that male farmworkers earn more than their female counterparts, with the wage gap even breaching 100 percent in the rice sector.
In a study conducted by Pids Senior Research Fellow Roehlano M. Briones said the wage gap between male and female farmworkers could reach over 100 percent in the case of certain crops.
Briones said the wage difference between male and females in the farm sector could reach 103.6 percent in palay; 85.4 percent in corn; 78.5 percent in coconut and 68.6 percent in sugarcane.
“The study finds that the main source of gender wage gap in Philippine agriculture is the difference in wage for the same activity; for corn, coconut, and sugar, the activity share accounts for one-eighth and one-third of the wage gap in percent. The remainder is due to wage bias by activity. In the case of palay workers, the wage gap is more than 100 percent,” Briones said.
With this, Briones urged the government to prioritize women as recipients of state services and transfers; establish women’s groups; and support for gender mainstreaming and protection of women’s rights at the grassroots.
Prioritizing women in government services and transfers means increasing their access to agricultural grants, subsidies, training, and other services that lack focus on women and tend to be captured by men.
“In many of these programs, identity of recipient can be explicitly specified as the female spouse or head of household, increasing women’s control over household resources and indirectly their bargaining power,” Briones said.
The creation of women’s groups, he said, will improve women’s access to rural labor market information. He said there was a tendency for government labor programs without a strong gender dimension, particularly in rural areas.
He added that publicizing the experiences and data on wages paid through women-dominated rural improvement clubs will go a long way toward removing the wage gap.
Further, in order to promote gender mainstreaming, Briones said there is a need to conduct information campaigns at the grassroots, including male operators about women’s rights and gender equality. This will help remove the discriminatory treatment of women.
“It goes almost without saying that the full instrumentality of the state, down to the barangay level, must be applied to protect women’s rights against violence and violations at all levels, at the domestic, community and national levels,” he said.
He said previous data showed that women comprise on average, 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries, with their contribution varying widely depending on activity.
However, women in agriculture and rural areas face higher barriers in gaining access to productive resources and opportunities compared to men, namely for land, livestock, labor, education, extension, finance and technology.
Closing the gender gap in agriculture could potentially raise yields on their farms by 20 to 30 percent, thereby raising agricultural output of developing countries by up to 4 percent, and the number of hungry people in the world by up to
17 percent.