Fact sheet: Lebanon - Women, agriculture and rural development

Abstract

Due to the lack of gender-disaggregated data, and the fact that the last census carried out in Lebanon was in 1970, it is difficult to give accurate information on the role of women in agriculture. According to United Nations projections, women comprised 40.7% of the agricultural labour force in 1990. However, rural women have had to become the main contributors to agricultural production, from planting to marketing, due both to extensive male migration to urban areas and to increasing widow hood as a result of war. More than 10% of rural households were headed by women in 1987. Most women work on family farms, although a considerable number work as seasonal daily paid labourers, particularly in harvesting, where their wages are only half those of men. Women are also employed as cheap labour in food processing industries.