<mark>“housework” as a means of gaining access to work in public places while appearing to comply with the norm that their actual place is in the home or that the man is the family breadwinner (</mark> Franck and Olsson 2014).

# **Women’s labor force participation in rural Honduras**

Given the definition of employment in use by the Honduran official statistics, which includes work for own consumption,<sup>10</sup> and high reliance on small-scale farming, labor force participation among women in rural Honduras is surprisingly low. According to the 2015 Household Survey for Multiple Purposes (EPHPM), only 39 percent of women ages 15 and older in rural areas report being in the labor force, compared to 90 percent of men. This discrepancy in labor force participation between genders in rural areas is not limited to Honduras. Sousa and Muller (2018) find that rural labor force participation rates of women in most Latin American countries, including the six Central American countries, are below 50 percent. Peru and Bolivia, where these rates exceed 80 percent, are notable exceptions.<sup>11</sup> A priori, there are two possible explanations for these low participation rates: 1) the majority of women in rural areas are not participating in any activities that would be considered employment (including agriculture for own consumption); or 2) the participation of women in employment activities in rural areas is being undercounted. In the EPHPM 2015, when asked why they did not work or look for a job during the past month, over 90 percent of Honduran rural women not in the labor force reported that the main reason is that they were too busy with household tasks/chores. At first glance, this suggests support for the first explanation - the labor intensity of household tasks is too high to engage in economic activities. However, the survey questions used to identify participation specifically ask that respondents exclude “housework” when reporting their activities. Following the literature cited above, the significant proportion of women who report being too busy with housework could also suggest that, in fact, these tasks in rural Honduras include activities that fall under the definition of employment.

A closer look at the data illustrates the extent to which agricultural work is male dominated in Honduras even in farm-owning despite its critical economic importance for rural households. To better understand 10 The definition, aligned with ICLS 13, is “all people ages 10 or over who in the week prior to the survey worked at least one hour in a job, own business, or as unpaid family workers... <also those who> were absent during the previous week due to the following reasons: health, leave, vacation, strike, or other factor beyond one’s control.” (Translated from INE’s 2015 EPHPM methodology document <u>https://www.ine.gob.hn/index.php/component/content/article?id=87.) Included as unpaid workers are those who</u> work in product cooperatives, the self-employed, and family members who work in family enterprises including farms.

> 11 Paulson’s (2003) ethnographic study in the central Andes suggests that gender identity and gender roles in indigenous communities in this region could play a role in explaining higher female labor participation. When residents were asked to describe women’s resources and responsibilities, several asked, “What woman? A young woman? Or a mature woman with family?” Others differentiated the rights and responsibilities of widows from those of married women, suggesting that the essentialist category of women does not coincide with the multiple gender identities and resource-management roles at play in the community. When asked whether certain tasks were carried out by men or women, many community members insisted that “everyone is involved in everything”. Paulson shows the nested complementarities of women’s and men’s work in agricultural tasks where men and women specialize in different tasks. However, at vital moments in the agriculture cycle, such as planting and harvesting, women spend a great deal of time and energy on what is considered the male domain of commercial crops. Likewise, at different times of the year, when animals are sheared, treated for parasite or butchered, men spend significant time and energy with animals, which are often considered a female domain.

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