Gender and aquaculture: sharing the benefits equitably



Thereisanassumptionthatglobalizedmarkets
might be moving small-scale producers and
women engaged in aquaculture-related
employment into poverty. However, evidence
for this is not clear. These processes also
provide opportunities for new employment or
higher profit margins. Women from coastal
villages in Kerala, India where capture
fisheries resources are dwindling migrate to
work in shrimp and fish processing plants
which have opened up due to increased
aquaculture production in the neighboring
state of Gujarat (Saradamoni, 1995). The
majority of employees in seafood processing
plants all over the world are women; however,
much of this female workforce in developing
countries is casual and has inadequate
social protection (Nishchith, 2001; Silva and
Yamao, 2006; Okali and Holvoet, 2007). In
many countries, female workers in processing
plants get paid less than male workers for
the same job (Nishchith, 2001). Yet, there is
also evidence of innovation and success by
women entrepreneurs engaged in processing
enterprises (Chao et al., 2006). Promotion
of aquaculture in community water bodies
involving landless indigenous (Adivasi)
women in the north west of Bangladesh not
only improved their food security situation
but also created a new income generating
opportunity for those who managed to
sell the surplus over consumption to their
neighbors, or at local markets (WorldFish,
2010).

In several Asian countries such as the
Philippines and Sri Lanka, the majority of
international labor migrants are women
(Kabeer, 2007), while large numbers from
countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam are
women, as well. A gendered analysis of this
overall migration process and a discourse on
the “feminization” of migration are only just
beginning to emerge (Kabeer, 2007; Piper,
2007). It is unclear whether the adoption
of aquaculture is increasing or decreasing
migration in and out of fish farming villages.
Around 26 percent of registered Cambodian
labor migrants in Thailand are reported to be
working in the fishery and fish processing
industries (Maltoni, 2006). The proportions
could go higher if illegal migrants and fish
trading, in which both women and men
from Cambodia are engaged, are taken into
account. Gendered patterns of migration to
and from fish farming communities need to
be understood as migration has significant
impacts on household livelihoods and well-
being, as well as on aquatic resource use
and governance.

Without an adequate knowledge of the
gendered dimensions of fish value chains, it
is difficult to engage in improving these to
provide equitable benefits to the women and
men depending upon them. How does market
engagement affect poverty and what are the
different constraints of women and men to
more effective participation in markets?
Gendered value chain analysis (Mayoux and
Mackie, 2008) provides tools to assess the
invisible dimensions of these supply chains
where women’s livelihoods are located.
It highlights the critical nature of gender
inequalities because these often encompass
the “weakest links” within value chains and
the most vital areas for upgrading quality
and growth, and reducing poverty.
Mayoux
and Mackie argue that many of the complex
issues highlighted by gendered value chain
analysis are often not confined to gender
itself, but reflect other inherent inadequacies
in the types of economic study which
commonly dominate value chain analysis and
development. Thus, gender analysis provides
a starting point for the integration of key
dimensions of extra-market factors, power
relations and motivations into our currently
incomplete understanding of economic
growth. Understanding and incorporating
these dimensions is essential not only to
attain gender equity, but to design effective
and sustainable pro-poor growth through
value chains that can respond to drivers
such as globalization, food price fluctuations
and climate change.

Theme 2: Capabilities and well-
being

Employment and income remain an
insufficient measure of the gendered
nature of poverty in the aquaculture sector.
The “capabilities approach” (Sen, 1993)
emphasizes access to food security, nutrition,
health and education as capabilities that
lead to “functionings” indicating human well-
being. These dimensions of well-being also
determine both access to employment and
labor productivity. We lack adequate data
on the disparities in access and outcomes
among men and women, and boys and girls,



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