Gender Asset Gap Research Articles

‘Land is a huge integral part of our identity’: Patriarchy and the gender asset gap

AbstractThe aim of this article is to examine female participation in farming and more specifically, the reasons for the low rate of female farm ownership in Ireland where only 13% of Irish farm owners are female. Females are excluded from the occupation of a farmer because land ownership is the key needed in most instances to being a farmer in one's own right. Females are farming, but too often, they are not owners of the farms they work on. We investigate the structural and cultural factors that alleviate or contribute to the inequality in Irish farm ownership. To address the research question, a qualitative study involving 35 semi‐structured interviews was carried out with both women and men in the Irish farming sector. This research recognises the positive role the state can play, as supported by cultural and institutional theory, by making legal and financial policy changes that can help effect change.

Measuring the Gender Asset Gap: Evidence from Spain

While the income gender gap has been widely researched to date, less attention has been paid to the wealth gender gap. This paper analyses individual-level data of the Spanish tax agency between 2012 and 2017 and documents the existence of an increasing wealth gap in Spain in this period. It also finds a clear difference in wealth accumulation patterns between both genders, especially in what respects holdings of equity in productive companies. Additionally, it finds that both women and men in the highest quantiles of the wealth distribution have increased their wealth and that men hold more assets that women. With respect to income distribution, the data shows men’s income accounts for a larger share of total income, which reinforces the gender gap related to economic resources.

Gendered adaptations to climate change in the Honduran coffee sector

Despite the principal role of coffee exports in rural Latin American livelihoods, the literature on gender and climate adaptation in agriculture has paid little attention to this sector. This paper examines gender differences in on-farm and off-farm climate adaptation measures undertaken by smallholder coffee farmers in Western Honduras. We conducted 29 qualitative interviews with women and men coffee farmers in three coffee-dependent villages in Intibucá. We find that participants, regardless of gender, use few on-farm climate adaptation measures, and increasingly rely on off-farm activities such as waged employment and international migration to complement their coffee-based livelihoods. We also find that women farmers utilize fewer adaptation measures due to a gender asset gap and the gender division of labor in coffee-producing households. We conclude that women's limited access to the means of production in coffee-producing communities and their responsibilities for domestic labor impede community resilience to climate change.

A Gendered Analysis of Individual-Level Asset Poverty in Ecuador

This study uses individual-level wealth data to explore the gender dimensions of asset poverty among the principal adults in Ecuadorean households, the first such study in a developing country. The study departs from conventional practice by analyzing not only sole heads but also partnered men and women heads and show systematic differences by gender, marital status, and household type. Among both sole and partnered heads, women are more likely to be asset poor than men. Further, in contrast to developed countries, asset poverty rates are much higher among partnered men and women than among sole men and women heads, largely because of structural factors that put those in consensual unions at a disadvantage in accumulating assets. The gender gap, however, is much larger among sole heads. In Ecuador, the risk of asset poverty is mainly associated with low levels of education, type of employment, and not having received an inheritance. HIGHLIGHTS This study uses individual-level asset data to explore the extent of asset poverty in Ecuador. Women in Ecuador are more likely to be asset poor compared to men. The gender asset gap is more prominent among sole heads of household. Asset poverty rates are the highest among women in consensual unions. Education, employment, and inheritance significantly explain asset poverty.

Partners or Rivals? Exploring the Relationship between Men’s and Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh

The aim of this study is to investigate the statistical relationship between husbands’ empowerment and wives’ empowerment. Using panel data from Bangladesh that include over 4,000 husband-wife pairs, we regress husband’s empowerment on wife’s empowerment and a set of covariates. We use a domain-based framework, similar to the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, to capture the multidimensional nature of empowerment. The findings reveal that the interplay between spouses’ empowerment varies across domains. Husbands and wives act as partners with regard to community influence and daily workload adequacy. Yet, they act as rivals with regard to input in productive decisions and ownership of assets. Additionally, we identify variables that are consistently associated with husbands’ and wives’ empowerment. For wives, their income and employment are positive correlates of empowerment. For husbands, their wives’ employment is a negative correlate, whereas household wealth is a positive correlate. Notably, the results also suggest that the gender asset gap rises with household wealth.

Gender differences in risk behavior: An analysis of asset allocation decisions in Ghana

Abstract Within a developing country context, little is known about gender differences in risk preferences as reflected in asset allocation decisions. Much of the empirical literature within development studies on risk and investment in assets centers on risk coping and risk management strategies of households. With some exceptions, this literature primarily focuses on household and household-level outcomes. Previous experimental studies have explored gender differences in risk preferences in developing countries with inconclusive results. Using unique national-representative sex-disaggregated data with self-reported asset ownership and wealth information of individuals within households in Ghana from a multi-country project, The Gender Asset Gap Project, this paper explores men and women's risk preferences as reflected in asset allocation decisions through a decomposition method typically used to explore gender differences in wage employment. The study finds that although women hold significantly fewer risky assets than men in absolute terms and as a proportion of their wealth in the sample, men and women do not have systematically different risk preferences. The results in this paper differ from the results in many empirical studies in developed countries, where women are often found to be more risk averse than men. As the first study to look at gender differences in risk aversion in terms of asset allocation with in the developing country context, the results from this study provide evidence that gender differences in risk attitudes may vary by cultural context as the growing experimental literature in developing countries suggests.

The power of lump sums: Using maternity payment schedules to reduce the gender asset gap in households reached by Brazil’s Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer

Abstract Can cash assistance have an influence on gender relations inside a household? What are the processes through which this influence occurs? The present article investigates the everyday uses of money that women receive from two gender-targeted social programs in rural Brazil. Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer that disburses money to women every month. The Maternity Wage is a program that gives a sizeable lump sum to women when they become pregnant. Drawing from two years of ethnographic research in two villages in Northeastern Brazil, I show how these different payment schedules can lead to different patterns of investment in assets. I find that women typically spend monthly cash assistance on items, like clothing and furniture, that correspond to local stereotypes about feminine property. By contrast, lump sums are used by women to purchase income-generating assets, like cows and fields, that would normally be held by men. Monthly money reinforces gendered stereotypes about assets, while lump-sum money challenges those stereotypes. Lump sums thereby enable women to become the owners of wealth that generates a flow of income over time. I identify two key qualities that underlie this change: a payment’s large size and its unpredictability. These qualities affect the mental accounting that beneficiaries use to understand their money and the institutions through which they save it. By outlining such processes, the article brings the literature on conditional cash transfers into dialogue with studies on the gender asset gap. Lump sums can help to re-gender a household’s assets. This finding suggests that cash assistance policy, particularly in the case of conditional cash transfers, might be able to have an effect on gender equity by making use of targeted lump sums.

Creating the ‘Girl Effect’: Including boys and men to promote girls’ land and asset ownership

Empowering women and girls to gain access to resources is necessary to close the gender asset gap and reduce poverty. I bring together how the gender and development (GAD) approach conceptualizes the inclusion of men and boys in development programming with an analysis of a ‘Girl Effect’ intervention seeking to empower adolescent girls through land. This analysis adds to scholarship on the Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect’ campaign and reveals the structural, gendered relations of power that girls must contend with and how such empowerment includes boys and men. Modes of their inclusion indicate that the ‘Girl Effect’ has not always overcome previous GAD critiques.

Investigating the gender wealth gap in Ghana

ABSTRACTThis article explores the determinants of the substantial wealth gap between married men and women in Ghana across the wealth distribution. The data is part of the multi-country project, The Gender Asset Gap Project, and is unique in that it contains information on asset ownership at the level of the individuals within households. The study finds a large gender wealth gap at the top of the wealth distribution and that gender differences in inheritance and educational attainment contribute to a substantial part of the gap. While several studies have explored gender earning gaps, few have looked at the composition of the gender wealth gap across the distribution at the national level. This is the first study of its kind to investigate the components of the gender wealth gap within an African country context.

Women’s-Group Fishponds in Bangladesh

In this article, the authors assess the impact of a fish polyculture program introduced through women-only groups on the gender asset gap among households in the Jessore District of Bangladesh. The analysis is framed using gender structure theory to examine the ways individual, interactional, and macro forces shape the asset gap as a key gender equity outcome. The authors find that participation in the fishpond program, as a mechanism at the macro dimension of the gender structure, was associated with an increase in the gender asset gap over time.

Gender, Assets, and Agricultural Development: Lessons from Eight Projects

Ownership of assets is important for poverty reduction, and women's control of assets is associated with positive development outcomes at the household and individual levels. This research was undertaken to provide guidance for agricultural development programs on how to incorporate gender and assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions. This paper synthesizes the findings of eight mixed-method evaluations of the impacts of agricultural development projects on individual and household assets in seven countries in Africa and South Asia. The results show that assets both affect and are affected by projects, indicating that it is both feasible and important to consider assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects. All projects were associated with increases in asset levels and other benefits at the household level; however, only four projects documented significant, positive impacts on women's ownership or control of some types of assets relative to a control group, and of those only one project provided evidence of a reduction in the gender asset gap. The quantitative and qualitative findings suggest ways that greater attention to gender and assets by researchers and development implementers could improve outcomes for women in future projects.

Cultural Influences in Women-Friendly Labor-Saving Hand Tool Designs: The Milk Churner Case.

Objective:The aim of this study was to highlight the importance of culture in sustainable, labor-saving solutions design for women in low-resource settings.Background:One of the reasons behind the gender asset gap among Sub-Saharan African women is the higher labor burden these women face, making it difficult for them to produce for the home and markets. Hand tools are the simplest form and therefore the best first step to address this problem. But designing women-friendly (sustainable) hand tools calls for better understanding of the low-resource settings where these women reside.Method:A milk churner was redesigned using a human-centered (participatory) approach with groups of women from two dominant ethnolinguistic groups of Bantu and Nilotic of Uganda, and its usability was tested.Results:The churner reduced labor up to eightfold and has potential to expand the range of uses to include children and husbands due to its simplicity. Also, the churner significantly reduced undesirable health effects, like pain in knee joints. Based on the experience with the churner, a six-item “survival guide” is proposed to complement human-centered design guiding principles for facilitating the generation of solutions in low-resource settings.Conclusion:By paying great attention to culture in relation to human factors, a labor-reducing churner has been successfully introduced among Ugandan women. The ultimate goal is to make the churner available to female smallholder dairy-farming households throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.Applications:This study provides a survival guide for generating solutions to problems from low-resource settings.

Assessing gender asset-gap in agricultural development in Kenya: a comparative study of smallholder dairy farmers

This paper assesses and compares impact of gender asset-gap among smallholder dairy farmers in Uasin Gishu and Meru Counties. It uses geographical positioning system and geographical information systems in its sampling process. Data collection and analysis encompasses questionnaire administration, descriptive statistics and gender analyses. Most of the households in Uasin Gishu and Meru (73% and 68% respectively) are male-headed and managed. The female-headed and managed are 17% and 16% while the youth-headed and managed are 10% and 16%, respectively. Across gender-cadres, males own more land and are better educated than both females and youths. Decision-making on land control, access and use of proceeds from both crops and livestock is dominated by men. Men get more milk (litres/animal/day) in both seasons than women and youths. Invariably gender asset-gap is critical in agricultural development.

Gender, assets, and market-oriented agriculture: learning from high-value crop and livestock projects in Africa and Asia

Abstract Strengthening the abilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly women farmers, to produce for both home and the market is currently a development priority. In many contexts, ownership of assets is strongly gendered, reflecting existing gender norms and limiting women’s ability to invest in more profitable livelihood strategies such as market-oriented agriculture. Yet the intersection between women’s asset endowments and their ability to participate in and benefit from agricultural interventions receives minimal attention. This paper explores changes in gender relations and women’s assets in four agricultural interventions that promoted high value agriculture with different degrees of market-orientation. Findings suggest that these dairy and horticulture projects can successfully involve women and increase production, income and the stock of household assets. In some cases, women were able to increase their control over production, income and assets; however in most cases men’s incomes increased more than women’s and the gender-asset gap did not decrease. Gender- and asset-based barriers to participation in projects as well as gender norms that limit women’s ability to accumulate and retain control over assets both contributed to the results. Comparing experiences across the four projects, especially where projects implemented adaptive measures to encourage gender-equitable outcomes, provides lessons for gender-responsive projects targeting existing and emerging value chains for high value products. Other targeted support to women farmers may also be needed to promote their acquisition of the physical assets required to expand production or enter other nodes of the value chain.

Closing the Gender Asset Gap: Learning from Value Chain Development in Africa and Asia

Strengthening the abilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly women farmers, to produce for both home and the market is currently a development priority. Although value chain analysis has increasingly incorporated gender issues, the intersection between women’s asset endowments and their participation in market-oriented agriculture receives minimal attention. This paper explores initial findings from four case studies in the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project on changes in gender relations in different agricultural interventions. It documents the adaptive measures projects are taking to encourage gender-equitable value chain projects. Findings suggest that the dairy and horticulture value chain cases have successfully increased the stock of both men’s and women’s tangible assets and those assets they own jointly. The projects have also increased social and human capital, particularly for women. The projects are an important first step, but other targeted support to farmers may be needed to promote acquisition of the physical assets required to expand agribusinesses and to enter other nodes of the value chain. Further, successful value chain operations influence how people accumulate assets and the specific assets in which they are able to invest, itself a function of initial asset endowments of men, women, and households.

Collecting Sex Disaggregated Data to Improve Development Policies

This paper discusses the need for better data, the possibilities for collecting such data, and the initial findings of efforts to gather sex disaggregated data on important economic activities. Better data at the individual level, for both men and women, will facilitate much better analyses by both macroeconomists and microeconomists. While some data, especially on education and employment, are now routinely collected on individuals, other data, including on asset access and ownership, are still typically collected only at the household level. The paper argues that it is both feasible and important to collect individual-level asset data, rather than simply collecting data at the household level. At the macro level, these data are needed to understand changing patterns within the economy; at the micro-level, the data are needed to understand the economic relationships among individuals, households and communities and can help in the design of policies to promote poverty reduction, growth and development. Drawing on the data collected under the Gender Asset Gap Project, differences are demonstrated between women and men in the ownership and control of assets and in the access to specific types of capital. Periodic data on gender asset and wealth gaps tracked over time would provide insights into policies designed to reduce poverty and promote economic growth.

Closing Gender Asset Gap in Land Access and Control in A1 Schemes in Zimbabwe

Closing Gender Asset Gap in Land Access and Control in A1 Schemes in Zimbabwe

Why Women Own Less, And Why It Matters More in Rural China’s Urban Transformation

As the amount of wealth in China’s economy grows, so too does the size of the gender asset gap. Nowhere is this gap more extreme, or its consequences for women’s future wealth, subjectivity, and agency more serious, than in peri-urban sites where the conversion of farmland for development has sent property values skyrocketing. This article explores how the gender asset gap is being reproduced in the course of rural China’s urban transformation. It queries the plausibility of the most common explanations for this gap, and suggests that Charles Tilly’s theory of categorical sources of “durable inequality” offers a useful corrective to those explanations. Drawing on data collected from interviewees and survey respondents in Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, and Yunnan provinces between 2004 and 2012 and from secondary sources, the paper illustrates how, when villagers are compensated for the expropriation of their land and demolition of their agricultural and business activities and housing, Village Committees, patrilineal households, and local government authorities utilise gender categories to resolve distributional problems and differentially compensate men. Women become less likely than men to be acknowledged as, and have the capacity to fully act as, the owners, managers, and users of the assets whose value increases as a result of urbanisation.

Quantifying women's and men's rural resource portfolios – empirical evidence from Western Shoa in Ethiopia

It has been observed in many places that women access fewer resources than men across the range of resources in rural households. This unequal starting point inhibits the process of resource capitalization of women, and their capacity to move out of poverty. This article assesses the gender asset gap systematically, using data from two formal surveys undertaken in 2006 in rural Ethiopia, covering a probability sample comprising 604 farming women and men. Ethnography is used to assist in the identification of the locally relevant resources, which are organized in accordance with the sustainable livelihoods approach. The empirical analysis is dedicated to the assessment of women's and men's access to the identified range of rural resources, using descriptive statistics, and a specific analytical eye focuses on those women who head their own households. Doing so, the article quantifies the inequalities in resource access of women and men.

THE GENDER ASSET GAP: WHAT DO WE KNOW AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Is there a gender asset gap? This article examines the evidence available on the distribution of wealth by gender around the world and asks why we do not know more. One of the contributions of feminist economics has been to demonstrate that household and individual welfare are not necessarily the same. However, relatively little work has been done that disaggregates the ownership of assets within the household to determine how asset distribution affects the gendered pattern of wealth ownership overall or how it impacts household decisions and women's well-being. As an initial step in this project, a number of factors are examined that affect women's ability to accumulate wealth, with emphasis on marital and inheritance regimes. Finally, the myriad ways in which the gender distribution of wealth is important are discussed.