Confronting the Wall of Patriarchy: Does Participatory Intrahousehold Decision Making Empower Women in Agricultural Households?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Women’s empowerment as a multi-dimensional concept

Figure 2. Hypothesised pathways of change by which participatory intrahousehold decision making affects different dimensions of women’s empowerment

Figure 3. Study flowchart with a sequential explanatory design as mixed methods research strategy

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of outcome indicators by group (disregarding non-compliance and before matching)

		(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)	(13)
	Group	Share TLU	Share TLU A	Personal income	Share coffee income	Share coffee income A	Transparency	Time	Involvement farm decisions	Involvement farm decisions A	Involvement household decisions	Involvement household decisions A	Improved welfare	Improved welfare A
		(proportion)	(proportion)	(dummy)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(proportion)	(dummy)	(dummy)
Avg.	T	0.422	0.473	0.549	0.369	0.367	0.760	0.318	0.370	0.230	0.601	0.410	0.121	0.101
S.D.		0.373	0.343	0.498	0.477	0.446	1.280	0.242	0.305	0.277	0.295	0.286	0.327	0.302
N		287	288	346	274	266	250	317	346	346	346	346	338	336
Avg.	CACB	0.419	0.479	0.528	0.281	0.301	0.592	0.286	0.394	0.270	0.588	0.424	0.123	0.089
S.D.		0.371	0.331	0.500	0.438	0.434	1.044	0.233	0.306	0.300	0.296	0.302	0.329	0.285
N		281	277	345	270	264	242	321	345	345	345	345	341	338
Avg.	CC	0.381	0.457	0.490	0.415	0.353	0.627	0.291	0.313	0.216	0.516	0.333	0.065	0.054
S.D.		0.328	0.300	0.503	0.491	0.451	1.279	0.220	0.310	0.300	0.310	0.278	0.247	0.227
N		84	85	96	81	81	75	88	96	96	96	96	93	93
Avg.	All	0.415	0.474	0.532	0.337	0.336	0.671	0.300	0.374	0.246	0.585	0.407	0.115	0.090
S.D.		0.366	0.332	0.499	0.465	0.442	1.185	0.236	0.307	0.290	0.298	0.293	0.320	0.286
N		652	650	787	625	611	567	726	787	787	787	787	772	767

T = (Encouraged for) intensively coached group; CACB = (Selected for) control group of couples who only received a couple seminar; CC = Control group without GHA exposure; Avg. = Average; S.D. = Standard deviation.

Share TLU = Share of household tropical livestock units (TLU) (excluding poultry) the wife reported to personally or jointly own. Share TLU A = Idem but based on averages of TLU reported by husband and wife. Personal income = Indicator taking the value one if the wife reported she personally earned any income from off-farm activities, fishing, sales of livestock and/or remittances in three months prior to endline. Share coffee income = Share of total household income from selling coffee in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband, in sales transaction including receiving money. Share coffee income A = Idem but based on averages of coffee income in which the wife was involved in sales transaction reported by husband and wife. Transparency = Ratio of wife versus husband reported total household coffee income as an indicator of transparency. Time = Difference in proportion of work time (i.e. total time allocated to productive, reproductive and domestic activities) wife and husband reported to allocate to tasks in reproductive and domestic sphere. Involvement farm decisions = Percentage out of four types of strategic farm decisions in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband or another household member, based on women’s accounts. Involvement farm decisions A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon wife’s involvement. Involvement household decisions = Percentage out of four types of strategic household decisions in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband or another household member, based on women’s accounts. Involvement household decisions A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon wife’s involvement. Improved welfare = Indicator taking the value one if wife believes that the household has improved its (economic) wellbeing and/or food security situation as compared to a year before. Improved welfare A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon improved wellbeing and/or food security.

Table 2. List of conducive elements for women’s empowerment as perceived by women

	Enabling women’s empowerment within the household	# women who mentioned	Proxy in PSM
Beyond women’s	Flexible and responsible husband	9
control	Educated husband	1	Husband has some secondary education
	(negative) Large age difference	2	Age difference
	Longer marriage, more trust	4	Wife’s age
	(negative) Extra-marital relationship or polygamy	4	Polygynous (Second wife reported by husband)
Agency	Manage in a crisis situation or when the husband is not around or ill	3
	Contribute to the household’s food provision and other needs from own resources	5
	Work and contribute to investment in coffee, other cash crop or in farm development	6
	Be transparent about personal income, conditional on trust and joint decision making in household	4
	Refuse to provide labour in case of disagreement with decisions about cash crops	2
	Complain in order to influence or change husband	2
	Play the card of the children or threaten with separation	6
	Acquire or develop land during marriage (more decision making power over it)	7
Increasing bargaining	Personal income and assets	11	Wife’s off-farm income
power and/or	Personal savings (livestock, group savings)	6	Wife’s TLU
independence	Control a personal food or coffee garden	6	Wife sole decision-maker about main food crop
	Children (to add to veto-power over land)	11	Number of children
	Hide personal income to avoid that husband stops sharing household income	2
External influences	Land: Sensitisation workshops; formal land right system	3
	Membership of savings group	4	Wife’s membership of a microfinance group
	Membership of other group, for knowledge and exchange	4
	Couple seminars, household visits, HRNS authority	12
	Other husbands or cooperative couples for leverage and authority	3
	(negative) The risk of losing dignity and appreciation in community – ‘a woman is judged by her success in managing the household’ – is in the way of extra-household (group) leverage to bargaining power	3
	(negative) Other women are often ‘jealous’ of cooperation in the household (which is in the way of sharing good practice): ‘Other women consider me lucky’	3
	(negative) Norms of serving the household benefit, work hard, persevere, and put yourself aside for the sake of the children	4

Figure 4. Overview of the importance women assign to their weight in final decisions about daily needs, food and cash crops, major household expenditures, land and groups for leading the life they have reason to value

Based on rankings in a participatory exercise by 21 out of 25 respondents to whom this question was asked.

Figure 5. Pathways of women’s empowerment

The circles with a white background indicate the ‘Circumventing the wall of patriarchy’ pathway, while the circles with a grey background are additionally available to women on the ‘Breaking through the wall of patriarchy’ pathway.¹⁷

Table 3. Estimates of average treatment effects (β_x) on women’s access to assets and income and on time allocation

		(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
		Share TLU	Share TLU A	Personal income	Share coffee income	Share coffee income A	Transparency	Time
Panel A
T vs CACB	βx	0.008	0.006	0.018	0.104*	0.074	0.162	0.031
	S.E.	(0.035)	(0.031)	(0.042)	(0.043)	(0.042)	(0.099)	(0.021)
	p	[0.813]	[0.849]	[0.672]	[0.015]	[0.079]	[0.101]	[0.137]
	p adj	[1.000]	[0.998]	[0.999]	[0.097]	[0.280]	[0.514]	[0.523]
	N	558	555	678	535	521	483	627
Panel B
CACB vs CC	βx	0.013	0.007	0.054	−0.102	−0.095	−0.062	−0.028
	S.E.	(0.078)	(0.072)	(0.074)	(0.087)	(0.076)	(0.140)	(0.030)
	p	[0.871]	[0.917]	[0.460]	[0.242]	[0.214]	[0.658]	[0.342]
	p adj	[1.000]	[0.999]	[0.973]	[0.828]	[0.597]	[0.999]	[0.851]
	N	359	356	434	348	342	314	403

Estimates of local average treatment effects (LATE) (β_x) based on second stage of IV regression using two-step GMM in case of T vs CACB (Panel A) and estimates of average treatment effects using ordinary least square (OLS) regression in case of CACB vs CC (Panel B), with robust standard errors (S.E.) on matched samples using PSM and controlling for area fixed effects with a dummy for the Mubende sub-sample.¹⁸

T = Encouraged for intensive coaching; CACB = Selected for couple seminar only; CC = Without GHA exposure. p = p-value; p adj. = p-value adjusted for multiple hypotheses testing; *** significance at 99%, ** 95%, * 90 % based on p adj.

Share TLU = Share of household tropical livestock units (TLU) (excluding poultry) the wife reported to personally or jointly own. Share TLU A = Idem but based on averages of TLU reported by husband and wife. Personal income = Indicator taking the value one if the wife reported she personally earned any income from off-farm activities, fishing, sales of livestock and/or remittances in three months prior to endline. Share coffee income = Share of total household income from selling coffee in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband, in sales transaction including receiving money. Share coffee income A = Idem but based on averages of coffee income in which the wife was involved in sales transaction reported by husband and wife. Transparency = Ratio of wife versus husband reported total household coffee income as an indicator of transparency. Time = Difference in proportion of work time (i.e. total time allocated to productive, reproductive and domestic activities) wife and husband reported to allocate to tasks in reproductive and domestic sphere.

Table 4. Estimates of average treatment effects (β_x) on women’s involvement in strategic farm and household decisions and on improved household welfare

		(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
		Involvement farm decisions	Involvement farm decisions A	Involvement household decisions	Involvement household decisions A	Improved welfare	Improved welfare A
Panel A
T vs CACB	βx	−0.019	−0.034	0.018	−0.018	−0.013	0.002
	S.E.	(0.025)	(0.023)	(0.025)	(0.024)	(0.029)	(0.026)
	p	[0.441]	[0.141]	[0.475]	[0.459]	[0.648]	[0.951]
	p adj	[0.983]	[0.503]	[0.990]	[0.941]	[0.999]	[1.000]
	N	678	678	678	678	667	662
Panel B
CACB vs CC	βx	0.141***	0.093*	0.151***	0.165***	0.098***	0.072***
	S.E.	(0.043)	(0.042)	(0.044)	(0.043)	(0.023)	(0.020)
	p	[0.001]	[0.025]	[0.001]	[0.000]	[0.000]	[0.000]
	p adj	[0.007]	[0.099]	[0.007]	[0.000]	[0.000]	[0.000]
	N	434	434	434	434	427	424

Estimates of local average treatment effects (β_x) based on second stage of IV regression using two-step GMM in case of T vs CACB (Panel A) and estimates of average treatment effects using ordinary least square (OLS) regression in case of CACB vs CC (Panel B), with robust standard errors (S.E.) on matched samples using PSM and controlling for area fixed effects with a dummy for the Mubende sub-sample.¹⁹

T = Encouraged for intensive coaching; CACB = Selected for couple seminar only; CC = Without GHA exposure. p = p-value; p adj. = p-value adjusted for multiple hypotheses testing; *** significance at 99%, ** 95%, * 90 % based on p adj.

Involvement farm decisions = Percentage out of four types of strategic farm decisions in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband or another household member, based on women’s accounts. Involvement farm decisions A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon wife’s involvement. Involvement household decisions = Percentage out of four types of strategic household decisions in which the wife was involved, personally or jointly with her husband or another household member, based on women’s accounts. Involvement household decisions A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon wife’s involvement. Improved welfare = Indicator taking the value one if wife believes that the household has improved its (economic) wellbeing and/or food security situation as compared to a year before. Improved welfare A = Idem but based on husband and wife agreeing upon improved wellbeing and/or food security.

Figure 6. How the impact of introducing of participatory intrahousehold decision making fits into women’s strategies for empowerment

Introducing participatory intrahousehold decision making through couple seminars strengthened women’s involvement in strategic farm and household decision making and improved household wellbeing and/or food security (Indicated with striped grey inner circles). These changes are perceived as meaningful and valuable by women and contribute to women’s sense of agency. Introducing participatory intrahousehold decision making through intensive coaching additionally increased women’s access to household coffee income (Indicated with full grey inner circles), which women highly value and find important for their empowerment.

Data statement

The quantitative questionnaires, dataset, Stata code, and qualitative interview guide and transcripts are accessible at DOI: 10.17632/rb3zz4bx3p.2