A synthesis of women’s participation in small-scale fisheries management: why women’s voices matter

While women globally make up nearly half of the fisheries workforce, their contribution to the sector has long been overlooked with implications for fisheries management. To assess women’s participation in small-scale fisheries (SSF) management and related socio-cultural, environmental, and economic impacts, we conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature (n = 124 case studies). Women had no or limited participation in more than 80% of the examined case studies reporting their participation level in SSF management. Women’s exclusion from SSF management resulted in negative outcomes, whereas their active participation was associated with various positive impacts at multiple scales. Most of the documented impacts were socio-cultural, suggesting a gap in documenting environmental impacts stemmed from women’s participation in SSF management. Importantly, most impacts reported affected the social-ecological system scale, suggesting that gender inclusion may contribute to improving the management of SSF social-ecological systems. We conclude by highlighting the need to foster gender perspectives in data collection methods used in fisheries research, in SSF management, and in ecological research on SSF social-ecological systems.