Economic Benefits of Empowering Women in Agriculture: Assumptions and Evidence

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses generally focus on intervention impacts or outcomes. Less common, however, are reviews of the assumptions and theory underlying the pathways between intervention and outcome. We consider the hypothetical case for interventions to empower female farmers, either by...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of development studies 2021-02, Vol.57 (2), p.193-208
Main Authors: Anderson, C. Leigh, Reynolds, Travis W., Biscaye, Pierre, Patwardhan, Vedavati, Schmidt, Carly
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Behavior change
Behavior modification
Decision making
Economic change
Empowerment
Farmers
Females
Gender differences
Health services
Intervention
Productivity
Resource allocation
Systematic review
Women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Systematic reviews and meta-analyses generally focus on intervention impacts or outcomes. Less common, however, are reviews of the assumptions and theory underlying the pathways between intervention and outcome. We consider the hypothetical case for interventions to empower female farmers, either by prioritising women for new investments or re-allocating existing resources. Empowerment is defined as increased women's decision-making authority related to agricultural resources, management and production, and income. We hypothesise two avenues through which productivity or health benefits might arise: (i) eliminating female-male differences in, e.g. input access; or (ii) leveraging gendered risk, time, and social preferences leading women to differentially allocate resources. A review of evidence highlights the extent of support for the baseline, behaviour change, and economic benefit assumptions behind these hypothesised avenues. Findings suggest returns to investing in female farmers could be significant in various contexts but estimates of economic returns to empowering women in agriculture remain limited.
ISSN:0022-0388
1743-9140
DOI:10.1080/00220388.2020.1769071