Household Gender Research Articles

Using discrete choice modeling to understand the drivers of reproductive delay in the United Kingdom

The ideal family size in the UK is, on average, two children. However, there is a fertility gap, the difference between wanted and achieved family size, of around one in three children, which is largely caused by extended delays to reproduction. Standard quantitative methods used to identify what causes these delays have limitations, often relying on macro-level data which conveys little about individual needs, or applying longitudinal methods that produce outdated results because only once people have completed their reproductive years is it possible to infer which life-course factors led to later-age childbearing. This study is the first to overcome these challenges by applying a discrete choice experiment to reveal the barriers that people are facing right now. This innovative methodology allows the estimation of the relative importance of the barriers and the distance between them measured in months of reproductive delay. Among other things, the results show that for men and women, partner support was more important than finances or housing, although support means different things depending on the level of education with more educated women prioritizing hands-on fathers and household gender equality, whereas less-educated women strongly desired stable partnerships. Men favored partner readiness and neighborhood quality. These, and the other findings shown here, provide detailed insight into the contemporary causes of delayed fertility in the UK.

Empowerment and Gender Norms among Yoruba Women and Men Cassava Producers

Yoruba women have gained a reputation as empowered traders, but their empowerment in agriculture has received less attention. This study examines the empowerment of Yoruba men and women cassava producers in Nigeria’s Southwest geopolitical zone. It combines data from an Abbreviated Women Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) survey with results from focus group discussions and key informant interviews. An additional focus is on how norms that foster balanced household gender relations interact with those that produce inequalities. Yoruba men farmers appeared more empowered than their wives in all the domains measured by the A-WEAI in spite of women’s high involvement in processing and trade. The fact that the same domains contributed most to men and women’s disempowerment points to structural issues that affect men and women unevenly. The study finds signs of emerging shifts in gender norms in this study: women demanded to be acknowledged as farmers and indicated first moves into land ownership. However, the most asymmetric effect of normative constraints experienced by women as a result of unpaid labor, alongside their own income-generating activities tend to neutralize these gains. Hence, the embeddedness of pockets of potentially symmetric institutions in a larger asymmetric patriarchal system of imbalanced resource access and agency does not produce equitable outcomes. Future research should address men’s and women’s participation in cassava trade and production and their benefits from it more holistically.

Kitchen Hinduism: Food politics and Hindi cookbooks in colonial North India

Abstract This article deliberates on the entanglements between politics and the history of food, health, and gender in Hindu middle-class households of early twentieth-century North India, through the genre of printed cookbooks in Hindi. While cookbooks became important nodes through which to construct an ideal Hindu housewife and kitchen, they were also a place where educated, middle-class women’s voices came to be heard, recorded, and published. The article shows how and why cookbooks are an important source for writing gendered social histories of the Hindu middle classes in modern India. Simultaneously, reflecting on the larger politics of food, the article focuses on the social identities embedded in these culinary texts, and the multiple meanings they embodied, as they strengthened gender, caste, and religious boundaries, constructed a past golden culinary age, upheld ayurvedic knowledge, bemoaned the present state of culinary sciences, used food to overcome the malaise of the middle classes, fashioned an ideal Hindu upper-caste palate as synonymous with a vegetarian diet, and imagined a healthy family and a strong Hindu nation through culinary idioms.

Gender wage gap and child malnutrition in Ethiopia: A probit instrumental variable method

Objective: Child malnutrition is a widespread concern in Sub-Saharan Africa. Previous studies mainly focus on the association between women's employment status and child malnutrition, however, the aim of this study is to examine the causal effect of household gender wage gap on child malnutrition in Ethiopia.Methods: This study relies on a data set consisting of 2066 children under 5 years of age using 2018/19 Living Standards Measurement Study data for Ethiopia. A probit instrumental variable (IV) method is applied to determine the causal effect.Results: Persistent gender wage gap of approximately 35% has been observed across various sectors in Ethiopia. Estimated results show that the decrease in household gender wage gap significantly enhances child growth outcomes, especially for younger girls and children in households with limited access to market. Specifically, one percentage point increase in gender wage gap is associated with a 0.74% (p<0.05) increase in the probability of stunting and a 0.42% (p<0.05) increase in the likelihood of wasting. Three mechanisms have been identified as contributing factors: more allocation of health resources to children, improved dietary diversity in the household, and increased household income.Conclusions: Policy interventions aiming at improving the children nutrition status in Ethiopia are expected to narrow down gender wage inequality accordingly. Further research is needed to explore the association using reliable and large-scale data source in other countries.

Husbands and wives: power, peril and female participation in a Ugandan coffee cooperative

PurposeFemale smallholder farmers in low-income countries face barriers to accessing capital and commodity markets. While agricultural cooperatives provide services that contribute to the income and productivity of small-scale producers, evidence of cooperatives' social and economic empowerment of female smallholders remains limited. We apply Sen's capability approach to female entrepreneurs' socioeconomic empowerment to examine whether women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative from rural western Uganda benefits their social and economic position within their household. First, we study the relationship between women's cooperative participation and their household coffee sales and savings. Second, we investigate the link between women's cooperative participation and their intra-household decision-making and whether the inclusion of the husband in his wife's cooperative strengthens or lowers women's decision-making power.Design/methodology/approachWe carry out a case study of a hybrid coffee and microfinance cooperative that promotes social innovation through the integration and empowerment of female smallholders in rural Uganda. Using a cross-sectional survey of 411 married female cooperative members from 26 randomly selected self-help groups of Bukonzo Joint Cooperative and 196 female non-members from the identical area, employing propensity score matching, this paper investigates the benefits of women's participation in a coffee and microfinance cooperative in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda. We present and discuss the results of our case study within an extensive literature on the role of institutions in collective action for women's empowerment.FindingsOur findings provide new empirical evidence on female smallholders' participation in mixed cooperatives. Our results indicate that women's participation in microfinance-producer cooperatives appears to be a conditional blessing: even though membership is linked to increased women's intra-household decision-making and raised household savings and income from coffee sales, a wife with a husband in the same cooperative self-help group is associated with diminished women's household decision-making power.Research limitations/implicationsThe focus of this study is on female coffee smallholders in an agricultural cooperative in rural western Uganda. In particular, we focus on a case study of one major coffee cooperative. Our cross-sectional survey does not allow us to infer causal interpretations. Also, the survey does not include variables that allow us to measure other dimensions of women's empowerment beyond decision-making over household expenditures and women's financial performance related to savings and income from coffee cultivation.Practical implicationsOur empirical results indicate that female smallholders' cooperative membership is associated with higher incomes and coffee sales. However, husband co-participation in their wives' cooperative group diminishes wives' decision-making, which suggests that including husbands and other family members in the same cooperative group may not be perceived as an attractive route to empowerment for female smallholders. For these reasons, an intervention that encourages the cooperation of both spouses and that is sensitive to context-specific gender inequalities, may be more successful at stimulating social change toward household gender equality than interventions that focus on women's autonomous spheres only.Originality/valueWhile the literature thus far has focused on microfinance's potential for women's empowerment, evidence on agricultural cooperatives' affecting women's social and economic position is limited. First, our findings provide novel empirical evidence on the empowering effects of women's participation in a self-help group-based coffee cooperative in rural Uganda. Second, our data allows us to explore the role of husbands' participation in their wives' cooperative and SGH. We embed our hypotheses and empirical results in a rich discussion of female entrepreneurship, microfinance and cooperative literature.

Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths: C&lt;i&gt;onsumption and Gender in the Early Seventeenth-Century Household&lt;/i&gt;

Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths: Consumption and Gender in the Early Seventeenth-Century Household: Oxford U.P., 2012: 266 pp., £60.00.

Social Capital and Gender Inequality in Contemporary China: A Quantitative Analysis from Structure-Cognition Paradigm

The dilemma of gender inequality is embodied not only in the potential confrontation under patriarchal disciplines in both household and workplace, but also the pursuit of work-family balance. This paper argues how social capital contributes to or constrains gender equality from a structural-cognitive paradigm. Three sub-concepts of social capital, namely social trust, network strength, and social exchange are included. Gender inequality is categorized as gender inequality in the family, gender inequality in the workplace, and female work-family balance. The findings suggest that social trust significantly contributes to individual support for household gender equality and female work-family balance. Besides, higher levels of network strength will lead to perception of indiscrimination between male and female in terms of working capacities. However, the practice of social exchange brings patriarchal regularities back to all three dimensions of gender inequalities, coming from the compromise and practice of gender subordination, objectification, or discrimination in exchanging favors. The article's conclusions demonstrate the necessity of bringing a typological argument of gender inequality and a structural-cognitive paradigm of social capital altogether.

An Analytical Study on Household Income and Consumption Patterns in District Bagh, Azad Jammu &amp; Kashmir

The research is an experimental exploration of the domestic income and expenditure in district Bagh AJ&amp;K (Pakistan). The study utilized primary data of March 2020 gathered through a well-developed cum comprehensive questionnaire. It comprised a sample of 400 households selected through random sampling technique. The outcome was analyzed by applying “ordinary least square” (OLS) “regression model” and ANOVA test. Results of the study showed that relationship between income of household and domestic consumption is positive and significant. It means that the increase in the domestic income also increases their consumption. This result also contented the Keynesian theory on consumption. There is no significant impact occurred to take the gender of household and consumption. So, this study omits this variable from the model. There was a positive and substantial relationship existed between household age and domestic consumption. Households’ education and domestic consumption also had a constructive and meaningful relation. It means that educated people spend more as compare to less educated. There was a negative and noteworthy relationship existed between family structure and household consumption. Family size and household consumption had been also completely correlated. Nonetheless, the research determined that both economic factors and demographic features affect household consumption pattern in district Bahg AJ&amp;K. Policy makers should formulate policies designed to increase the income level of employees for enhancing their buying power, decreasing their deficit and to increase their saving which would definitely ensure a sophisticated living standard of the study area.

Economy of production: A theory of household labor organization and material reuse

AbstractHousehold economic studies of preindustrial societies have overlooked one very specific and common material aspect: thrift. This article introduces a theory of economic production for household analysis that focuses on the economic use of materials, space, and labor. This framework is especially integral to understanding emergence of hierarchies. In emerging hierarchies, craft production at the household level can play a key part in the accumulation of power because the scale and type of craft production are moderated by the availability and abundance of material, space, and labor. Control of craft production can mean control of material, space, and labor, and thrifty control can increase production; this is key to emerging economies, particularly those located in a frontier area. Because women are often most associated with household labor, examining cultural definitions of thrift and waste provides a more complete understanding of household gender relations and reframes the importance of women's labor. Using an example from a 14th‐century Mississippian frontier site in Virginia, I show that women engaged in craft production and that by using materials, space, and labor economically, they increased their power over time. An economy of production theoretical perspective highlights a significant factor, thrift, in household organization and agency.

Achieving relationship satisfaction: household gender equality and mattering

This study delves into the dynamics of relationship satisfaction (RS) among married couples and its crucial significance for mental health and psychological well-being. Survey data encompassing variables such as the general mattering scale, gender inequality in Household Chores scale, kansas marital conflict scale, and relationship assessment scale were gathered from 128 married individuals aged 18 to 65 in urban areas of Malaysia and Indonesia. Participants furnished demographic information including age, gender, and marriage duration. The study variables were assessed through the scales mentioned earlier. The findings, derived from bootstrap analysis involving 5,000 samples at a 95% confidence interval, revealed that the extent of partners' involvement in household chores significantly predicted their perception of gender equality in domestic responsibilities. This perception, in turn, fostered an elevated sense of mattering, thereby contributing to heightened relationship satisfaction. Importantly, the general mattering scale served as a significant mediator in the relationship between partner's household involvement and relationship satisfaction. In summary, couples benefit from partners engaging in domestic chores, resulting in an enhanced sense of mutual significance, greater relationship satisfaction, and improved mental well-being. Marital conflict frequency and intensity did not emerge as significant factors in this relationship.

Rural Household’s Participation In Non-Farm Activities: The Case Of The Makuey District, Nuer Zone, Gambella Region, Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a farming nation where agriculture provides a living for a large portion of the inhabitants. Most rural households suffer from chronic poverty and food insecurity as a result of agriculture's deteriorating carrying capacity, land fragmentation, and low agricultural income. This makes rural households participate in non-farm activities to generate income to cope with these challenges. The study used a mixed study design. A step-by-step sampling procedure was used in this study in which the Makuey district was selected purposively, Puokuath and Bildak kebelle were selected at simple, random, and stratified sampling procedures were applied to select sample respondents. The study also employed a descriptive, inferential, and econometric model for data analysis. Based on the findings, only significant discrete variables were the gender, literacy level, and household credit access. Similarly, the significant continuous variables were market distance and household income. Furthermore, the main challenges facing rural households' participation in non-farm activities were bad infrastructure and negative cultural perception. The binary logit model result indicated that market distance, literacy level, and credit access were significant and negatively influenced rural households, while incomes and the gender of rural households were significant and positively influenced the rural household's involvement in non-farm activities. The study recommended that the regional and district governments should access infrastructure and create awareness about the benefits of non-farm activities.

Factors associated with HIV-positive status awareness among adults with long term HIV infection in four countries in the East and Southern Africa region: A multilevel approach.

Antiretroviral treatment (ART) appropriately and regularly used decreases the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load in the bloodstream, preventing HIV-infected people from spreading the infection to others. Disparities in ART adoption persists in East and Southern Africa, with low HIV-positive status knowledge being the primary factor. We investigated individual and household characteristics of HIV-positive status awareness among adults with long-term HIV infection in four East and Southern African countries: Eswatini, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The study analyzed data from surveys conducted in Eswatini, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe in 2015-2016. Only individuals who tested positive for HIV through rapid tests were included in the analysis. Those who already knew they were HIV-positive were categorized as aware, while those who reported being negative, never tested, or didn't know their status were categorized as unaware. Statistical models were used to examine various factors related to HIV awareness. Pooled and country-specific odds ratios were computed. The percentage of people who knew they had HIV ranged from 58% (Tanzania and Malawi) to 87% (Eswatini). After adjusting for other variables, young persons in all countries were less likely to be aware of their HIV-positive status. Gender, marital status, education, working status, household wealth, and urbanization level of households were also associated with HIV-positive status awareness but inconsistent across countries. HIV-positive status awareness in these four East and Southern African nations remained unsatisfactory as compared to the United Nations' 95% guideline, indicating that testing and knowledge of HIV testing in this region still has a lot of potential for improvement. The observed variations among nations may be attributable to differences in HIV pandemic culture and policies. The findings of this study will assist governments determining which subpopulations to target to boost adoption of HIV testing services, as well as in designing and development of policies.

Division of Household Labour and Fertility Outcomes Among Dual‐Income Australian Couples

AbstractGender revolution theories of fertility posit that when employed women have extensive child care and household responsibilities, they opt to reduce family size. This study examines how household gender inequality influences decisions to have children. Several possible mediators, including wellbeing, relationship quality, and changes in desired family size, are examined. Results from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey show that household inequality reduces the likelihood of third births when both parents work full‐time. This is mediated by relationship satisfaction: when men contribute more to household labour, their partners are more satisfied, which is associated with increased fertility.

Household Gender Roles and Slow-Onset Environmental Change in Morocco: A Barrier or Driver to Develop Migration Aspirations?

We study how slow-onset environmental changes impact the adaptive capacity of rural women living in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco. Given the immobility of many women in rural regions, we especially focus upon the internal migration aspirations of rural woman. In this way our study aims to shed light on the interrelationships between environmental change, gender relations and social and migration aspirations in a gradually environmentally degrading region. Based on Carling’s aspiration/ability model, we analyse how slow-onset environmental changes influence the internal migration aspirations and trajectories of rural women, taking into account important background factors such as household characteristics, land heritage systems and migration networks. Our study is based on 38 interviews with inhabitants of the Souss-Massa region of Morocco that (used to) work in the agricultural sector, of which 15 interviews were conducted with rural women. Our findings show the ambiguous role of slow-onset environmental changes in the development of migration aspirations of rural women in a Moroccan rural context and underscores that environmental changes should be taken into account in migration decision making processes, both for internal and international migration.

Men's household water fetching in India: Gender inequity is associated with greater responsibility and related risks.

Household water fetching elevates physical and emotional harms, and these are generally assumed to accrue to women due to gendered labor assignments. But even in cases like India where fetching remains a highly feminized task, there are households where the primary responsibility is assumed by men. We test the proposition that men's responsibility for water fetching is predicted by greater gender equity, reflected in measures of wives' empowerment. We used an extremely large, nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey dataset from India (2019-2020), narrowed to only households in which spouses co-reside with off-plot water sources (N = 10 616), and applying a multinomial regression approach. In >20% of households, men are the primary fetchers. They are more likely to have primary responsibility when water is more distant, privately purchased, or transported by vehicle. Contrary to predictions, men assume greater responsibility for household water fetching as their wives' empowerment measures decrease and when they want to control their movement. Married men in India sometimes assume responsibility for water fetching, but this is not explained by greater household gender equity. The findings also suggest that when men are responsible for fetching they have heightened risk of some forms of physical trauma but less relative psychological harm. Detailing why men fetch water matters for identifying and mitigating the physical and emotion harms of bearing responsibility for water labor, with implications for how gender should be conceptualized in water interventions intending to improve health and well-being.

“Mothers get really exhausted!” The lived experience of pregnancy in extreme heat: Qualitative findings from Kilifi, Kenya

Heat exposure in pregnancy is associated with a range of adverse health and wellbeing outcomes, yet research on the lived experience of pregnancy in high temperatures is lacking. We conducted qualitative research in 2021 in two communities in rural Kilifi County, Kenya, a tropical savannah area currently experiencing severe drought. Pregnant and postpartum women, their male spouses and mothers-in-law, community health volunteers, and local health and environment stakeholders were interviewed or participated in focus group discussions. Pregnant women described symptoms that are classically regarded as heat exhaustion, including dizziness, fatigue, dehydration, insomnia, and irritability. They interpreted heat-related tachycardia as signalling hypertension and reported observing more miscarriages and preterm births in the heat. Pregnancy is conceptualised locally as a ‘normal’ state of being, and women continue to perform physically demanding household chores in the heat, even when pregnant. Women reported little support from family members to reduce their workload at this time, reflecting their relative lack of autonomy within the household, but also potentially the ‘normalisation’ of heat in these communities. Climate change risk reduction strategies for pregnant women in low-resource settings need to be cognisant of local household gender dynamics that constrain women's capacity to avoid heat exposures.

Gender and sustainability in our home: a collaborative autoethnography linking experience, scholarship and progressive politics

Households are sites where a progressive politics of change towards sustainability can be nourished. Efforts to do so, however, must attend to gender dynamics. Our aim is to improve our understanding of how gender and sustainability intersect at the household level and engage with progressive politics in this context. To do so, we present a collaborative autoethnography focused on gender and sustainability in our household covering five years during which we experienced multiple lifecourse transitions. Building on this we answer two questions. First, how does the encounter between personal experiences and scholarship shape conceptual refinement? Second, how do personal experiences and scholarship combine to shape what we understand as progressive politics? This article not only advances the understanding of gender and sustainability in households and progressive politics in this context but also shows that collaborative autoethnography offers a valuable methodological toolkit for advancing research towards progressive politics.

A gendered approach to determinants of adoption of cassava-legume intensification technology and its impact on households’ poverty status in innovation platforms of Southwestern Nigeria

The scourge of poverty has spread over Nigeria. Efforts to address the problem have yielded no tangible results. This study investigated a gendered approach to determinants of adoption of cassava-legume intensification technology and its impact on households’ poverty status in innovation platforms. A multistage sampling technique was used in selecting 160 respondents. The adoption index, the Tobit regression model, FGT analysis, and the ordered probit regression model were used to analyze the data. The adoption intensity of cassava-legume intensification technology was relatively low (28.06%), with that of female gender households 3.20% higher than that of their male counterparts. The Tobit regression model revealed that the intensity of adoption of cassava-legume technology was positively and significantly influenced by the years of education, household size, credit accessibility and household gender participation, among other factors. In addition, the ordered probit regression model revealed that revenue generated from cassava-legume, adoption intensity of the technology, extension visits, and gender of the household head were significant factors positively affecting household poverty while household size negatively affected household poverty. This indicates that cassava-legume intensification technology can assist individuals in escaping poverty. Gender sensitivity should, however, be considered when adopting new technologies, and an enabling atmosphere should be developed to enable women to participate.

Understanding household and food system determinants of chicken and egg consumption in India

Poultry is one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors in India and its demand is said to be rising. There is a perception that higher incomes, growing population, urbanisation, and increased productivity in the industry have influenced Indian poultry consumption. However, consumer surveys have shown that the average poultry consumption in India has remained low. With this in mind, the paper analysed household determinants of chicken and egg consumption within the Indian population, using two rounds of National Sample Survey data (1993–1994 and 2011–2012). By conducting a spatiotemporal analysis of household consumption and expenditure survey and by using truncated Double Hurdle and Unconditional Quantile regressions (UQR) models, this study explored socio-economic and food system determinants of chicken and egg consumption in India. Key results highlight that while consumption has increased marginally over twenty years, supply-side determinants, such as price and poultry production concentration, influenced heterogenous consumption patterns in India. We also find evidence that historically marginalised groups consumed more chicken and eggs in comparison to non-marginalised groups and preliminary evidence suggests how household gender dynamics influence different consumption patterns. Adequate consumption of poultry is important to improve nutrient-deficient diets of vulnerable groups in India. Our findings on demand side determinants of poultry products are crucial to support consumer tailored actions to improve nutritional outcomes along with the Indian poultry sector policy planning.

Factors affecting the behaviour of domestic solid waste reduction in households:A case study in Dien Chau, Nghe An

This research aims to analyse the factors affecting the behaviour of domestic solid waste reduction in households in Dien Chau town (Nghe An province) by using the Probit regression model. The data was collected from 60 households. The results showed that the domestic solid waste in the study area is mainly from households and organic solid waste. Besides, there were solid wastes, that are paper, scrap, metal, and plastic, could be recycled and reused. Results of the surveyed households showed that there were many activities to reduce solid waste, such as waste classification at source, recycling and reuse, covert organic rubbish into compost or animal feed, etc. From the Probit model, the factors affecting the behaviour of domestic solid waste reduction at households in Dien Chau town included age, gender, and awareness of households on domestic solid waste reduction. These are affecting factors that can be used as a reference to strengthen the behaviour of reducing domestic solid waste in the study area in the coming time.