農業生產勞力婦化之再探討

The Study of the Feminization of Agricultural Production Labor Force

鄭宜仲(Yi-Jong Jeng)

《農業推廣學報》 12期 (1995/12) Pp. 45-65

https://doi.org/10.29788/RAES.199512.0003

摘要

隨著經濟的發展，農業部門生產之重要性的降低造成農業、農村勞動力的外移。多數研究指出農業部門勞力移動的選擇性，將造成農業生產勞力的婦女化情形。而不同的研究也由不同的角度、使用不同的資料來說明農業勞力婦女化的現象，但所得的結論卻不一致。因此，本文針對這個問題，先回顧部分討論農業勞力婦化的文獻，認為不同的研究有其不同的觀察資料與推論形式，因而結論會有所不同。但這一個問題卻又是農業勞動力研究常被提及的現象，所以有必要加以澄清。本文利用長時間的總體及個體層次的次級資料，重新檢視臺灣農業生產勞力婦化的現象。本文僅就農業與農場勞力婦化的趨勢加以討論，結果發現，若以非農業部門的勞力婦化程度作為參考依據的話，則在總體產業方面，農業勞力婦化的比例在近三十年來維持在30％左右，不像非農業部門由27％持續地增加到40％。而個體農場之主要工作者的婦化比例並不算高，在23％左右；而農業幫助者的婦化程度卻是相當的高（67％）。若將兩者合併來看的話，則約佔48％，算是相當高了。此外，不同經營類型農場間的生產勞力婦化情形雖有明顯的差異，但在觀察的年度中（民國72－80年），婦化程度並無顯著地增加趨勢，且相較於非農業部門的勞力婦化情況，不同類型農場有高、有低。較高者是蔬菜及果樹農家，其平均婦化程度均高於43％；而其他三種類型的農家（稻作、養豬及乳牛），其平均婦化程度均在30％以下。總之，總體農業勞力的婦化比例並不如有些研究所言，有愈來愈嚴重的趨勢，且其程度也比不上非農業部門的婦化情形，所以此議題在往後的研究中可以不必特別地強調；而個體農場間的勞力歸化現象也不是一般性的，不同的經營作物有不同的勞力婦化程度。因此，以後的研究針對這樣的議題也必須小心討論這個現象。

並列摘要

The significant out-migration of agricultural laborers has rapidly resulted from rapid economic development because of the decreased importance of agricultural production in the total economy of Taiwan. Some studies have concluded that agricultural labor migration has selectively resulted in the feminization of the agricultural labor force. Others drawn controversial conclusions by using different data sets and measuring different dimensions of feminization. Therefore, this paper uses longitudinal secondary data at both the macro and the micro levels to highlight any possible trend in the feminization of the agricultural labor force in Taiwan.At the macro-level, the proportion of women employed in the labor force for the agricultural industry was about constant at 30% over the past three decades. The proportion of non-agricultural industry during this time period was consistently increasing from 27% to 40%. At the micro-level, the percentage of women in the farm labor force was nearly 23%, however part-time workers were comprised of 67% women. If both full-and part-time were taken into account, the average percentage of women in the farm labor force was approaching 48%.In addition, women's input varied by farm type. The average proportions for women's input by farm type were more than 43% between vegetable and fruit farms in the past decade, however for rice, swine, and dairy farming, they constituted less than 30% of the labor force.This study suggests that the feminization of the agricultural labor force has not grown substantially over the past 30 years, and it was not as serious as non-agricultural department. Therefore, this issue should not be over-emphasized in the latter studies again. In micro-level, however, various farm types have different average degrees of labor feminization so that this argument should be discussed carefully in the future researches.