Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar

Empowering women and reducing gender equality is widely recognized to contribute to agriculture growth, more civic engagement, lower economic deprivation, and better nutritional outcomes. We tested the relationship between women’s empowerment and household-level agriculture, nutrition and resilience...

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Autor principal: Gupta, Shweta
Formato: Ponencia
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: International Food Policy Research Institute 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136958
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author Gupta, Shweta
author_browse Gupta, Shweta
author_facet Gupta, Shweta
author_sort Gupta, Shweta
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Empowering women and reducing gender equality is widely recognized to contribute to agriculture growth, more civic engagement, lower economic deprivation, and better nutritional outcomes. We tested the relationship between women’s empowerment and household-level agriculture, nutrition and resilience outcomes, using a survey of 1,553 households in the eastern state of Bihar, India, drawn from the membership list of JEEViKA, a collection of women’s self-help groups. We administered the A-WEAI to both men and women within the same household to measure women’s empowerment and communitylevel gender parity. Our results showed that about 82% women and 83% men were found to be disempowered in the sample while only 6% households achieved gender parity. Empowered women were found to have better control over key household decisions such as expenditure on health, food, child education and investing surplus money. Moreover, empowered women were concentrated among historically disadvantages groups like lower castes and lower wealth quintiles, groups that have relatively egalitarian gender norms and higher participation of women in the workforce. However, such women were also found to be more food insecure than their disempowered counterparts, measured using food insecurity experience scale (FIES). More-empowered women were also less likely to report income loss and input shortages during COVID-19, have higher crop yield for non-wheat crops and reported better overall knowledge and adoption of farming practices. These results suggest women’s empowerment is crucial to achieve sustained agricultural productivity and food security and should be an important basis of poverty alleviation programs in agrarian economies.
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spelling CGSpace1369582025-11-06T06:10:47Z Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar Gupta, Shweta gender agriculture research women's empowerment Empowering women and reducing gender equality is widely recognized to contribute to agriculture growth, more civic engagement, lower economic deprivation, and better nutritional outcomes. We tested the relationship between women’s empowerment and household-level agriculture, nutrition and resilience outcomes, using a survey of 1,553 households in the eastern state of Bihar, India, drawn from the membership list of JEEViKA, a collection of women’s self-help groups. We administered the A-WEAI to both men and women within the same household to measure women’s empowerment and communitylevel gender parity. Our results showed that about 82% women and 83% men were found to be disempowered in the sample while only 6% households achieved gender parity. Empowered women were found to have better control over key household decisions such as expenditure on health, food, child education and investing surplus money. Moreover, empowered women were concentrated among historically disadvantages groups like lower castes and lower wealth quintiles, groups that have relatively egalitarian gender norms and higher participation of women in the workforce. However, such women were also found to be more food insecure than their disempowered counterparts, measured using food insecurity experience scale (FIES). More-empowered women were also less likely to report income loss and input shortages during COVID-19, have higher crop yield for non-wheat crops and reported better overall knowledge and adoption of farming practices. These results suggest women’s empowerment is crucial to achieve sustained agricultural productivity and food security and should be an important basis of poverty alleviation programs in agrarian economies. 2023-10-11 2024-01-04T12:46:32Z 2024-01-04T12:46:32Z Presentation https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136958 en Open Access application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Gupta, Shweta. 2023. Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar. Presentation. Presented at the CGIAR GENDER Conference 'From Research to Impact: Towards just and resilient agri-food systems', New Delhi, India, 9-12 October 2023. International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136958
spellingShingle gender
agriculture
research
women's empowerment
Gupta, Shweta
Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title_full Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title_fullStr Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title_full_unstemmed Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title_short Impact of women’s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural Bihar
title_sort impact of women s empowerment in agriculture on farm productivity and household resilience in rural bihar
topic gender
agriculture
research
women's empowerment
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136958
work_keys_str_mv AT guptashweta impactofwomensempowermentinagricultureonfarmproductivityandhouseholdresilienceinruralbihar