An increasing number of female farmers in North Korea are unable to work due to health problems, Daily NK has learned.
“When a farm in Pyongwon County checked its attendance records at the end of March, it found that the attendance rate of female farmworkers was worse than before the pandemic. The most common reason for not coming to work is illness,” a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, women on the farm often skip work because of physical ailments such as diarrhea, colds, tuberculosis, arthritis, back pain and hepatitis.
“Women on farms do more physical labor than women in the city. In fact, women make up 90% of the people doing physical labor on farms,” the source said.
According to a paper titled “Marketization of the North Korean Agricultural Sector: Collective Farms and Markets” in the October 2019 issue of the Review of the North Korean Economy, which is published by the Korea Development Institute, there are few able-bodied North Korean farm workers, and the farm labor force is largely made up of women and the elderly.
Men are typically responsible for technical jobs on farms, such as handling machinery and equipment, which means that women are responsible for most of the physical labor, the source said.
But these women are expected to do housework as well as farm work, which puts a heavy strain on their bodies.
“Here [in North Korea], both childcare and housework are treated as women’s work, which means that women farmers have to work on the farm during the day and at home at night. Because women have to work day and night without a break, they suffer from many physical ailments,” the source said.