Table 1.

Women’s range of work within the fisheries and within the fishing communities.

As workers within the fisheries (paid and unpaid)	Women may work in fish marketing, in the preparation of bait, making and repairing nets, collecting crabs and shellfish, gathering and cultivating seaweed and algae, in smoking, salting and drying fish, and, in rare cases, fishing. They may also work in aquaculture farms. Often ignored is the ‘liaison work’ many wives of fishermen undertake on behalf of their fishermen husbands, such as dealing with financial institutions for credit for fisheries operations
As workers in processing plants	Women are very active in the processing sector, as either part-time or full-time workers in processing plants, or workers under sub-contracting systems
As those responsible for the family and community	Women, as everywhere else, are almost entirely responsible for the care and nurture of the family. Where the men stay away fishing for long periods, women run the household in the absence of their husbands
As workers outside the fisheries	Often, women of coastal fishing communities take on activities outside of the fishery that give them some form of stable monetary income, since the income from the fishery is inherently unstable and unpredictable