An estimated 44.7 million women worldwide participate in small-scale fisheries value chains or engage in subsistence activities, which translates into 39.6 percent of the total people active in the subsector.
Women represent 15.4 percent of total employment in the pre-harvest segment of the small-scale fisheries value chain (e.g. gear fabrication and repair, bait and ice provisioning, boat-building), 18.7 percent in the harvesting segment (including vessel-based and non-vessel-based activities), 49.8 percent in the post-harvest segment (e.g. processing, transporting, trading, selling) and 45.2 percent of the total actors
engaged in small-scale fisheries subsistence activities.
Women participate in small-scale fisheries most commonly through informal and unpaid activities, limiting their social protections and security. While this participation can be partially highlighted through
estimates of engagement in subsistence activities, much of it continues to be systematically excluded from official fisheries data collection and analysis, and thus women’s contributions are insufficiently considered in fisheries decision-making.
