## Overview of the paper

The paper examines methodological approaches to improving socioeconomic survey data on rural women’s employment amid rural economic transitions, presenting stylized facts from recent World Bank Living Standards and Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) conducted in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda, as well as recent country pilot studies conducted by the ILO to test survey question design under the 19<sup>th</sup> ICLS recommendations. These surveys are of particular interest in the context of rural employment, given their detailed modules on agriculture along with other sectors, as well as a broad range of individual and household socioeconomic characteristics that can be used to better understand employment trends.

The paper covers five main priority areas (from both research and policy perspectives) in improving the measurement of rural women’s employment in surveys:

- (a) Accurate counting of rural women’s employment, since their labor contributions are often underreported, and particularly given the revised definitions of work and employment under the 19<sup>th</sup> ICLS;

- (b) Survey questions to better understand labor underutilization;

- (c) Measuring unpaid work burdens and the role of time use surveys;

- (d) Survey respondent choice in intra-household decision-making questions on earnings and farm/business management roles; and

- (e) Capturing additional features of women’s work amid rural transition — including migration, skills development, access to productivity-enhancing technologies — along with barriers to economic mobility (or being able to seek better economic opportunities).

The aim of the discussion is not to recommend that all issues be tackled together, particularly given cost and other considerations, including country context — but to highlight important measurement issues for further research and policy design, the implementation of which could be determined based on local priorities. Variations also exist across surveys in how employment questions are asked and modules are structured, including within the LSMS. This paper compares different survey approaches to understand best practices in presenting a more comprehensive view of rural women’s employment that is also relevant for policy making.

# II.   Ensuring rural women’s employment is not undercounted

Improving the counting of rural women’s employment in surveys can strengthen the targeting and design of rural policies. Aspects of rural women’s work, such as informality and contributing family roles, can lead to underreporting of their employment, including if they perceive themselves mainly in “domestic work” when their earnings are low and/or seasonal (see, for example, Benes and Walsh, 2018a; Koolwal, 2018; Comblon and Robilliard, 2017; and Fox and Pimhidzai 2013).

## Boundary questions for small-scale farming

Within farming, women have multiple roles, including planting and harvesting crops, raising livestock, resource collection, and processing and marketing output. Women farmers tend to manage smaller plots/parcels, however — often with only a small share of output sold seasonally, with the remainder for household use (FAO, 2011). Under the narrowed definition of employment under the 19<sup>th</sup> ICLS, “boundary” 5