Women’s empowerment in rural Honduras and its determinants: insights from coffee communities in Ocotepeque and Copan

ABSTRACT

This article quantifies the level of women’s empowerment in western Honduran coffee-producing households through the construction of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, and highlights the determinants of each empowerment indicator and their interactions. Women in the study region suffer from a lack of control over use of income and access to productive resources. Since control and ownership of assets are positively correlated with input in productive decisions and control over the use of income in this study region, it is suggested that “low-hanging fruit” to improve empowerment would be to invest in interventions that strengthen asset control and distribution.

Cet article évalue le niveau d’autonomisation des femmes dans les foyers producteurs de café situés dans le Honduras Occidental, en utilisant l’élaboration d’un indice d’autonomisation des femmes dans l’agriculture. Par ailleurs, il souligne les déterminants de chaque indicateur pertinent et leurs interactions. Les femmes vivant dans la région étudiée souffrent d’un manque de contrôle sur l’utilisation des revenus et sur l’accès aux ressources servant à la production. Le contrôle et la possession des actifs étant positivement corrélés à la contribution aux prises de décisions en matière de production et au contrôle de l’utilisation des revenus dans cette région, les résultats suggèrent qu’un « moyen facile » d’améliorer l’autonomisation serait l’investissement dans des interventions qui renforcent le contrôle et la distribution des actifs.

Este artículo cuantifica el nivel de empoderamiento de las mujeres en los hogares productores de café en el occidente de Honduras mediante la construcción del Índice de Empoderamiento de la Mujer en la Agricultura, y destaca los determinantes de cada indicador de empoderamiento y sus interacciones. Las mujeres en la región de estudio sufren de una falta de control sobre el uso de los ingresos y el acceso a los recursos productivos. Dado que el control y la propiedad de los bienes guardan una correlación positiva con las aportaciones en las decisiones productivas y el control sobre el uso de los ingresos en esta región de estudio, se sugiere que una "fruta madura" para mejorar el empoderamiento sería invertir en intervenciones que fortalezcan el control de activos y la distribución.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Capacity development
• Environment (built and natural) – Agriculture
• Gender and diversity
• Labour and livelihoods – Poverty reduction

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the HRNS staff, both at headquarters and in the field, in facilitating data collection. Also, we would like to thank the study participants, without whom this work would have been impossible, for opening up their homes and lives to us and our research. ¡Muchísimas gracias!

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Thomas Dietz is Professor of Politics and Law at the University of Münster and previously worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.

Andrea Estrella Chong is a Research Associate and PhD candidate at the University of Münster. Previously she worked for UNDP Peru. She received her MA from Brandeis University.

Paulino Font Gilabert is a PhD candidate at the University of Essex and previously worked as a Research Assistant for the University of Münster.

Janina Grabs is a Research Associate and PhD candidate at the University of Münster. Previously she worked for GIZ and the European Commission. She received her MSc. from Bonn University and SLU Uppsala.

ORCID

Janina Grabs http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1630-5672

Notes

1 With the exception of autonomy of production. Due to the fact that only one female observation out of 145 reported not having autonomy in production, we exclude autonomy of production from our analysis since it may unduly bias results.

2 For this specific analysis, we chose to conduct OLS regression instead of correlation analysis as it allows for multivariate analysis and introducing control variables in the model.

3 According to the methodology, a high score is 0.85 or higher; a medium score ranges from 0.73 to 0.84; and a low score is 0.72 or lower.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Land Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ministerium für Innovation, Wissenschaft und Forschung [grant number 1411ng008] through its financial support of the junior research group TRANSSUSTAIN.