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Closing the Gender Gap in African Agriculture

Last updated on March 30, 2014

One of the most famous papers in development microeconomics is Chris Udry’s 1996 JPE article, in which he finds on average, within the same household and after controlling for a number of possible explanations, women remain less productive on their own plots than men are on their plots. That finding is at odds with economic theory, which dictates that productivity should be equal across all the plots owned by a given household. Here is the abstract of Udry (1996):

Virtually all models of the household assume that the allocation of resources is Pareto efficient. Within many African households, agricultural production occurs on many plots controlled by different members of the household. Pareto efficiency implies that factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots. I find, in contrast, that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men. The estimates imply that about 6 percent of output is lost because of inefficient factor allocation within the household. The paper suggests a new approach to modeling intrahousehold allocation consistent with the empirical results.

Ever since then, the gender gap in African agriculture has generated a great deal of discussion in development research and policy circles. All that has culminated a few weeks ago with the publication of a joint World Bank/ONE Campaign report on the gender gap, which discusses possible policy interventions aimed at eliminating the gender gap:

The report found that although almost half the agricultural workers across the continent are women, productivity on their farms is significantly lower per hectare compared to men. In the six countries profiled, women produce less than men, ranging from 13 percent in Uganda to 25 percent in Malawi. Other key findings include:

  • Equal access to resources such as fertiliser, farm labour and training does not always translate into equal returns for women farmers.
  • Policy interventions like securing women’s land rights and improving their access to hired labour are critical for reducing the gender gap and expanding economic growth which is needed to end poverty.

Agriculture has enormous potential to drive inclusive economic growth, improve food security, and create job opportunities for millions of Africans. Two thirds of Africa’s citizens depend on farming for their livelihoods and more than 90 percent of the poorest people engage in agriculture. Given equal access to productive resources, women farmers worldwide could increase farm yields by as much as 20 to 30 percent, meaning 100 to 150 million fewer people would go to bed hungry every day.

Although I am a bit skeptical of the “20-30% increase in yields/100-150 million fewer people going to bed hungry” estimates (because there is a whole lot of ceteris paribus that goes into coming up with such estimates, which rely on nonexperimental data to begin with), the valued added of the report, which you can read here (link opens a .pdf document) is in the policy interventions it identifies as potentially helping closing the gender gap:

  1. Strengthen women’s land rights
  2. Improve women’s access to hired labour
  3. Enhance women’s use of tools and equipment that reduce the amount of labour they need on the farm
  4. Provide community-based child care centres
  5. Encourage women to use more, higher quality fertiliser
  6. Increase women’s use of good quality seeds
  7. Tailor training to women’s needs and use social networks to spread agricultural knowledge
  8. Promote the cultivation of high-value and cash crops to women farmers
  9. Help women access and participate in markets
  10. Improve the education levels of women farmers

Finally, here is a bit more on the report from one of the World Bank’s blogs.

(ht: Mike O’Sullivan.)