between FAO, ILO and World Bank, is also conducting methodological work in countries to operationalize the 19<sup>th</sup> ICLS definitions in employment surveys.

Rural women are also a crucial demographic as countries look to develop strategies for targeting and collecting data on informal employment, as part of the ILO’s Recommendation No. 204 on transitioning from the informal to formal economy. The recently-revised <u>International Classification of Status in Employment</u> (ICSE-18) during the 20<sup>th</sup> ICLS also includes, relevant for poorer and rural women, the creation of a new employment status category on dependent contractors, including seasonal/casual and short-term workers, as well as recommending a survey question on place of work that will also improve data on types of employment that are typical for women such as home-based work and street vending.

# What additional data could inform rural program design?

Many countries have recently introduced employment-related initiatives where rural women are beneficiaries (Box 1). Many of these programs have faced difficulties in targeting women, however, owing to lack of information about who is employed or available/wanting to work, as well as constraints women face in participating.

This includes the need for regular data collection on earnings and hours worked among men and women, as well as on constraints to participation — as in the case of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which has had success in keeping poor rural women in the labor force (Sarkar et al, 2018), but suffers from lack of available jobs in some areas, lower female labor force participation (LFP) in poorer states, and women working longer hours to receive the same daily wage rate as men (Dutta et al, 2014; de la O Campos, 2015). Rural skills/technology initiatives could benefit from similar data. Ethiopia’s Rural Capacity Building Project (RCBP), for example, has faced difficulties in targeting agricultural extension services to women farmers, due to household-level outreach where the reported decision makers/points of contact are often men, as well as gender differences in human capital and networks. Targeting of RCBP and other rural entrepreneurship skills training programs could be improved by devising different delivery approaches based on a more accurate counting of self-employed women, and constraints women face to participating (Buehren et al, 2017). And programs to expand productivity-enhancing finance to women farmers/small enterprises, while expanding rapidly across countries, are also often hampered by a clear understanding of who manages the farm or business, and whether men are ultimately making decisions over investments (Holloway et al, 2017).

|Box 1. Examples of large-scale country initiatives that target rural women and employment outcomes<br>Workfare programs|
|---|
|•<br>India’sNational Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS),launched in 2005 and which reached 76|
|million workers in 2016-17, targets the rural poor and guarantees 100 days of wage work per year, with a<br>quota of at least 30 percent women participants. In 2016, 52 percent of participants were women (Fletcher<br>et al, 2018). Under the program, men and women earn equal wage rates, and childcare is also provided for<br>groups of women with children under 6 years.|
|•<br>Ethiopia’sProductive Safety Net Program (PSNP) was introduced in 2005 to help the rural poor withstand|
|shocks and address food insecurity. Men and women participate in public works projects, and women are<br>also entitled to childcare services. Projects also include supporting agricultural work on private land owned<br>by female-headed households (Jones et al, 2010).|
|Skills development, and access to markets and technology|
|•<br>TheSelf-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, the largest trade union in the country, supports<br>self-employed urban and rural women (about 900,000 women in rural areas) (de Luca et al, 2013). SEWA<br>helps women entrepreneurs through training/skills development, accessing supplier networks and organizing<br>producergroups,and in turn easingaccess to markets,finance,and technology.|

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