Talking about gender equity in fishing through numbers

It is estimated that almost half of the people who work in the fishing industry is women (1). This is a fact that I would like to...
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It is estimated that almost half of the people working in the fishing industry are women (1). This is a fact that may come as a surprise to many, and that is that, in Mexico, as in the rest of the world, fishing is an activity that is culturally recognized as “ men's”. However, women play very important roles mainly in pre-catch and post-catch, which are undervalued and recognized, such as the preparation of fishing gear before going out to sea, or the processing and marketing of fish after its catch (2).

The invisibility of women in fishing can be seen in several aspects. First, there is a low or even zero compensation for the work they do (3). According to the results of the Employment and Employment Survey 2020, the average monthly wage for men employed in the fishing industry is 4,940 pesos, while that of women is just 1,620 pesos.

(1) UNDP (2019). Without security, there is no development. Retrieved from: https://pnud.medium.com/seguridad-para-todos-sin-dejar-a-nadie-atr%C3%A1s-43df2234437f
(2) International Organization for Women in the Seafood Industry (2020). WATCH 2020. Retrieved from: https://womeninseafood.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Watch2020-ES.pdf
(3) FACT (2017). Towards gender equitable small-scale fisheries governance and development. Retrieved from: http://www.fao.org/3/i7419e/i7419e.pdf
(4) INEGI (2014). Economic Census 2014: Economic Activity No. 311710. Retrieved from: https://www.inegi.org.mx/app/saich/v2/ (5) Ines Lopez-Ercilla, Neyra Solano, Sergio Marcos, Daniel Valdez (2019). Women's participation in the value chain of three coastal fisheries in Mexico. DataMares. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.13022/M33357

1 For more information on the distribution of Transformation and Commercialization from 2011 to 2019 visit Fishing Data

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