Gender Inequalities and Economic Efficiency: New Evidence from Cassava‐based Farm Holdings in Rural South‐western Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract: It is a widely accepted fact that persistent inequality between men and women constrains a society's productivity and ultimately slows its rate of economic growth. The economy pays for this inequality in reduced labour productivity today and diminished national output tomorrow. Motivated by this, the study aim is to assess the possibilities of enhancing productivity gains by improving the efficiency of small‐scale agriculture through gender‐responsive intra‐household allocation of resources in south‐western Nigeria. The study adopts a stochastic parametric decomposition method which yields efficiency measures that are not distorted by statistical noise to estimate the efficiency level of resource allocation by small‐scale cassava producers. The results indicate that average overall productive efficiency in the sample was 75.78 per cent, implying that small‐scale cassava farmers in the sample could reduce total variable cost by 24.22 per cent if they reduce labour, fertilizer, land and capital applications to levels observed in the changing input mix (technical efficiency) and then obtain optimal input mix for the given input prices and technology (allocative efficiency). The average technical efficiency and allocative efficiency indexes for the sample were 82.2 per cent and 92.2 per cent respectively. Also, evidence from empirical analysis of data from the male respondents showed that the average economic, technical and allocative efficiency indexes were 88.06 per cent, 89.34 per cent and 78.67 per cent respectively while the same computed for the female sample were 94.9 per cent, 74.85 per cent and 71.03 per cent respectively. Labour was the most limiting factor in cassava production suggesting that the technologies that enhance the productivity of labour are likely to achieve significant positive effects on cassava production. The paper shares the notion that producers' control over the means of production and impact of development are related and has influence on the economic efficiency and growth of society. Again, technical inefficiency constituted a more serious problem than allocative inefficiency, thus most cost savings will accrue to improvement in technical efficiency.