The Production Gender Gap among Italian Farm Operators

The wage gender gap in the industry and services sectors is a highly debated and researched issue. In agriculture, the main issue related to male-female diversities has been the diversityof yields in male vs female-operated plots, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we assess whether there is an overall gap in economic output between farms managed by male or female operators in a developed country (Italy) and we analyse if it is due to different endowments in production factors and natural resources and/or in different productivity in specific factors. The data are drawn from the Italian section of the European Farm Accounting Data Network. The results suggest that Total Output (TO) in male-operated farms exceeds by around 50 percent on average TO of female-operated farms. Female- and male-operated farms have different endowments of primary inputs and human capital and belong differently in Types of Farming and areas of different productivity, generally disfavouring women. The largest part of the gap (between 50 and 60%, as assessed through an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition) is explained by the different endowments, as femaleoperated farms have less capital of all types, less labour, and generally operate in unfavourable physical conditions. A lower, and more variable, share of the gap (30-40%) is due to the different productivity of the production factors.