Women's empowerment in agriculture and productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Mobarok MH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8336850 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:We examined intrahousehold decision making with respect to household investment in portfolios of future rice varietal trait improvements (VTIs) to increase farm households' livelihoods in Nueva Ecija, Philippines. Investment decisions were elicited using an experimental methodology based on investment games. In the investment game, couples from rice farming households were given the opportunity to invest in public rice breeding. They selected, first individually, and then jointly, a replacement rice variety to improve upon and were then asked to allocate a research endowment fund to a portfolio of VTIs. We developed a novel indicator of women's intrahousehold decision-making power (WIDMP) based on the relative Euclidean distances between the individual and joint VTI portfolios. We found that WIDMP is normally distributed; and that, on average, women had almost equal (48%) decision-making power as men (52%), revealing almost perfect gender equity in investment decision making in rice breeding. Women were slightly more empowered if they were engaged in off-farm employment and were less experienced in farming. More empowered women had a higher discount factor and based their investment decisions on anticipated future trends, rather than current or past experience. The findings not only highlight the importance of considering gender roles in technology design, adoption and extension programs, but also have broader implications in terms of women empowerment programs. Consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), our evidence suggests that education and training programs need to be paired with investments generating off-farm employment opportunities to effectively increase women's bargaining power in the household.
| S-EPMC6876659 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper documents a positive relationship between maize productivity in western Kenya and women's empowerment in agriculture, measured using indicators derived from the abbreviated version of the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Applying a cross-sectional instrumental-variable regression method to a data set of 707 maize farm households from western Kenya, we find that women's empowerment in agriculture significantly increases maize productivity. Although all indicators of women's empowerment significantly increase productivity, there is no significant association between the women's workload (amount of time spent working) and maize productivity. Furthermore, the results show heterogenous effects with respect to women's empowerment on maize productivity for farm plots managed jointly by a male and female and plots managed individually by only a male or female. More specifically, the results suggest that female- and male-managed plots experience significant improvements in productivity when the women who tend them are empowered. These findings provide evidence that women's empowerment contributes not only to reducing the gender gap in agricultural productivity, but also to improving, specifically, productivity from farms managed by women. Thus, rural development interventions in Kenya that aim to increase agricultural productivity-and, by extension, improve food security and reduce poverty-could achieve greater impact by integrating women's empowerment into existing and future projects.
| S-EPMC5978796 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The relationship between women's empowerment and women's nutrition is understudied. We aimed to elucidate this relationship by quantifying possible pathways between empowerment and dietary diversity among women in rural Bangladesh. In 2015, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 2,599 married women ages 15-40 (median: 25) living in 96 settlements of Habiganj District, Bangladesh, as a baseline for the Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition trial. We collected data on women's empowerment (highest completed grade of schooling and agency), dietary diversity, and demographic factors, including household wealth. We used exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis on random split-half samples, followed by structural equation modelling, to test pathways from schooling, through domains of women's agency, to dietary diversity. Factor analysis revealed 3 latent domains of women's agency: social solidarity, decision-making, and voice with husband. In the adjusted mediation model, having any postprimary schooling was positively associated with voice with husband (β41 = .051, p = .010), which was positively associated with dietary diversity (β54 = .39, p = .002). Schooling also had a direct positive association with women's dietary diversity (β51 = .22, p < .001). Neither women's social solidarity nor decision-making mediated the relationship between schooling and dietary diversity. The link between schooling and dietary diversity was direct and indirect, through women's voice with husband but not through women's social solidarity or decision-making. In this population, women with postprimary schooling seem to be better able to negotiate improved diets for themselves.
| S-EPMC6866060 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundWomen in rural Bangladesh face multiple, inter-related challenges including food insecurity, malnutrition, and low levels of empowerment. We aimed to investigate the pathway towards empowerment experienced by women participating in a three-year nutrition-sensitive homestead food production (HFP) program, which was evaluated through the Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition (FAARM) cluster-randomized controlled trial.MethodsWe conducted 44 in-depth interviews and 12 focus group discussions with men and women in both intervention and control communities of the FAARM study site in rural, north-eastern Bangladesh. Using a modified grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis, we developed a framework to explain the pathway towards empowerment among HFP program participants.ResultsThe analysis and resulting framework identified seven steps towards empowerment: 1) receiving training and materials; 2) establishing home gardens and rearing poultry; 3) experiencing initial success with food production; 4) generating social or financial resources; 5) expanding agency in household decision-making; 6) producing renewable resources (e.g. farm produce) and social resources; and 7) sustaining empowerment. The most meaningful improvements in empowerment occurred among participants who were able to produce food beyond what was needed for household consumption and were able to successfully leverage these surplus resources to gain higher bargaining power in their household. Additionally, women used negotiation skills with their husbands, fostered social support networks with other women, and developed increased self-efficacy and motivation. Meanwhile, the least empowered participants lacked support in critical areas, such as support from their spouses, social support networks, or sufficient space or time to produce enough food to meaningfully increase their contribution and therefore bargaining power within their household.ConclusionsThis study developed a novel framework to describe a pathway to empowerment among female participants in an HFP intervention, as implemented in the FAARM trial. These results have implications for the design of future nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions, which should prioritize opportunities to increase empowerment and mitigate the barriers identified in our study.Trial registrationFAARM is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT02505711 ).
| S-EPMC8772198 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Women's empowerment is a process that includes increases in intrinsic agency (power within); instrumental agency (power to); and collective agency (power with). We used baseline data from two studies-Targeting and Realigning Agriculture for Improved Nutrition (TRAIN) in Bangladesh and Building Resilience in Burkina Faso (BRB)-to assess the measurement properties of survey questions operationalizing selected dimensions of intrinsic, instrumental, and collective agency in the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agricultural Index (pro-WEAI). We applied unidimensional item-response models to question (item) sets to assess their measurement properties, and when possible, their cross-context measurement equivalence-a requirement of measures designed for cross-group comparisons. For intrinsic agency in the right to bodily integrity, measured with five attitudinal questions about intimate partner violence (IPV) against women, model assumptions of unidimensionality and local independence were met. Four items showed good model fit and measurement equivalence across TRAIN and BRB. For item sets designed to capture autonomy in income, intrinsic agency in livelihoods activities, and instrumental agency in: livelihoods activities, the sale or use of outputs, the use of income, and borrowing from financial services, model assumptions were not met, model fit was poor, and items generally were weakly related to the latent (unobserved) agency construct. For intrinsic and instrumental agency in livelihoods activities and for instrumental agency in the sale or use of outputs and in the use of income, items sets had similar precision along the latent-agency continuum, suggesting that similar item sets could be dropped without a loss of precision. IRT models for collective agency were not estimable because of low reported presence and membership in community groups. This analysis demonstrates the use of IRT methods to assess the measurement properties of item sets in pro-WEAI, and empowerment scales generally. Findings suggest that a shorter version of pro-WEAI can be developed that will improve its measurement properties. We recommend revisions to the pro-WEAI questionnaire and call for new measures of women's collective agency.
| S-EPMC6876673 | biostudies-literature
Project description:With growing commitment to women's empowerment by agricultural development agencies, sound methods and indicators to measure women's empowerment are needed to learn which types of projects or project-implementation strategies do and do not work to empower women. The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), which has been widely used, requires adaptation to meet the need for monitoring projects and assessing their impacts. In this paper, the authors describe the adaptation and validation of a project-level WEAI (or pro-WEAI) that agricultural development projects can use to identify key areas of women's (and men's) disempowerment, design appropriate strategies to address identified deficiencies, and monitor project outcomes related to women's empowerment. The 12 pro-WEAI indicators are mapped to three domains: intrinsic agency (power within), instrumental agency (power to), and collective agency (power with). A gender parity index compares the empowerment scores of men and women in the same household. The authors describe the development of pro-WEAI, including: (1) pro-WEAI's distinctiveness from other versions of the WEAI; (2) the process of piloting pro-WEAI in 13 agricultural development projects during the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, phase 2 (GAAP2); (3) analysis of quantitative data from the GAAP2 projects, including intrahousehold patterns of empowerment/disempowerment; and (4) a summary of the findings from the qualitative work exploring concepts of women's empowerment in the project sites. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from pro-WEAI and possibilities for further development of empowerment metrics.
| S-EPMC6694750 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which include fostering gender equality and women's empowerment and ending hunger and malnutrition. To monitor progress and evaluate programmes that aim to achieve these goals, survey instruments are needed that can accurately assess related indicators. The project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) is being developed to address the need for an instrument that is sensitive to changes in empowerment over the duration of an intervention. The pro-WEAI includes new modules with previously untested survey questions, including a health and nutrition module (focused on women's agency in this area) and an intrahousehold relationships module. This study uses cognitive interviewing to identify how new survey questions might be misinterpreted and to understand what experiences women are referencing when they respond to these questions. This was undertaken with the goal of informing revision to the modules. The study was conducted in Bangladesh with women from nuclear, extended, and migrant-sending households and from two regions of the country to identify difficulties with interpretation and response formulation across these groups. Findings revealed that questions were generally understood, but participants occasionally responded to the wrong part of the question, did not understand key phrases, or were uncomfortable with questions. The findings also suggested ways to revise the modules and strengthen the pro-WEAI. The revised pro-WEAI health and nutrition and intrahousehold relationships modules will advance the ability to measure changes in these domains and their relationship with the health and nutritional status of women and their children.
| S-EPMC7038906 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a direct, multi-dimensional measure of women's access to resources and decision-making in various domains of agriculture. However, several challenges characterize its use: adaptation of questionnaires to local agricultural contexts, modifications to index construction once underlying activities and adequacy thresholds are modified, and sensitivity analysis. In this paper, we address such challenges based on our experience of adapting and using the WEAI across 3600 households in India. In doing so we contribute to the methodological and technical base underlying the index, expand the WEAI evidence base for South Asia, and highlight the importance of tailoring the index to specific agricultural contexts in order to impact public policies in a meaningful way.
| S-EPMC6853022 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The importance of women's roles for nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects is increasingly recognized, yet little is known about whether such projects improve women's empowerment and gender equality. We study the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, which was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial by the Government of Bangladesh. The project's treatment arms included agricultural training, nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), and gender sensitization trainings delivered to husbands and wives together - with these components combined additively, such that the impact of gender sensitization could be distinguished from that of agriculture and nutrition trainings. Empowerment was measured using the internationally-validated project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and attitudes regarding gender roles were elicited from both men and women, to explore potentially gender-transformative impacts. Our study finds that ANGeL increased both women's and men's empowerment, raised the prevalence of households achieving gender parity, and led to small improvements in the gender attitudes of both women and men. We find significant increases in women's empowerment scores and empowerment status from all treatment arms but with no significant differences across these. We find no evidence of unintended impacts on workloads and inconclusive evidence around impacts on intimate partner violence. Our results also suggest some potential benefits of bundling nutrition and gender components with an agricultural development intervention; however, many of these benefits seem to be driven by bundling nutrition with agriculture. While we cannot assess the extent to which including men and women within the same treatment arms contributed to our results, it is plausible that the positive impacts of all treatment arms on women's empowerment outcomes may have arisen from implementation modalities that provided information to both husbands and wives when they were together. The role of engaging men and women jointly in interventions is a promising area for future research.
| S-EPMC8350314 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Women's empowerment has a great influence on health, nutrition, education, and the overall well-being of societies as well as of the children and households. This study investigates the effect of women's empowerment on poverty reduction and focuses on household deprivation, in terms of education, health, and standard of living. Primary data was collected from 914 married women from rural areas of Bangladesh using a well-structured questionnaire and a random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and ordinary least squares models were used in this study. The results indicate that increased women's access to education, asset ownership, decision-making power on children's health and education, and access to medical facilities, have caused a significant decline in income poverty and multidimensional poverty. However, gender violence, taking resources against women's will, and preventing women from working outside, have caused a considerable decline in per capita income and an increase in income poverty and multidimensional poverty. Overall, it is found that women's empowerment has a great impact on the reduction of income poverty and multidimensional poverty in society. The findings of the study can assist and guide policymakers to initiate appropriate strategies for women's empowerment to reducing poverty in Bangladesh while making progress towards other social and developmental goals.
| S-EPMC8293807 | biostudies-literature