The Role of Women in Traditional Agriculture: Evidence From Italy

Giovanni Federico and Pablo Martinelli

No 10881, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Gender roles in the past may affect current perceptions of the 'rightful' place of women in the society, with potential major consequences on economic development. This paper explores the historical roots of gender roles by focusing on female work in agriculture, which accounted for most employment in traditional societies. We rely on a newly compiled data-set of female occupation and crop mix for Italy in the 1930s. We show that crop mix did determine the level of female gainful employment in a complex way. Some products could be classified either ?male-intensive? (like wheat and cow milk) or ?female-intensive? (like corn and beef), but quite a few were largely ?gender-neutral? (like wine and oil).

Keywords: agriculture; Gender roles; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 N30 N50 O13 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP10881 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10881

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP10881

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().