Gender bias in research on farmers’ perspectives regarding dairy cattle welfare: a rapid systematic review

Dairy farming remains male-dominated, yet women often assume primary responsibility for calf care and are increasingly involved across the sector. If research on farmers’ views towards dairy cattle welfare is influenced by these gendered roles, it may disproportionately reflect male voices and risk producing a partial account of what farmers think and prioritize regarding animal welfare. This rapid systematic review aims to (1) assess the extent of gender representation in empirical studies investigating farmers’ views on dairy cattle welfare; (2) examine how gender is contextualized within these studies; and (3) identify whether assumptions of equality or difference between women and men are made or overlooked. After screening for eligibility, 134 publications were included in the analysis. Approximately a third of the publications (35%) did not report the gender distribution of participants. Among the 87 studies that did, the average sample consisted of 24% female farmers (SD=20%). Seven studies included a category beyond “male” or “female” (here labelled as “other”) with an average of 0.2% (SD=1%) of participants appearing in this category. Only 25 studies discussed topics related to gender and none had gender as a primary focus of their analysis. By applying a gender analysis framework, we evaluated the outcomes of the reviewed studies, including insights on the implications for actively considering gender representation in dairy cattle welfare research. We recommend that future studies to (1) consistently report gender of participants and broaden gender categories beyond “male” and “female”, (2) contextualize the influence of gender on the results, and (3) make efforts to avoid assumptions regarding gender when discussing research findings. Describing the gender distribution of farmers’ samples is a key step towards improving our understanding of the diverse perspectives being captured in research. While this review primarily focuses on dairy farming, we emphasize the need for gender-aware approaches that extend to other sectors of primary food production. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/HWDCS.

The development of socially sustainable systems in animal farming can be complex due to the diversity of actors involved in animal agriculture and along the value chain, including members of the general public, producers, veterinarians, consumers, scientists, and policymakers. These different actors often hold differing perspectives on what constitutes a good life for animals (Cornish et al., 2016; Miele et al., 2011; Vanhonacker et al., 2008). Among those groups, female dairy farmers have received limited attention. Although women have historically been involved in dairy farming (Quaile, 2007), the field remains largely male-dominated, particularly in terms of farm ownership and decision-making (Gebre et al., 2022; Keller, 2014).

Women comprised 39.6% of the global agricultural workforce in 2023, yet women working across agrifood systems remain disproportionately concentrated in informal, irregular and otherwise precarious employment and bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work (FAO, 2025). In Canada, women represent only 27.4% of dairy-farm operators (Aclan and Chen, 2022) and in the US women accounted for 36.3% of all farm producers in 2022 (USDA, 2024). Recent evidence suggests a gradual shift. Women’s participation in agriculture and related professions, including veterinary medicine and animal science, is increasing (Morello et al., 2022; Narver, 2007; Pedersen, 2025). For example, the number of female farm operators in Canada rose in 2021 for the first time in three decades (Aclan and Chen, 2022). Similarly, evidence from agricultural value-chain analyses shows rising female participation, including non-farm and value-chain roles, indicating that pathways into farm ownership, management, or allied professions (e.g. animal health, agribusiness) may be opening more widely for women (Quisumbing et al., 2021).

If research on farmers’ views towards dairy cattle welfare is influenced by traditional gendered roles and power-dynamics within agriculture, it may disproportionately reflect male voices and risk producing a partial account of what farmers think and prioritize regarding animal welfare. To our knowledge, no systematic effort has been made to assess gender representation in research on farmers’ views of animal welfare. This paper is the first to addresses this gap by conducting a rapid systematic review of peer-reviewed literature to examine how gender is reported, contextualized, and considered in studies on dairy farmers’ perspectives towards animal welfare.

This review focuses on dairy cattle welfare because it is a sector where gendered roles in farming may be especially relevant to animal care. Dairy farming, in many parts of the world, is often a family-run enterprise in which women play key roles (Junquera et al., 2022), yet their contributions are frequently under acknowledged (Stadnick and Hötzel, 2026). Compared to other livestock systems, dairy farming involves frequent and close human-animal interactions, and women are often responsible for tasks such as calf rearing and feeding (Enticott et al., 2022). These caregiving roles position women as important actors in dairy cattle welfare.

Gender and animal farming

The conceptualization of gender emerged prominently in the latter half of the 20th century as the cultural interpretation of biological sex (Richardson, 2015). Feminist gender theory expanded on this perspective by emphasizing that gender shapes the social value, power, and status assigned to individuals (Schiappa, 2021). Within this view, gender is inherently hierarchical, often operating within patriarchal systems that position men in dominant roles over women (Richardson, 2015). More recent developments, such as genderqueer theory, further challenge the binary conceptions of gender by questioning the normative roles and traits attributed to the male/female binary (Monro, 2019). As this brief overview shows, gender theory is multifaceted and evolving (see Richardson, 2015). While recognizing the range of perspectives on gender in the literature, and the ongoing debates surrounding its conceptualization, this review adopts the definition provided by the World Health Organization that gender refers to the norms, behaviors and roles associated with one’s gender identity (World Health Organization, n.d.).

A key concept within gender theory is that of gender roles, which refers to the assumption that individuals of different genders possess distinct physical or behavioral traits that society perceives and values differently (Richardson, 2015). For example, masculinity is often associated with traits such as assertiveness, independence, and ambition, while femininity is linked to being sympathetic, gentle, and compassionate (Schiappa, 2021). These gendered expectations may be particularly pronounced in agricultural contexts. In farming communities, men are commonly expected to engage in physical labor and technical tasks; whereas, women are more often assigned caregiving roles (Contzen and Forney, 2017). In dairy farming, women are often responsible for feeding and caring of calves (Palczynski et al., 2022; Enticott et al., 2022), a role that mirrors caregiving expectations in domestic settings (Friedemann and Buckwalter, 2014).

Drawing on the concept of “undoing gender”, gender roles can be understood not as fixed but as socially constructed and therefore subject to change as societal values evolve (Deutsch, 2007). Increasingly, women are taking on leadership roles on farms and actively challenging gendered power dynamics (Newsome, 2021), while also expressing and integrating femininity into their farming practices (Shisler and Sbicca, 2019). Furthermore, some frameworks for animal care in farming systems suggest that values commonly associated with femininity may provide valuable perspectives for shaping ethical animal farming (Thompson, 2023). One such approach is the ethics of care, often linked to feminist moral theory, which emphasizes empathy, relational interdependence, and the prioritization of others’ well-being (Engster, 2006; Keller and Kittay, 2017). Applied to animal agriculture, this perspective may offer a more holistic and socially responsive foundation for farm animal practices. As such, recognizing and integrating values traditionally associated with femininity may help advance inclusive and ethically grounded approaches in animal welfare research and practice.

Gender bias in animal welfare research

Gender bias refers to favoritism or prejudice directed towards individuals based on their gender (Upchurch, 2020). Gender bias in research can manifest in multiple ways and at various stages of the research process, including the selection of study participants, data interpretation, framing of research implications, and evaluation of the study’s quality and relevance (Upchurch, 2020). Bias may also relate to the researchers themselves based on their gender, particularly in assumptions about their scientific competence or in their experiences within academic and fieldwork settings. In animal welfare science, bias in the evaluation of research quality has been documented concerning the race and nationality of authors (Vandresen et al., 2025). Although there is no documented evidence of gender bias in the content of animal welfare research, gender-based challenges have been reported concerning fieldwork, such as difficulties faced by women during data collection on farms (Chiswell and Wheeler, 2016).

While the effects of gender bias have been widely explored in fields such as healthcare and medicine (Holdcroft, 2007; Samulowitz et al., 2018), little is known about how gender bias may influence scientific knowledge of animal welfare. To investigate how gender bias may be present in literature on dairy farmers’ perceptions of animal welfare, we draw on the framework proposed by Ruiz-Cantero et al. (2007), which conceptualizes gender bias in epidemiological research using a three-dimensional matrix. This framework considers: (1) the type of bias (selection or measurement), (2) the context (clinical or social), and (3) whether equality or difference between women and men is incorrectly assumed. These dimensions can be combined in various ways to produce or obscure gender bias in research.

We adapt Ruiz-Cantero et al.’s (2007) framework to the context of animal welfare science, focusing on the social domain given our interest in literature that explores farmers’ values, experiences, and beliefs about dairy cattle welfare. The aims of this rapid systematic review were to: (1) assess the extent of gender representation in empirical studies investigating farmers’ views on dairy cattle welfare (selection bias); (2) examine how gender is contextualized within these studies (measurement bias); and (3) identify whether assumptions of equality or difference between women and men are made or overlooked. While this review focuses on gender bias, we acknowledge the importance of addressing intersecting biases and the value of an intersectional approach including race, class, and other social categories.

Rapid reviews are used to synthesize evidence within a shorter timeframe by streamlining traditional systematic review methods, often to support timely decision-making or guide research planning (Schünemann and Moja, 2015); they are typically conducted with narrowly tailored research questions, limited datasets, and often by a single reviewer. Our review followed this approach, focusing on a specific data point (gender representation) in a defined body of literature (empirical studies on dairy farmers’ views about animal welfare), with targeted data extraction from studies identified in two academic databases (Web of Science and Scopus). The choice of a rapid review was also driven by the timeliness of the topic: gender representation in agricultural and animal welfare research is a growing area of concern (Stadnick and Hötzel, 2026). By identifying potential gaps in how gender is addressed in studies of farmers’ values towards animal welfare, this review seeks to contribute to more inclusive and reflective research practices in the field.

Literature search

A pilot literature search was conducted on May 22, 2025, using Web of Science (https://www.webofknowledge.com/) to test the coding approach and analysis. Following the pilot, the search strategy was refined and repeated on September 26, 2025, and the final dataset included records from both Web of Science and Scopus (https://www.scopus.com), which together index a wide range of peer-reviewed animal science and animal welfare research. The systematic review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework to ensure transparency and methodological rigor (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/HWDCS).

We used the SPIDER tool (Cooke et al., 2012) developed for qualitative and mixed-methods studies. The Boolean phrase used for the literature search is shown in Table 1.

Eligibility criteria and selection of publications

Publications were included in our review based on pre-defined eligibility criteria. First, the sample had to include dairy farmers; studies that focused exclusively on other animal production professionals (e.g., veterinarians, nutritionists, or technicians) were excluded. The term “dairy farmer” was defined broadly to refer to individuals involved in the operation of a dairy farm, including farm owners, managers, and staff responsible for the care and management of cattle and farm activities. Second, the study had to explore views (e.g., as attitudes, opinions, perceptions) or experiences towards animal welfare or to topics related to at least one of the three spheres of animal welfare: biological functioning, affective states, or naturalness (Fraser et al., 1997). For example, studies using qualitative methods (e.g., surveys or interviews) to describe husbandry practices or infrastructure (e.g., weaning methods or housing types), without examining farmers’ views on those topics, were excluded. Only primary literature was eligible for inclusion; review articles and book chapters were excluded. To ensure academic rigor, all included publications had to be peer-reviewed. No restrictions were imposed on the year of publication, location where the study was conducted, or language of the manuscript; for studies not published in English or Portuguese (the languages spoken by the first author) data were extracted using Google Translate.

The datasets retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus were imported into Covidence (https://www.covidence.org) for screening and data extraction. Duplicates were automatically removed by the software, after which the first author manually checked for any remaining duplicates. Two researchers independently screened both the abstract and full-text in Covidence, and discrepancies were reviewed and resolved.

Data extraction

Data extracted from each paper included year of publication, study country, publication language, data collection method, dairy farmer sample size, and gender distribution of participants. Gender data were classified as male, female, or other (the latter included any responses that did not correspond to male or female).

When the dairy farmer subsample was reported as a percentage of the total sample, the corresponding number of dairy farmer participants was calculated by applying the reported percentage to the total sample size. When the resulting value was not a whole number, it was rounded to the nearest integer. When studies reported gender data for only male or only female participants, the remainder was used to estimate the sample of the other gender, but only when the reported response options were limited to male and female categories; no studies that included the “other” category required this calculation. All extracted data, including counts and percentages for each study, are provided in the supplementary materials, with accompanying notes indicating which values were reported directly by the original authors and which were calculated during data extraction (the supplementary materials are available here: https://doi.org/10.5683/SP4/AB8IPU).

A word-search function was used to identify content related to gender with the text. The terms “male,” “female,” “men/man,” “women/woman,” “gender,” and “sex” were searched in all papers that reported the gender distribution of their sample. This was done in addition to the reading of the results to ensure identification of any gender-related analysis or findings in the reviewed publications. Data extraction were conducted by the first author and a research assistant, who recorded the extracted data and relevant notes in Covidence.

A flow chart summarizing the identification and selection of publications for the review is presented in Figure 1. In total, the literature search resulted in 586 publications from Web of Science, and 396 publications from Scopus. The Covidence software excluded 312 duplicates, and the first author manually removed 4 duplicates, resulting in a final sample of 666 publications for screening (Figure 1).

The publication year of the reviewed papers ranged from 1999 to 2025, with most papers (64%) published over the last five years (2020-2025). All but three studies were published in English; the other studies were published in Portuguese (n=1), German (n=1), and Spanish (n=1). Publications were predominantly from Europe (53%) and North America (28%), with the remainder from Asia (8%), South America (6%), and Oceania (5%). Canada was the country represented in the largest number of studies (16%), followed by the United Kingdom (13%), and the United States (11%).

Sample size varied widely in the reviewed studies, ranging from 6 to 1242 participants (average=202, SD=265), reflecting differences in study design. Questionnaires, either online or in-person, were the most frequently used method (n=72), followed by interviews (n=50), focus groups (n=23), and direct observation (n=6). Most studies used only one data collection method (87%), while 16 studies used two methods and one study used three methods.

Most studies (n=95) only included dairy farmers. Other target populations included farmers’ advisors (e.g., veterinarians and nutritionists), other types of farmers (e.g., beef and sheep farmers), post-farm gate industry members (e.g., slaughterhouse operators and traders), and members of the general public. Among studies including groups other than dairy farmers (n=39), the average proportion of dairy farmers in the sample was 48% (SD=22%). Two studies did not provide the number of dairy farmer participants (Heise and Theuvsen, 2015; Gebert and Kuhne, 2024).

Information about participant gender is summarized in Figure 2. Approximately one third of the reviewed publications (35%) did not provide information about the gender distribution of participants. Among the studies that reported gender data (65%), most used the term “gender” (n=47), with two recent studies specifically using the term “gender-identity” (Brunt et al., 2024a, b). Other studies used the term “sex” (n=12) or both “sex” and “gender” (n=2). Many studies (n=26) did not use any term, instead referring to participants as “men/women” or “male/female”.

When reporting the gender distribution of the total sample (n=87), some studies provided only the number of male participants (n=15) or only the number of female participants (n=5). Among the studies that provided the number of both male and female participants (n=57), seven also provided the proportion of participants classified as “other”, including “prefer not to say”, “in another way”, “preferred not to report gender”, “prefer not to answer”, “they/them”, and “children or other family members”.

Of the studies that reported the gender distribution of the dairy farmer sample (n=77), the average proportion of male and female farmers was 76% (SD=20%) and 24% (SD=20%), respectively. The distribution of gender for each of these publications is illustrated in Figure 3. Six studies involved only male farmers in their samples; whereas no study involved exclusively female farmers. Six studies had more female than male participants, and seven studies provided a gender category other than “male” or “female” (in one study no participants selected this option; Doyle et al., 2024). Among the studies that included this category, the average proportion of “other” participants was 0.2% (SD=1%). The gender distribution of each reviewed study is provided in the supplementary materials.

Among papers that reported results related to gender (n=25), gender was addressed in three broad areas: 1) animal welfare attitudes, 2) human-animal interactions and caregiving roles, and 3) farm management practices and animal health outcomes. Specific examples of empirical findings and author interpretations within each area are presented below. All reported findings and interpretations are drawn from the primary studies.

Studies reported associations between gender and farmers’ attitudes to animal welfare. Female farmers were generally reported to assign greater importance to animal welfare-related concerns than men. For example, women rated painful procedures as more painful, expressed more positive attitudes towards pain medication, and reported greater willingness to medicate calves themselves than men (Wikman et al., 2013; Tschoner et al., 2021; Shi et al., 2022). In a study aimed at assessing farmers’ attitudes to transportation, women had lower odds of choosing to view an image of Friesian bull calves in transport, which the authors interpreted as reflecting greater sensitivity to animal welfare concerns (Läpple and Arpinon, 2023). Studies also reported that women placed greater importance on specific dimensions of animal welfare, such as “basic health and feelings” (Logstein and Bjørkhaug, 2023), and that men were less likely than women to assign high importance to promoting natural behaviors (Vigors et al., 2021). Others found no association between gender and welfare-related attitudes or intentions, such as knowledge scores regarding dairy cattle welfare criteria (Sadiq et al., 2021), intention to take action to improve dairy cow foot health (Bruijnis et al., 2013), concerns about antimicrobial resistance (Ekakoro et al., 2018), animal welfare awareness scoring (Weyl-Feinstein et al., 2021) and scoring of pain severity associated with disbudding (Hambleton and Gibson, 2017).

Gender was also discussed in relation to farmers’ relationships with animals and caregiving practices. Doyle et al. (2024) reported that women had more frequent affiliative interactions with calves, including scratching or petting calves, allowing calves to sniff them, talking to calves, and giving calves names. Naming animals was also identified as an expression of attachment commonly practiced by women and children (Nogueira and Hötzel, 2024). In des Roches et al. (2016), farms where the main milker was a woman had a higher proportion of cows that could be touched. Similarly, Bertenshaw and Rowlinson (2009) reported participants’ perceptions that young stock may be more docile when reared by women. Schuppli et al. (2023) and Hopker et al. (2020) also described gendered perceptions of care, with women being perceived as having particular competence in animal care, assisting births, and caring for young or sick animals. Studies also linked gender to farm roles and responsibilities. Men were more likely to be the primarily responsible for performing euthanasia (Wagner et al., 2020), while women were often described as taking greater responsibility for milking and calf care (Hopker et al., 2020). Cardoso et al. (2019) highlighted gendered differences in decision-making authority on Brazilian dairy farms, with one advisor expressing concern that women often lacked decision-making power compared with men.

Gender-related findings were also reported in relation to specific management practices and animal health outcomes. Farms represented by women were more likely to provide calves with higher milk allowances, and women more frequently framed higher milk allowances as an investment, while men more often emphasized economic constraints (Svensson et al., 2023). Hansen et al. (2023) reported that a slightly higher proportion of farmers who had discontinued cow-calf contact were women, alongside other farm characteristics such as larger herd size, more loose housing, and younger farmer age. Farms managed by men experienced somewhat higher calf mortality rate between 22 and 90 days of age than farms managed by women (Mõtus et al., 2024). Farms associated with women also had a lower incidence of respiratory disease over a six-month period compared with calves on farms associated with men participants (Gebert and Kuhne, 2024). In contrast, no systematic differences were attributable to farmer gender in calf-dam contact preferences (Boaitey, 2024).

The findings of this rapid systematic review suggest that gender is inconsistently reported and rarely examined in the literature on dairy farmers’ perspectives of animal welfare. To assess how gender bias may operate within this body of research, the discussion is structured around the three dimensions of the gender-bias framework adapted from Ruiz-Cantero et al. (2007): (1) the extent to which gender representation was reported in the literature; (2) how gender-related findings were contextualized in relation to farming roles and responsibilities; and (3) whether studies risked reproducing assumptions of either gender neutrality or gender difference.

Gender representation

Approximately one third of the reviewed publications did not report the gender distribution of participants and, among the studies that did report gender, most relied on binary categories of “male” and “female.” Farmers’ views towards animal welfare are not socially neutral; they may be shaped by the gendered roles, responsibilities, and expectations that structure agricultural work and animal care (Contzen and Forney, 2017; Enticott et al., 2022). More consistent reporting of gender is needed for a better understanding of dairy farmers’ views of animal welfare. This does not mean that all studies need to conduct a formal gender analysis, but reporting gender is important for transparency and would facilitate further metanalysis. The Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines emphasize that sex and gender are often overlooked in research design, analysis, and reporting, limiting interpretation, generalizability, and applicability of research findings (Heidari et al., 2016). In the context of dairy cattle welfare research, reporting gender composition would allow readers to better understand the extent to which the perspectives described may disproportionately represent particular groups.

At the same time, collecting gender data requires care, as poorly designed questions may cause discomfort, confusion, or reduced trust, particularly when response options do not reflect participants’ identities, when the purpose of the question is unclear, or when terms are unfamiliar to respondents (Bauer et al., 2017; Puckett et al., 2020; Gorman et al., 2026). In the reviewed literature, a few studies provided an option other than “male” or “female”. While options such as “prefer not to say” allow participants to avoid disclosure, they do not allow gender-diverse participants to identify themselves. Similarly, broad residual categories such as “other” can be analytically unclear or marginalizing when they are not accompanied by a self-describe option, as they may obscure diverse gender identities and require researchers to decide how participants should be categorized (Puckett et al., 2020; Suen et al., 2020). Therefore, the issue may not be whether gender should be asked, but rather how it should be asked.

In the reviewed literature, most studies used the term “gender.” Likely because studies of farmers’ perspectives generally examine social roles, identities, experiences, and values, making gender a more relevant variable than biological sex. For some studies it was unclear if researchers meant gender or sex in their data. Research on transgender-inclusive survey measures shows that binary sex/gender questions can fail to identify transgender and gender-diverse respondents; indeed, more inclusive approaches such as open-ended self-description questions can improve measurement while still allowing researchers to code and interpret responses systematically (Bauer et al., 2017). As recommended by the SAGER guidelines, researchers should provide a precise and inclusive reporting of sex and gender in their data collection and reporting efforts; such as to specify if they are asking about sex assigned at birth or current gender identity, and ensure that the terminology used aligns with the purpose of the data collection (Heidari et al., 2016).

The current trend of limiting gender categories to “male” and “female” in much of the reviewed literature has both methodological and equity implications. Methodologically, it restricts the ability to understand whose views are represented in the reviewed studies. From an equity perspective, it may contribute to the continued invisibility of gender-diverse people working in dairy and arguably in other types of agriculture.

Although non-binary and gender-diverse farmers may represent a small proportion of study samples, their absence from reported data should not be interpreted as evidence that they are absent from farming communities. Rather, peer-reviewed research has documented queer and gender-diverse farmers in agricultural contexts, while also showing that agricultural surveys often omit gender identity, thereby limiting the visibility of these farmers in research datasets (Hoffelmeyer et al., 2023; Pfammatter and Jongerden, 2023; Leslie, 2017). Research on queer farmers has shown that agricultural spaces are shaped by gender normativity, and that queer farmers may navigate farming identities, labor, and family-farm structures in ways that challenge binary assumptions about gender and heteronormativity in agriculture (Hoffelmeyer, 2021; Hoffelmeyer et al., 2023). Research on farmers’ perspectives should therefore avoid reproducing these exclusions and instead make deliberate efforts to recognize the voices of female, queer, and gender-diverse farmers as part of agricultural communities whose experiences and perspectives are relevant to animal welfare research.

Gender contextualization

Although none of the reviewed publications had gender as the primary focus of analysis, some reported that gender was associated with how participants perceived, performed, or made decisions about animal welfare (e.g., Tschoner et al., 2021; Gebert and Kuhne, 2024; Mõtus et al., 2024). Gender-related findings need to be considered within their broader social contexts (Ruiz-Cantero et al., 2007). In the context of dairy cattle welfare research, gender-related results should be interpreted in relation to farmers’ roles, responsibilities, and gendered expectations within farming communities (Burton et al., 2020; Forney and Sutherland, 2021). For example, some of the reviewed studies reported inconsistent associations between gender and dairy farmers’ animal-welfare attitudes, knowledge, concerns, and intentions (e.g., Wikman et al., 2013; Hambleton and Gibson, 2017; Ekakoro et al., 2018; Vigors et al., 2021; Weyl-Feinstein et al., 2021; Logstein and Bjørkhaug, 2023). These mixed findings suggest that it is not possible to conclude that gender is a predictor of animal welfare attitudes among dairy farmers. Rather, observed differences may reflect the different forms of work, responsibility, and exposure that women and men have within dairy farming systems. A recent study published after the literature search was completed for this review supports this interpretation: Stadnick and Hötzel (2026) found that gender differences in family dairy farming in Brazil were linked not only to perceptions of animal welfare and human–animal relationships, but also to the gendered division of labor, production management, decision-making, and access to technical assistance. Changes in dairy-farm structure may also reshape how gendered roles are organized. As larger operations increasingly rely on hired labour, daily animal-care responsibilities may shift from family members to employees, increasing the importance of employee recruitment, training, motivation, and management (Barkema et al., 2015; Moore et al., 2020). Future research should examine how gender intersects with employment status and farm hierarchy to influence animal-welfare perspectives, caregiving responsibilities, and the capacity to address welfare concerns.

In the reviewed literature, women were described as having more frequent affiliative interactions with calves, being more likely to name animals, or being perceived as particularly skilled in caring for young or sick animals (Doyle et al., 2024; Schuppli et al., 2023; Hopker et al., 2020). These findings are consistent with broader agricultural research showing that farming labor is often organized through gendered expectations, with women’s work more frequently associated with care, relational labour, and tasks that may be less formally recognized as farm management (Contzen and Forney, 2017; Enticott et al., 2022). Therefore, when studies report gender-based influence on farmers’ views towards animal welfare, these findings may reflect the gendered farm roles and social expectations, rather than an inherent tendency of women to be more concerned about animal welfare.

Performing welfare-related labor and the lack of decision-making power may be associated. Some reviewed studies reported that women were more closely involved in dairy animal care (e.g., Hopker et al., 2020), but other work reports that men are more likely to have decision-making authority on dairy farms (Stadnick and Hötzel, 2026). Gender contextualization requires attention not only to who does the work, but also to whose knowledge is recognized and whose perspective is treated as representing the farm. For example, in some of the reviewed studies, female farmers were described as the “farmer’s wife” (e.g., Palczynski et al., 2020). The framing of female farmers as secondary actors or “helpers,” rather than as farmers and decision-makers in their own right, reflects broader gendered roles within agriculture. Farming identities have often been associated with masculine ideals of leadership, technical competence, and authority within the family farm, contributing to the invisibility or under-recognition of women’s labor (Beach, 2013; Stadnick and Hötzel, 2026). However, gendered expectations about femininity and responsibility for care in agriculture can challenge male-dominated farming norms (Shisler and Sbicca, 2019).

Gender-based assumptions

The reviewed literature raises questions about the assumptions that may shape how gender is interpreted in research on dairy farmers’ perspectives of animal welfare. Drawing on Ruiz-Cantero et al. (2007), gender bias can arise when differences and equalities between men and women are assumed without adequate consideration of gendered social conditions. In this review, many studies appeared to treat “farmers” as a gender-neutral group, even when the topics under investigation involved attitudes, responsibilities, or decisions that may be shaped by gendered roles.

Studies that reported gender-related differences should not be interpreted as evidence that women and men are inherently different in their concern for animal welfare. Research on calf care has specifically challenged the idea of women as “natural born care givers,” showing instead that calf-rearing identities are shaped by labor arrangements, gender relations, and patriarchal farming structures (Enticott et al., 2022). Similarly, feminine-coded forms of labor can expand understandings of farming while also reproducing gendered expectations about women’s responsibility for care (Shisler and Sbicca, 2019). Thus, assuming that women’s involvement in animal care reflects innate feminine traits risks obscuring the social and structural conditions that organize care work on farms.

Gender-based assumptions may also shape how men’s roles are interpreted. In this review, some studies suggested that men were more likely to be responsible for euthanasia or to emphasize economic constraints in relation to calf management (Wagner et al., 2020; Svensson et al., 2023). These findings should not be taken to imply that men are inherently less emotionally engaged or more economically oriented. Rather, they point to the need to examine how masculine farming norms shape the tasks, responsibilities, and forms of emotional expression considered appropriate (Coldwell, 2007; Roy et al., 2014). Research on farming communities has shown that agricultural identities are often shaped by gendered expectations of physical competence, authority, and legitimacy (Saugeres, 2002). If women are assumed to occupy caring roles and men are assumed to occupy technical, economic, or decision-making roles, research may reproduce the gendered divisions it seeks to understand. A more careful interpretation should examine how different welfare-related responsibilities become gendered within farm households and how these roles influence the perspectives that farmers express in research.

Some of the reviewed studies found no association between gender and welfare-related knowledge, concern, intentions, or preferences (e.g., Weyl-Feinstein et al., 2021; Hambleton and Gibson, 2017; Ekakoro et al., 2018). These findings are important because collectively they suggest that researchers should be cautious about gender differences in views about animal welfare. However, null findings are difficult to interpret and may simply reflect small samples or other limitations in study design. The SAGER guidelines emphasize that sex and gender should be considered in study design, analysis, reporting, and interpretation where relevant (Heidari et al., 2016). Therefore, future research should avoid both assuming gender neutrality and essentializing gender difference, instead treating gender as a social relation that may or may not shape animal welfare perspectives depending on the context, task, and position of the farmer within the farm.

Our rapid systematic review shows that gender is inconsistently reported in research on dairy farmers’ perspectives of animal welfare. In particular, we found that the views of women (and likely also gender diverse) farmers are underrepresented or included without attention to the gendered contexts shaping their experiences. Based on our findings, we offer three recommendations for future research. First, studies should consistently report participant gender using response options appropriate to the research question and respectful of participant diversity. Second, gender-related findings should be contextualized within the social organization of the target population. Third, researchers should avoid assuming gender equality and essentializing gender differences.

Although this review focused on dairy cattle welfare, its implications extend to research on farmers’ perspectives in other sectors. Future studies should examine how gender intersects with farm role, ownership, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, geography, and generation to shape farmers’ experiences, values, and attitudes. Greater attention to these dimensions would support a more inclusive and accurate understanding of the social conditions that shape human-animal relationships and enable or constrain improvements in farm animal welfare.