Gender and Food Security

Gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty. Food security can be a major concern for people who are incapable of or denied access to participating in labor, either formal, informal, or agricultural. In 2009, the U.N. estimated that 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women and girls, 98% of which live in developing nations. When women have an income, substantial evidence indicates that the income is more likely to be spent on food and children’s needs. Women are generally responsible for food selection and preparation and for the care and feeding of children. Women play many roles in land use, production, processing, distribution, market access, trade, and food availability. They often work as unpaid, contributing family workers, or self-employed producers, on and off-farm employees, entrepreneurs, traders, providers of services, and caretakers of children and the elderly. Women farmers represent more than a quarter of the world’s population, comprising on average, 43 percent of the agricultural workforce in developing countries, ranging from 20 percent in Latin America to 50 percent in Eastern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. However, women have less access than men to agricultural assets, inputs and services. Analysts suggest that if women have the same access to productive resources as men, women could boost yield by 20-30 percent; raising the overall agricultural output in developing countries by two and a half to four percent. This gain in production could lessen the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent.