Effect of Group and Leader Attributes on Men and Women Farmers’ Participation in Group Activities in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Since development agencies often implement interventions through collective-action groups such as farmer cooperatives and self-help groups, there is a need to understand how participation is affected by group-level and leader attributes. This study collected gender-disaggregated, quantitative and qualitative data on sixty-eight self-help groups in Zambia to understand the participation of men and women farmers in different crop-production activities. Results show that participation rates of men and women are the same across all maize production activities except harvesting. The gender composition of members influenced men’s and women’s participation in group activities: when men were fewer in a group, they (men) participated more, while when more women were in a group (above 53 percent), the women participated less. Leader’s education level, knowledge of group agenda, and frequency of meetings also affected participation rates. To design collective action groups that promote gender equity outcomes, gender composition of groups should be considered.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Agricultural collective-action groups assembled by development organizations attempt to bolster women’s participation and leadership within the group and the community.

• These empowerment groups may inadvertently reproduce traditional gender labor roles, particularly when membership increases women’s workload.

• Attention to group dynamics demonstrates that minority group members – who are usually men – work harder and overperform due to their increased visibility within the group. Thus, increasing women’s numbers in groups has not aided the goal of increasing their participation.

• Policymakers should consider the gender composition of the group, labor roles, time commitment of participation, and leader attributes when forming collective-action groups in order to achieve gender-equity outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• group participation
• gender composition
• group identity
• Zambia

JEL CODES:

• B23
• J16

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank our partners at Self-Help Africa and the partners for the Integrated Research in Development Program (CIFOR, WorldFish, and HarvestPlus). We also thank the lead farmers of the self-help groups for their support during data collection. Finally, we acknowledge overall financial support from Irish Aid for the project. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for the insightful comments that improved this manuscript.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2020.1791926

Notes

1 All personal information that would allow the identification of any person(s) described in the article has been removed.

2 Limitations of the study can be found in the Supplemental Online Appendix.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kelvin Mulungu

Kelvin Mulungu is an agricultural economist by training. He is currently studying for his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University in the US. He obtained a Collaborative MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Egerton University in Kenya and University of Pretoria in South Africa. He worked for CGIAR as Research Manager for an agriculture for nutrition and health project in Zambia. He also worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Zambia Institute of Economic and Social Research. His research interests include nutrition, gender in agriculture, climate change, and natural resource economics.

Netsayi Noris Mudege

Netsayi Noris Mudege (PhD, Wageningen University, and MA in Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Zimbabwe) is Senior Scientist at the WorldFish based in Lusaka, Zambia. She has experience in researching on gender, health, the transition of adolescents to adulthood, and education. Before joining WorldFish she was Gender Research Coordinator at the International Potato Center where she was responsible for conducting research and coordinating the gender equity and youth employment cluster under the Roots Tubers and Bananas program. Her research interests include rural development, agriculture, education, health, gender analysis, and gender mainstreaming.