Governments need data to make decisions on topics ranging from economic development to food security to conservation. But what happens when data is incomplete?

A new international study, led in part by Michigan State University researchers, found women make up nearly 40% of the global small-scale fisheries workforce, which is more than double what many traditional fisheries datasets suggest. The findings suggest how incomplete data can underestimate the size of an industry that supports roughly 500 million people worldwide, leading to gaps in economic planning, conservation and public policy.

MSU professors Mark Axelrod and Mar Mancha-Cisneros built on the framework made possible by the Illuminating Hidden Harvests Initiative, which encourages countries to improve how they measure and support small-scale fisheries. They teamed up with a team of over three-dozen researchers across six continents to better capture women’s roles in fisheries.

The research, published in the journal Ambio, sought to improve decision-making and advance gender equity in small-scale fisheries, which employ almost 90% of all fisheries jobs around the world and support roughly half of the global seafood catch.

Rather than calling for entirely new systems, the researchers provide a practical approach to improving fisheries data by building on what already exists.

“Nobody’s mandate is to understand the whole system,” said Axelrod, professor at James Madison College and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Fisheries agencies manage fish stocks. Health ministries track disease. The siloed nature of government agencies creates challenges for comprehensive data collection and analysis.”

Addressing data representation gaps

Recent research estimates that women comprise 39.6% of the small-scale fisheries workforce — more than double what traditional data systems suggest — yet gender data gaps persist throughout national and international fisheries systems.

Women represent 45% of people engaged in subsistence fishing globally — catching fish for family use — and around half of workers in small-scale fish processing (48.7%) and trading (50.2%). However, women make up just 18.7% of workers in commercial fishing operations, where data collection has traditionally been concentrated.

These gaps are not accidental. Fisheries data systems typically focus on commercial, vessel-based fishing — where men make up the majority — while overlooking subsistence fishing, informal work and processing activities where women’s contributions are often highest.

Because data is spread across agencies such as fisheries, health and economic departments, no single institution captures the full scope of work in the sector. As a result, substantial portions of fisheries labor, particularly women’s contributions, remain invisible in official data systems.

Building a new framework

The project began as a smaller gender analysis effort but expanded into a large-scale collaboration to better understand the structural challenges behind these data gaps and identify actionable solutions. Researchers and practitioners from across six continents with expertise in fisheries biology, political economy, environmental science and community-based research came together.

Rather than calling for entirely new systems, the researchers outline a practical approach to improving fisheries data by building on what already exists.

Their framework identifies 17 indicators across economic, governance and health categories and emphasizes a three-step approach: connecting existing data across agencies, updating current data collection systems to better capture informal and subsistence work, and collecting new data only where gaps remain.

“Through the Illuminating Hidden Harvests process, we saw that even with significant capacity and effort, there were huge barriers to finding gender-disaggregated data,” said Sarah Harper, the lead author of the study, who at the time was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria in Canada and now works in support of Canadian Indigenous fishing communities.

Looking ahead and driving change

Rather than creating entirely new data systems, the researchers found many of the answers already exist in labor surveys, census data and other government datasets.

Better coordination across agencies is important, but they also found that about 60% of the data needed to fully capture gender-inclusive fisheries systems must come from outside traditional fisheries agencies. This includes organizations such as national statistical offices, health ministries and economic development departments.

The researchers say more detailed, integrated data can give policymakers a more complete understanding of fisheries, helping improve economic planning, conservation efforts and gender equity. Their framework is designed to be adaptable across countries with different resources and other types of environmental data systems and needs.