Intra-household Decision-making Research Articles

Intrahousehold Decision Making and Fertility Choices in Rural Senegal and Uganda

Feminist economic approaches have transformed mainstream economic analysis to better account for intrahousehold decision making. To quantify decision making, studies resort to self-reported survey-based measures, derived from questions directed to household members, or proxy-variable methods. This study uses a choice experiment, a stated preference method, implemented in rural Senegal and Uganda and specifically distinguishes between individual and household choices to analyze spouses’ preferences on fertility and child raising and calculate a decision-making coefficient. Findings show individual fertility preferences of men and women cannot substitute for household-level choices, and intrahousehold decision making concerning fertility and child raising is region specific. While in Uganda household fertility choices reflect a balance between the spouses’ fertility preferences, in Senegal these choices seem more dominated by the husband’s preference. This study demonstrates the importance of considering the adequate decision-making unit when designing family planning and child-centered programs and of using a region-specific approach. HIGHLIGHTS Analyzing spousal fertility and child-raising choices provides an alternative to traditional proxies for intrahousehold decision making. Choice experimental data and methods enables the calculation of a decision-making coefficient. Individual fertility preferences cannot substitute for household-level choices. Considering the adequate gender and decision-making unit is crucial in designing family planning programs.

Characterising diversity of rural farm households in Eastern Africa: implications for food security and intra-household decision-making

The heterogeneity in East African small-holder agricultural systems influences the farm households’ welfare outcomes. We examine the heterogeneity of rural farm households in Eastern Africa and the influence of such diversity on household food security and how these relate to intra-household decision-making dynamics. Using data from the Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) 1,199 households in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda were typologized using partition-based cluster analysis. These were grouped into relatively homogenous classes reflecting their socio-demographic characteristics, resource endowment and farm orientation based at a country level to reflect the unique institutional conditions within these countries. Additional analysis was then used to characterise the differences in food insecurity and intra-household decision-making of these clusters. Five distinct farm household clusters were identified in Ethiopia and Kenya, four in Malawi and three in Uganda. The main factors differentiating the farm clusters were educational attainment of the household head, levels of resource endowment, market orientation and off-farm income. Market orientated clusters and clusters comprising more educated household heads were generally more food secure across all countries. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, women had greater decision-making control in clusters comprising least educated household heads. Female decision-making control was negatively associated with the resource endowment of clusters in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. This emphasises the importance of understanding rural farm household heterogeneity when tailoring interventions to target household food insecurity and gender inequity in decision-making in Eastern Africa.

Decision-making as cognitive household labor: Higher education expansion, women empowerment, and their intra-household decision-making responsibility

This paper explores whether higher education expansion can influence women's intra-household decision-making using China's expansion policy since 1999 as a quasi-experiment. We find that the expansion significantly enhances women's higher education attainment and labor market performance, but diminishes their involvement in household decision-making. Within households, decision-making responsibilities mainly shift to other family members, not husbands. Further analysis indicates that women with earned income tend to assume fewer household decision-making responsibilities, suggesting decision-making resembles cognitive labor rather than the exercise of resource allocation power. We also observe a decline in women's adherence to traditional gender norms and an improvement in their well-being. In conclusion, higher education expansion reduces women's labor input in household chores, contributing to a narrowing of gender inequality in household labor. At last, we advise researchers to exercise caution when using decision-making as a measure of bargaining power.

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.

Women’s involvement in intra-household decision-making and infant and young child feeding practices in Central Asia

This paper examines the relationship between women’s empowerment and infant and young child feeding practices in Central Asia using Demographic and Health Survey datasets collected during 1995–2017. We employ a measure of women’s empowerment with three dimensions that is available for many recent surveys as well as a measure of decision-making power over use of one’s own income present for income-earning mothers in all surveys. We identify a positive association between a woman’s decision-making power—a measure of her instrumental agency—and adherence to World Health Organization–recommended feeding practices. We find little significant association between a woman’s attitude toward domestic violence, or her degree of social independence, and adherence to recommended feeding practices. Our results further show that the association between women’s decision-making power and feeding practices varies little with child gender, whether or not she cohabitates with her mother-in-law, or household wealth. We thus provide evidence from Central Asia that policies and programs intended to empower women can improve child feeding practices, with similar benefits across a variety of household types.

Supporting women's empowerment by changing intra‐household decision‐making: A mixed‐methods analysis of a field experiment in rural south‐west Tanzania

AbstractMotivationIn rural sub‐Saharan Africa, patriarchal social norms and customs often lead to unequal resource access, decision‐making power, and intra‐household power relations between women and men co‐heads of smallholder farm households. Household methodologies are gender‐transformative approaches that aim to achieve gender equality and empower women by improving intra‐household gender relations. Evidence of the impact of such approaches on women's empowerment is still scarce.PurposeWe assess the effects of a programme that introduces participatory intra‐household decision‐making to challenge gender relations within households on women's empowerment. The programme was delivered to monogamous couples who head smallholder coffee‐farming households in rural south‐west Tanzania.Methods and approachWe combine (quasi‐)experimental quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the programme's impact on women's empowerment and how that impact fits with women's valued domains of empowerment and individual pathways to empowerment.FindingsAwareness‐raising couple seminars, the programme's least intensive intervention, increased women's access to livestock. Intensive coaching in participatory decision‐making increased women's control over household coffee income—a priority for women. Couple seminars increased women's highly valued involvement in strategic farm decisions—intensive coaching increased it further. Access to personal income, however, valued by women for independent decision‐making for their households' wellbeing, did not change.Policy implicationsGender‐transformative approaches that challenge domestic gender relations can increase women's access to household income and resources, and increase their participation in farming decisions. Such approaches need to be complemented by interventions to increase women's human capital, knowledge of enterprises, and personal resources. Catering for women's diverse pathways towards empowerment may increase their effectiveness. Challenging deep gender norms requires long‐term engagement and trust between change agents and communities.

Gendered livelihood impacts and responses to an invasive, transboundary weed in a rural Ethiopian community

Gender as unequal power relations intersects with global environmental change threatening agriculture-based livelihoods, including land degradation, increasing climate variability, and invasive alien plants. Commonly overlooked, invasive alien plants may have gendered impacts on everyday life that disproportionately affect the less powerful. Drawing on experiences of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia’s Oromia region with an invasive, transboundary weed, Parthenium hysterophorus L., this paper illustrates how environmental change interacts with pre-existing vulnerabilities to shape individual and household-level impacts and responses. We applied a feminist perspective in livelihoods and environmental change research and praxis to explore the intersection of gendered livelihoods and parthenium management in spaces of everyday life. While invasive plants, including parthenium, may be easily perceptible in the field, understanding impacts on livelihoods requires consideration of women’s and men’s roles and responsibilities within the broader household compound as well as intra-household decision-making. Parthenium can be harmful to environmental, animal, and human health, but unduly impacts women’s labor, spaces, and assets, including cows whose milk may be tainted by grazing in parthenium-infested fields. We demonstrate the importance of considering women’s social networks and so-called reproductive space and labor to understand gendered and place-based inequities of climate change. This study reveals intimate connections between environmental stressors and gendered livelihoods. Our findings demonstrate how inequalities can be reinforced by new forms of vulnerability, with response options socially differentiated. We argue that a feminist livelihood lens helps bridge the global scale of environmental change with local scales of gendered livelihood adaptation embedded within broader socio-environmental change.

The Gendered Nature of Intra-household Decision-making in the Use of Social Grants in Zimbabwe and South Africa

The Gendered Nature of Intra-household Decision-making in the Use of Social Grants in Zimbabwe and South Africa

Gender-transformative agricultural experimentation and decision-making: Piloting GALS tools in Tanzania

Gender transformative change in agrifood systems involves understanding gender dynamics and norms and intentionally strengthening or shifting structures, practices, and relations towards equality. An important research issue is how to spark critical reflection and action that foster transformative change among participants and programme staff alike. Household Methodologies (including the Gender Action Learning System methodology) are a potential mechanism for achieving this aim. This paper follows a research process to pilot and adapt Gender Action Learning System tools in workshops with farmers in Tanzania in 2021. The study was based on prior work in Malawi. Tools were partly redesigned to provide farmers with gender-transformative decision-support tools they could deploy in innovation processes. Asking what we can learn from women and men's experiences with the tools in terms of their challenges and progress towards gender transformative change, we evaluate field notes and transcriptions from workshops and follow up visits. We add a layer of reflexivity by considering our own insights into the preconditions required for effective transformation. Findings show that the workshops stimulated considerable discussion in the host villages in Tanzania and that many - though not all - of the participants considered they had made significant commitments to more equity in intra-household decision-making, particularly around expenditures and farm planning. While taking steps towards more gender equality, farmers remain confronted with larger dynamics that lock them into vulnerable livelihoods. Questions persist about how to situate gender transformative processes in broader contexts that deny farmers' significant agency over their lives. Researchers themselves, social scientists and biophysicists, need to confront their own situatedness into hierarchical learning processes, as well as consider the implications of their different world views for the research process.

The shifters of intrahousehold decision-making in European countries

AbstractThis paper studies spouses’ intrahousehold decision-making, using unique information from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions special module on Intrahousehold Sharing of Resources. We build an index to measure the bargaining power of the wife in household decision-making in European countries and analyze how that index correlates with household demographic characteristics. We find cross-country differences in the values of this index, although estimates show that, in general, older, relatively more educated and working spouses with higher wages, have more power in intrahousehold decision-making. Furthermore, country-level conditions correlate with spouses’ bargaining power in household decision-making. The paper provides a direct empirical exploration of intrahousehold decision-making in a cross-country setting.

Housework and earnings: intrahousehold evidence from Latin America

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the intrahousehold allocation of housework and paid work in five Latin American countries. Prior work has consistently shown that income plays a major role in the region’s large gender gaps in the distribution of unpaid work at the aggregate level. However, the extent to which earnings shape intrahousehold decisions regarding the allocation of unpaid work remains unexplored. Using harmonized time-use surveys for Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, we analyze the relationship between earnings and housework drawing on the framework of the dependency, gender deviance neutralization, and autonomy. We find that in Latin America, increases in women's absolute earnings are related to decreases in the hours women devote to housework. At the same time, the allocation of men’s time into housework does not seem to be related to their own or their partners’ earnings. Against our expectations, differences in contextual gender inequality across countries does not seem to be relevant. These findings help us assess how well existing theories, formulated to account for phenomena of the developed world, apply to more unequal contexts that have higher levels of gender inequality and where a high proportion of women are excluded from paid work.

Gender roles and intra-household decision-making on child feeding practices: a qualitative study exploring gender power dynamics in Somalia

Gender roles and intra-household decision-making on child feeding practices: a qualitative study exploring gender power dynamics in Somalia

To invest or not to invest in sanitation: The role of intra-household gender differences in perceptions and bargaining power

We exploit novel data collected within a randomized controlled trial of a sanitation microcredit intervention to study how intra-household gender differences in perceptions of costs and benefits of sanitation impact investment decisions. We show that – as long as the wife is involved in household decision-making – the intra-household differences in perceptions we document influence borrowing and investments: uptake of the sanitation loan is higher among households where the wife has higher benefit perception, whereas successful conversion to a toilet depends on differences in monetary cost perceptions. The estimated effects are consistent with the predictions of a model of intra-household decision-making.

Gendered Sharing of Decision-making Powers, Responsibilities and Rights over Non-Timber Forest Resources in Cherangany Hills Forest, Kenya

Building on the Theory of Feminist Political Ecology (FPE), this paper examines the gendered sharing of intra-household decision-making powers, responsibilities, and rights over the exploitation of non-timber forest resources within Cherangany Hills Forest, Kenya. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted, semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 280 Community Forest Association (CFA) members (140 male and 140 female) that were randomly sampled, and in-depth interviews were conducted among 35 key respondents (20 CFA members, 7 CFA leaders, 2 village elders, 2 assistant chiefs, 2 forest guards, and 2 forest officers) that were purposively sampled. Quantitative data was analysed in the form of mean and standard deviation and presented in the form of percentages and graphs. This paper highlights that husbands and wives shared the decision-making powers over the use of forest land for crop farming to a ‘Great Extent’. There was substantial gendered sharing of intra-household decision-making over the use of forest land for livestock feeding. However, there was minimal gendered sharing of intra-household decision-making with regard to the collection of firewood, herbal plants, indigenous vegetables, and fruits from the forest as well as beekeeping within the forest. The husbands and wives shared the responsibilities and rights over crop farming to a ‘Great Extent’. There was substantial gendered sharing of responsibilities and rights over the collection of fodder and grazing of livestock and collection of herbal plants from the forest. But there was minimal gendered sharing of responsibilities and rights over the collection of firewood, beekeeping and honey harvesting, collection of wild vegetables and picking of indigenous fruits from the forest. There is a need to enlighten, encourage and support both men and women living adjacent to forested areas to understand forest rights, embrace on-farm forestry, and use forest resources sustainably

Agency and time poverty: Linking decision-making powers and leisure time of male and female farmers of Central India

The present study examines the gender difference in the workload and its association with the agency for intra-household decision-making. Analyzing the cross-sectional data collected from wheat farmers of Central India in 2019, we observe significant differences between male and female respondents with respect to the total number of work hours and agency on farming activities and consumption expenditure. While women provided fewer labor hours than men for different farming operations, their available leisure hours were compromised due to a greater involvement in household chores (reproductive labor). Irrespective of their higher workload, women’s involvement in intra-household decision-making was limited. More importantly, there was a tradeoff between the leisure time available for women and their involvement in decision-making. Women with agency had less leisure time than others. Land ownership was associated with a higher workload for female respondents. However, neither agency nor the possession of land titles had a significant effect in determining male farmers’ work or leisure hours. The leisure hours were particularly limited for farmers belonging to marginalized castes. These findings have implications for designing and implementing interventions with labor-related outcomes, such as programs for rural employment generation and dissemination of labor-saving technologies in agriculture.

Engaging Fathers Through Nutrition Behavior Communication Change Does Not Increase Child Dietary Diversity in a Cluster Randomized Control Trial in Rural Ethiopia

BackgroundAdding food vouchers or paternal nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) activities to maternal BCC may improve child diets and household food security but their effect is unknown. ObjectivesWe assessed whether maternal BCC, maternal and paternal BCC, maternal BCC and a food voucher, or maternal and paternal BCC and a food voucher improved nutrition knowledge, child diet diversity scores (CDDS), and household food security. MethodsWe implemented a cluster randomized control trial in 92 Ethiopian villages. Treatments were as follows: maternal (M) BCC only; maternal BCC and paternal BCC (M+P); maternal BCC and food vouchers (M+V); and maternal BCC, food vouchers, and paternal BCC (M+V+P). Effects were assessed using generalized estimating equations. ResultsMaternal BCC and paternal BCC increased the maternal and paternal knowledge of optimal infant and young child feeding practices by 4.2–6.8 percentage points (P < 0.05) and by 8.3–8.4 percentage points (P < 0.01), respectively. Combining maternal BCC with either paternal BCC or the food voucher increased CDDS by 21.0%–23.1% (P < 0.05). The treatments M, M+V, and M+P increased the proportion of children who met minimum acceptable diet standards by 14.5, 12.8, and 20.1 percentage points, respectively (P < 0.01). Adding paternal BCC to the maternal BCC treatment or to the maternal BCC and voucher treatment did not lead to a larger increase in CDDS. ConclusionsIncreased paternal involvement does not necessarily translate into improvements in child feeding outcomes. Understanding the intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that underlie this is an important area for future research.This study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT 03229629.

Do gender dynamics in intra-household decision making shift with male migration? Evidence from rice-farming households in Eastern India

This paper unpacks the complex relationship between migration of men and the decision making power of the women who “stay behind” in Bihar, Eastern India. We use mixed methods research design to assess whether women perceive a shift in decision making “authority” between different members in households where men migrate and examine the subjective meanings of these shifts. Using a retrospective survey, we map the extent to which women report shifts in decision making “authority” after the migration of male members. Decision making is examined for various activities classified into four domains: agricultural practices, labor allocation, machinery and purchase of productive assets, and household expenditure and activities. Overall, patterns indicate a nominal change in the proportional distribution of perceived household decision authority for all categories and shift toward joint decision making (by wife and husband) emerging as an important trajectory. Using multinomial regression and interpretative analysis of qualitative findings, the paper sheds light on the role of age, family type, household and migrant characteristics in shaping the direction of shifts, and limiting the transfer of meaningful bargaining power to women. The paper makes a case that the transformation of the patriarchal habitus requires a more substantial transformation of livelihood capitals.

Social norms or socioeconomic dynamics: determinants of gender-equal intra-household decision-making

Social norms or socioeconomic dynamics: determinants of gender-equal intra-household decision-making

Household decision-making, women's empowerment, and increasing egg consumption in children under five in rural Burkina Faso: Observations from a cluster randomized controlled trial

Malnutrition is one of the most long-suffering problems facing women and children across the world—it is endemic to many low- and low-middle income countries and is a leading comorbidity in CU5 mortality. Malnutrition and food security are gendered issues; not only are boys and girls differently affected by these issues, but societal norms and differing roles of women and men are often drivers of these different outcomes. The United Nations seeks to address both malnutrition and gender inequality by reaching its Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Researchers have shown that women's empowerment is inextricably linked to the nutritional outcomes of children. As one dimension of women's empowerment, intra-household decision-making is an important determinant of child health and nutrition outcomes, as it can determine how resources are allocated within the household. To better understand how gender inequalities within household decision-making may contribute to child nutrition, this study examines the association between household decision-making and the adoption of behavior change to increase chicken egg consumption among infants and young children in Burkina Faso, and explores the relationship(s) between the Un Oeuf project and women's empowerment. This study analyzes data collected during the Un Oeuf cRCT (July 2018–April 2019) and additional data that were collected in conjunction with the Un Oeuf endline household survey in April 2019. Significant relationships were found between women's household decision-making about eggs and child egg consumption at the end of the project. This was true for women who did not have decision-making power at baseline (p = 0.006, OR 3.822) as well as for women who indicted having had that power and sustaining it through endline (p = 0.013, OR 6.662). Results indicate that the Un Oeuf project significantly increased women's household decision-making (p &amp;gt; 0.005, OR 4.045). Finally, significant relationships were found between a woman's overall level of empowerment and household decision-making power surrounding (1) what is done with household eggs (p &amp;lt; 0.005, OR 2.87) and (2) how foods are portioned (p = 0.012, OR 6.712). These findings illustrate the importance and potential of women's decision-making as a point of entry to improving nutritional outcomes through changes in empowerment.

Intra-Household Decision-Making and their Effects on Women Dietary Diversity: Evidence from Ethiopia

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to analyze the status of women in household decision-making processes and their effects on dietary diversity in Ethiopia. The results indicate that men and women do not have equal decision-making authority within a household when it comes, particularly to decisions on food crop production, proportion of produced crop consumed at home and to be sold out in the market, and income generating activities. The results show variations in minimum dietary diversity for women across regions in Ethiopia. Therefore, more emphasis needed to empower women to improve their benefit from agricultural production and other income generating activities in Ethiopia.