Description:
In Nepal, the gender division of labour is highly skewed, especially when agricultural, pastoral and wage labour is combined with household, community and casual labour, and when high rates of men’s out-migration to urban cities, towns and cross-border destinations in the region and beyond, are considered. Recent comparative research on the ‘feminisation’ of agriculture and natural resource management, undertaken by ICIMOD and supported by IFAD, illustrates this trend, whereby in some mountain regions in India women undertake 4.6 to 5.7 times the agricultural work men carry out. In Nepal, the range is skewed even more with women carrying out 6.3 to 6.6 times the agricultural work that men carry out (ICIMOD, forthcoming). Furthermore, national reports often present up to 64% of the population of women in South Asia as being “non-active or non-reported”, reflecting that much of women’s work in rural areas is informal, non-formal, unpaid and not counted, and thus goes unrecorded (FAO, 2010a). This graphic shows hours a woman and men spent in agriculture and household activities.