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

What is gender analysis?

Gender roles 

Gender roles

Gender roles are learned behaviours in a given society/community or other social group that condition which activities, tasks and responsibilities are perceived as male or female.

Gender roles vary considerably across settings and also change over time. The following factors can shape and change gender roles:

• age
• class
• race
• ethnicity
• religion and other ideologies
• geographical environment
• economic environment
• political environment

The concept of gender roles has been developed from the work of Caroline Moser. She explains this concept as follows:

Gender planning recognises that in most societies low-income women have a triple role: women undertake reproductive, productive, and community managing activities, while men primarily undertake productive and community politics activities.
 

Reproductive role	Childbearing/rearing responsibilities, and domestic tasks done by women, required to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of the labour force. It includes not only biological reproduction but also the care and maintenance of the work force (male partner and working children) and the future work force (infants and school-going children).
Productive role	Work done by both men and women for pay in cash or kind. It includes both market production with an exchange-value, and subsistence/home production with actual use-value, and also potential exchange-value. For women in agricultural production, this includes work as independent farmers, peasant wives and wage workers.
Community managing role	Activities undertaken primarily by women at the community level, as an extension of their reproductive role, to ensure the provision and maintenance of scarce resources of collective consumption, such as water, health care and education. This is voluntary unpaid work, undertaken in 'free' time.
Community politics role	Activities undertaken primarily by men at the community level, organising at the formal political level, often within the framework of national politics. This is usually paid work, either directly or indirectly, through status or power.

Multiple roles

Both men and women play multiple roles. The major difference, however, is that
 

Men	typically play their roles sequentially, focusing on a single productive role
while
Women	must usually play their roles simultaneously, balancing the demands of each within their limited time constraints

The gender-based division of labour ascribed in a given socio-economic setting determines the roles that men and women actually perform. Since men and women play different roles, they often face very different cultural, institutional, physical and economic constraints, many of which are rooted in systematic biases and discrimination.

Is the concept of gender roles useful in development planning and practice? According to Moser, it provides planners with the first key principle for a gender planning methodology that enables them to translate gender-awareness into a tool for planning practice.

The following exercise in gender roles identification illustrates how the application of this concept can make visible previously invisible work. To quote Moser again,

The following tool contains two examples of activity profiles for gender analysis. The gender activity profile helps identify the gender division of labour, which defines men’s and women’s socio-economic opportunities, constraints and incentives. Such a profile may be drawn up for the macro, meso, or micro level, as appropriate to the development activity under consideration.

Tool: Gender activity profile

The following tool is a participatory exercise that may be used when conducting gender analysis with the participation of client communities. It helps analyse gender differences in tasks and activities.

Tool: Participatory Exercise in Gender Analysis: Task Analysis by Gender

The following tool is a participatory exercise that may be used when conducting gender analysis with the participation of client communities. It helps analyse women’s time constraints.

Tool: Participatory Exercise in Gender Analysis: Women’s Time Management

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