A gender approach to time and food security: a case study of Egypt

Abstract

Women’s subsistence contribution to household food security is undeniable. However, due to the dominance of capital bias in most labour economies, rural women in particular lack agency to improve capacity and access to resources and opportunities, and they need to be more productive. This knowledge gap is the subject of many studies on sustainable agricultural development and gender equity. Although the consensus necessitates policy interventions targeting the gender gap in agriculture resources, not enough research has been dedicated to quantifying the importance of women subsistence agricultural labour within the Egyptian national context. This article seeks to statistically analyse women’s role in subsistence agriculture, estimated by a national time-use survey conducted in 2018 in Egypt. The goal is to highlight their capacity to contribute to food and nutrition security and quantify the real impact of rural women’s subsistence agriculture labour on rural household food security versus that of rural men. This will contribute to the debate that investigating rural women in agriculture promotes rural community sustainability and highlights their capacity for agricultural production.