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  • Publication | 2025

The agrifood-system wage gap and structural transformation: cross-country evidence

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Highlights:

  • We analyze gender wage gaps in agriculture, AFS, and outside AFS in 14 LMICs.
  • We assess the implications of structural transformation on gender wage gaps.
  • Results show significant gender wage gaps both in and outside AFS.
  • Gaps in agriculture and AFS are larger than gaps outside AFS.
  • In poorer countries gaps are smaller in agriculture but larger outside AFS.
  • Both endowment and structural effects contribute to gender wage gaps.

Abstract:

Evidence from high income countries shows that the gender pay gap in wage employment has decreased over time, though it has not closed. However, little evidence exists on how the gender wage gap varies as countries undergo processes of structural transformation that lead to rising wages and a shift in employment from primary agricultural production. Disaggregating agricultural, agrifood-system and non-agrifood-system wage employment, this study provides empirical estimates of the gender pay gap across countries at different stages of structural transformation. Based on a multi-country dataset and using the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach, the study sheds light on the different factors driving the pay gap along the structural transformation process. Our analysis shows significant gender gaps in both agrifood systems and non-agrifood systems that do not always decrease with structural transformation. Both differences in female and male employee's observed characteristics and differences in returns continue to contribute to gender gaps, suggesting the need for gender-responsive policies to address the underlying factors that drive these gaps.