Gender and Economic Value Chains: Two Case Studies from the GATE Project
What is the Value Chain?A value chain describes the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the intermediary of production, delivery to final consumers, and final disposal after use. (Kaplinsky 1998) |
GENDER AND VALUE CHAINS
Gender, though overlooked in most value chains, is imperative for gaining an understanding of the totality of production, distribution, and consumption within an economy. Literature on gender and value chains reveals that there is increasingly a high incidence of women employed in buyer-driven commodity chains. Female employment is most often concentrated in labor-intensive, low value-added activities. The feminization of labor is also marked by increased flexibilization of employment, which allows employers to reduce wage and non-wage costs, such as social insurance and other benefits.
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| Seamstress at a small clothing manufacturer in Villa
Pantis, La Romana, Dominican Republic Credit: DTS |
Thus, gender differences are at work in the "full range" of activities that comprise a value chain. A gender approach to a value chain analysis allows for the consideration of:
- groups and individual men and women's access to productive activities;
- differential opportunities for upgrading within the chain; gender-based division of activities; and
- how gender power relations impact economic rents among actors throughout the chain.
THE "VALUE ADDED" OF A GENDER AND PRO-POOR APPROACH
- Identifying the extent and characteristics of segmentation can provide policymakers and development practitioners with concrete recommendations to:
- increase training and education opportunities;
- support labor market intermediation services that better match employers and employees;
- devise better and more meaningful labor market regulations; and
- commit funds to enforcement and regulation.
- Analyzing governance and power within the value chain also enables more targeted allocation
of resources such as credit, training, research, and subsidies to upgrading, innovation, and technical capacity-building.
- Exploring entitlements and capabilities and their uneven distribution throughout the chain
provides information on how to better support men and women workers and producers in the chain.
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| Shrimp processing plant in Bangladesh. Credit: DTS |
GENDER AND PRO-POOR ANALYSIS OF THE SHRIMP SECTOR IN BANGLADESH
Shrimp is a valuable export for Bangladesh, and its production provides a livelihood for the poor, small farmers, and many intermediaries and exporters. GATE conducted a gender and pro-poor analysis of the shrimp sector in Bangladesh to identify opportunities to improve market outcomes, raise productivity and wages, and foster pro-poor growth in the sector. The analysis revealed several significant gender issues along the chain.
Male-Female Labor Segmentation
- The shrimp value chain is a highly sex-segmented labor market. Women and men cluster in different activities.
- Women and girls constitute 40 percent of all fry catchers and 62 percent of all processing plant workers. Few women are intermediaries.
- Moreover, women are absent from several nodes of the chain, limiting their ability to economically gain from the sector.
- Inequality in women's participation is also evident in the security are employed; a greater proportion of female time is in temporary or causal employment.
- In farming, although men are reported to outnumber women, 73 percent of women's labor time is concentrated in temporary or casual employment, compared with 31 percent of men's time.
- In processing, where estimates reveal that women outnumber men, 92 percent of women's labor time used is considered temporary or casual.
Wage Differentials
Women fry catchers and sorters earn approximately 64 percent of male fry catchers and sorters' earnings; 82 percent of men's wages in pond repair and casual agriculture; and 71 and 60 percent of men's wages in the packing section and cooking/breading section of the processing plants.
Power and Governance
The shrimp sector is a buyer-driven chain where producers, particularly small producers, have little ability to influence the price at which they sell their product and are frequently locked into contracts that limit the price they receive. At lower ends of the chain, among fry collectors and intermediaries, bargaining is limited and few agents are more than price-takers. At higher ends of the chain, among the larger farmers and processors, there is more opportunity for negotiation.
GENDER AND PRO-POOR ANALYSIS OF THE ARTICHOKE SECTOR IN PERU
The emergence of an export market for artichokes presents new prospects for promoting agricultural and rural development in Peru, and expanding opportunities for the inclusion of resource poor farmers and workers in a dynamic and high value added market. With an emphasis on promoting pro-poor growth, GATE's analysis of the artichoke sector in Peru uses a gender analysis to identify interventions that will improve market outcomes; raise productivity; and, increase income for male and female farmers, day laborers, and agro-industrial workers along the chain. The analysis revealed the following significant issues along the chain:
Distribution Analysis
The artichoke value chain is dominated by 15 agro-export processing companies that produce and process artichokes for the export market and who capture 61 percent of the total value added generated in the chain. At the same time, 60 percent of the costs are borne by the agro-exporters. In contrast, 10 percent of the profit stays with small and medium producers who bear about 15 percent of the costs.
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| Artichoke farmers in Junin, Peru. Credit: DTS |
Economic Spillovers
While forward linkages in the chain from farmers to producers are strong, backward linkages to the national economy remain weak. The actors with the greatest backward linkages in the chain (small and medium-sized farmers) are also those that capture a smaller percentage of the total value added. Promoting more linkages and better sales price for small and medium-sized producers has the potential to amplify the spillover effects, with the potential to benefit the poorest sectors and actors.
Male-Female Labor Segmentation
The artichoke chain reveals consistent sex-segmentation by occupation, type of activity and level of insertion in the chain. Artichoke production and processing generates the equivalent of 20,500 full-time jobs, and women hold 51 percent of those jobs. Men and women cluster in different occupations with the intensity of female labor increasing at the processing level where approximately 80 percent of the labor used in processing activities like peeling, cutting, and de-leafing is female.
Wage Differentials
Gender wage gaps are more marked in certain segments of the chain than others. Women on small and medium farms receive 88 percent of men's wages. Male and female workers earn equal pay in agro-processing in the fields and on large farms. In processing plants, women workers without defined job tenure receive 86 percent of men's wages and those with contracts make 93 percent of men's wages per hour.
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| Cashew producers in Mombasa, Kenya. Credit: DTS |
GATE'S GENDER AND PRO-POOR VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS APPROACH
GATE uses a value chain analysis to explore opportunities to improve market outcomes, raise productivity and wages, and to foster pro-poor growth in the sector being analyzed. Value chain analyses recognize that various configurations of actors may influence capabilities, possess different levels of bargaining, and subsequently affect outcomes along the chain. GATE's analysis focuses on institutional arrangements that link producers, processors, marketers, distributors, and recognizes that power differentials among actors may influence outcomes along the chain. Recognizing that men and women occupy different positions across the chain, GATE integrates a gender and pro-poor analysis that aims to uncover the economic, organizational, and asymmetric relationships among actors throughout the chain.
GATE'S METHODOLOGY
GATE uses mixed-methods, which rely on primary data collection through surveys, secondary analysis of household survey and national accounts data, and qualitative analysis using key informant interviews and focus groups. Integral to GATE's gender and pro-poor analysis are the following components:
- Distributional analysis: explores the value added generated along the chain and examines the returns to labor and capital and to the different actors that participate in the chain.
- Segmentation analysis: assesses how the labor market is segmented by sex throughout the value chain;
- Analysis of power and governance within the chain: investigates power within production and exchange relationships across the value chain, including the power to set market prices and bargain as well as indebtedness and sub-optimal contracting; and,
- Entitlements and capabilities analysis: considers factors and characteristics that mediate men's and women's entitlements to productive resources, and their capabilities to deploy these resources. Where possible, GATE also examines the poverty rates and livelihood strategies of different actors in the chain.
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