International Labour Organization
SEAPAT
South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team

What is gender analysis?

Introduction to gender analysis

Simply put, gender analysis explores the nature of gender differences. In doing gender analysis, we systematically ask questions about differences between men and women in a given population, with respect to their:

• Roles and activities
• who does what: productive activities? household reproductive activities (child care, cooking, water and fuel collection)? recreation?
• who does the work: women? men? girls? boys? is it done by both women and men? by only one of them?
• how long does it take? is the work seasonal? monthly? weekly? daily?
• where is the work carried out: home? farm? city? factory?
• how rigid is the gender division of labour?

• Resources and constraints
• what resources do men and women have to work with?
• who uses/owns/controls each of these resources? who is excluded from use/ownership/control?
• what decisions do men and women make: in the household? in the community?
• are constraints to participation in social and economic life different for men and women?

• Benefits and incentives
• who controls productive activity? reproductive activity?
• who benefits from economic activity? who receives income? who controls income? what about non-income benefits?
• do men and women have different incentives for participation in these activities?

In order to undertake gender analysis, you must be familiar with some basic concepts, This section will familiarise you with some of them. First, you can learn the conceptual difference between the terms "sex" and "gender". Then you can work with the concepts of gender roles and gender needs. You can gain also hands-on familiarity in working with these concepts through the following exercises contained in this section:

Exercise: Gender roles identification

Exercise: Gender needs assessment

Some simple tools have been developed to enable the systematic collection of information for gender analysis. These tools include:

Tool: Activity profile

Tool: Identification of needs profile

Tool: Resources and benefits profile

Tool: Constraints and opportunities profile

The relevant sections of this unit explain how to use these tools in doing gender analysis. Other tools, including some for conducting participatory gender analysis with client communities, are also explained.

Finally, you will also find in this section a link to an ILO note on gender analysis and planning.

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