Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda
Agricultural advisory services are generally biased towards men, with information targeted mainly to male members within the household, and in formats that often reinforce male dominance in agricultural decision-making. Such biases affect women’s ability to make informed decisions and limit their in...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/129777 |
| _version_ | 1855523697150918656 |
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| author | Lecoutere, Els Spielman, David J. Van Campenhout, Bjorn |
| author_browse | Lecoutere, Els Spielman, David J. Van Campenhout, Bjorn |
| author_facet | Lecoutere, Els Spielman, David J. Van Campenhout, Bjorn |
| author_sort | Lecoutere, Els |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Agricultural advisory services are generally biased towards men, with information targeted mainly to male members within the household, and in formats that often reinforce male dominance in agricultural decision-making. Such biases affect women’s ability to make informed decisions and limit their intra-household bargaining power. Because women’s empowerment in agriculture has many well-established benefits, designing inclusive agricultural extension and advisory services is important. In this study, we challenge the assumption that information is fully shared between co-heads of a household. We also test if portraying women as equally able farmers challenges gender norms and stereotypes in agriculture. We do this through a field experiment in eastern Uganda in which videos that provide information on recommended maize-farming practices are shown to monogamous maize-farming households. In the experiment, we manipulate who within the household is exposed to the information contained in the video. Furthermore, we vary the gender of the person delivering the information in the video. We find that targeting the female co-head alone with information increases her knowledge about recommended practices, her role in agricultural decision-making, her subsequent adoption of recommended practices and inputs, and yields on fields she manages, while the male co-head’s knowledge about the practices and his unilateral decision-making is reduced. When both co-heads are targeted, joint adoption of recommended practices and inputs increases, while the male co-head’s unilateral decision-making is reduced. We find some support that featuring female role models in the videos challenges men’s beliefs and stereotypes about women’s roles in agriculture, and encourages adoption of recommended practices by women. We conclude that if the aim is to empower women, most gains can be made by re-designing advisory services to target information exclusively to the female co-head within the household. Challenging gender stereotypes may create room for increasing women’s involvement in agriculture. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace129777 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| publisherStr | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1297772025-10-26T12:53:19Z Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda Lecoutere, Els Spielman, David J. Van Campenhout, Bjorn advisory services agriculture gender norms households men women women's empowerment Agricultural advisory services are generally biased towards men, with information targeted mainly to male members within the household, and in formats that often reinforce male dominance in agricultural decision-making. Such biases affect women’s ability to make informed decisions and limit their intra-household bargaining power. Because women’s empowerment in agriculture has many well-established benefits, designing inclusive agricultural extension and advisory services is important. In this study, we challenge the assumption that information is fully shared between co-heads of a household. We also test if portraying women as equally able farmers challenges gender norms and stereotypes in agriculture. We do this through a field experiment in eastern Uganda in which videos that provide information on recommended maize-farming practices are shown to monogamous maize-farming households. In the experiment, we manipulate who within the household is exposed to the information contained in the video. Furthermore, we vary the gender of the person delivering the information in the video. We find that targeting the female co-head alone with information increases her knowledge about recommended practices, her role in agricultural decision-making, her subsequent adoption of recommended practices and inputs, and yields on fields she manages, while the male co-head’s knowledge about the practices and his unilateral decision-making is reduced. When both co-heads are targeted, joint adoption of recommended practices and inputs increases, while the male co-head’s unilateral decision-making is reduced. We find some support that featuring female role models in the videos challenges men’s beliefs and stereotypes about women’s roles in agriculture, and encourages adoption of recommended practices by women. We conclude that if the aim is to empower women, most gains can be made by re-designing advisory services to target information exclusively to the female co-head within the household. Challenging gender stereotypes may create room for increasing women’s involvement in agriculture. 2023-07 2023-03-27T19:25:42Z 2023-03-27T19:25:42Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/129777 en https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.133523 Open Access Elsevier Lecoutere, Els; Spielman, David J.; Van Campenhout, Bjorn. 2023. Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda. World Development 165(July 2023): 106240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106240 |
| spellingShingle | advisory services agriculture gender norms households men women women's empowerment Lecoutere, Els Spielman, David J. Van Campenhout, Bjorn Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title | Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title_full | Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title_fullStr | Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title_full_unstemmed | Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title_short | Empowering women through targeting information or role models: Evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in Uganda |
| title_sort | empowering women through targeting information or role models evidence from an experiment in agricultural extension in uganda |
| topic | advisory services agriculture gender norms households men women women's empowerment |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/129777 |
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