“Trapped Inside a World of Labor”: Gender Gaps in Agricultural Productivity and Reproductive Labor in Malawi

This paper investigates the relationship between the work of reproductive labor and the efficiency of gender-segmented farm production in Malawi. It starts by presenting quantitative estimates of the gender gap in agricultural productivity among small-scale petty commodity producers in Malawi, along with estimates of the proximate drivers of this gap, which demonstrate that men are more productive than women on the plots of land they operate even when accounting for differences in land quantity and quality. The paper then presents the results of qualitative research into the causes of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi. It is demonstrated that the principal cause of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi is women’s responsibility to provide the reproductive labor of social reproduction. This, along with women’s responsibility to provide unpaid farm labor on land that is operated by their husbands, generates significant time poverty for women farmers in Malawi. It also results in wives sustaining the accumulation practices of their husbands. These gender-segmented tasks are then reinforced in some households by gender-based violence, which has strong economic consequences. It is argued that the patriarchal structures that result in a lack of income pooling and wealth serve to materially undermine women’s intrahousehold bargaining positions, a trend which is then reinforced by the lack of social legitimacy of the work that is typically assigned to women. The result is that it cannot be assumed that women and men share the same class location within rural petty commodity production in Malawi. Cumulatively, gender gaps in agricultural productivity among small-scale petty commodity producers in Malawi are a function of strongly gender-biased social norms and values that assign the reproductive labor of social reproduction to women.