Socio-cultural factors affecting women smallholders: the case of ethnic minority women in the highlands of Southeast Asia

In the highlands of Southeast Asia, agriculture is deeply embedded in sociocultural organizations in the society, where safety nets and reciprocal support are established through women’s unpaid labor contribution to farming. However, many research frameworks employed in agricultural research tend to focus on crops and their economic value. As a result, women’s contribution to and constraints on agriculture associated to sociocultural value is not fully explored, reinforcing gender inequality in knowledge production in agricultural scholarship.

Drawing on feminist approaches to political economy, this chapter explores women’s unpaid labor contribution to agriculture through a case study on ethnic Thai young married couples in Northern Vietnam. The authors' findings show that women’s unpaid labor contribution to agriculture is vital to sustain safety nets and receive reciprocal support from kin, compensating precarious off-farm economic activities performed by men. Ethnic minority women need to be positioned as key actors for agricultural development in Asia.