Avoiding gender bias in agricultural surveys: An official statistics guide for data collection and dissemination

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ayhan, H. Öztaş

Affiliations: Department of Statistics, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey. E-mail: oayhan@metu.edu.tr

Abstract: Gender disaggregated statistics has been the concern of official statistics for some years. The demand for improved statistics was proposed by users as well as producers of statistics. FAO of the United Nations has shown an early concern for the gender bias in surveys. The survey data collection and dissemination stages faces many gender sensitive approaches. These approaches creates gender bias for some variables as well as coverage error problems for surveys. In some countries, data collected on women may create problems due to cultural reasons. The general view is that, if the statistics is not disaggregated by gender, it creates gender bias against females. Because, statistics which are not disaggregated by gender will usually be counted as male based information, in many countries. This article highlights the basic problems of gender related bias in all survey stages. By avoiding these gender bias sources will provide to design bias prone surveys in the future.

Keywords: Agricultural surveys, gender disaggregation, gender mainstreaming, gender statistics, official statistics, survey methods, survey operations, training guide

DOI: 10.3233/SJI-160970

Journal: Statistical Journal of the IAOS, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 371-373, 2016