Livestock care and livestock-related decision making in rural Georgia: Are there any gender differences?

CRRC-Georgia’s survey conducted in August 2017 for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) asked about livestock owned by rural households in Georgia, including cows, bulls, buffalo, pigs, sheep, and goats. Cows and bulls were reported to be owned most commonly. Some of the questions the project addressed the division of tasks between men and women in taking care of livestock, while other questions tried to find out whether there were gender differences in making major decisions related to livestock and livestock products.

Men and women reported spending about the same amount of time on animal care during a regular day. However, men were reported more frequently to feed the animals and take them to pasture. In contrast, milking animals, whenever relevant, was most often reported to be done by women. The task of taking care of animals when they get sick was most often reported to be shared equally by male and female members of a household.


Note: Households consisting of only male or only female members were excluded from the analysis in this blog post. Original answer options “Mostly hired men”, “Mostly hired women” and “Hired men and women equally” were combined into the category “Hired workers”. 

If livestock or any livestock products were sold, decisions were reported to be taken most often jointly by male and female members of the household. When it comes to selling, vaccinating or registering livestock, however, the next most common response was “mostly male members of the household.” 


While there are gender differences in taking care of livestock in rural Georgia, when it comes to decision making, people report most often that men and women make decisions together. 

To explore the issue in greater depth, see CRRC-Georgia’s report for FAO. To explore the data, visit our online data analysis portal.