IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/afjare/333977.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The influence of women’s empowerment on poverty reduction: A case of smallholder sugarcane farmers in western Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Lumet, Kenedy
  • Gitau, Raphael
  • Owuor, George

Abstract

This study uses primary data from smallholder sugarcane farmers in Kenya to investigate how women’s empowerment affects household poverty. Instrumental-variable tobit (IV tobit) was used to determine the causality between women’s empowerment and household poverty. The results reveal that poverty levels in households with empowered women are low compared to households without such women. Besides, education level, credit access, market access, land size, and crop and income diversification contributed positively to women’s empowerment and to the reduction in household poverty. The domains that contribute significantly to women’s disempowerment in sugarcane farming are income, work balance and leadership. These results suggest that strengthening women’s control over income and their leadership position in society are vital domains that should be targeted by rural development interventions to improve the livelihoods of smallholder women sugarcane farmers. In addition, there is a need to intensify crop diversification and increase women’s access to markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Lumet, Kenedy & Gitau, Raphael & Owuor, George, 2022. "The influence of women’s empowerment on poverty reduction: A case of smallholder sugarcane farmers in western Kenya," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 17(3), September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:afjare:333977
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.333977
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/333977/files/5.-Lumet-et-al.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.333977?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mwololo, Henry Muli & Nzuma, Jonathan Makau & Ritho, Cecilia Nyawira, 2021. "Farmer empowerment in agriculture and its association with smallholder farm incomes in Kenya," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 16(4), December.
    2. A. de Janvry & E. Sadoulet, 2002. "World Poverty and the Role of Agricultural Technology: Direct and Indirect Effects," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 1-26.
    3. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Pandolfelli, Lauren, 2010. "Promising Approaches to Address the Needs of Poor Female Farmers: Resources, Constraints, and Interventions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 581-592, April.
    4. Luc J. Christiaensen & Kalanidhi Subbarao, 2005. "Towards an Understanding of Household Vulnerability in Rural Kenya," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 14(4), pages 520-558, December.
    5. Barrett, C. B. & Reardon, T. & Webb, P., 2001. "Nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural Africa: concepts, dynamics, and policy implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 315-331, August.
    6. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Quisumbing, Agnes & Doss, Cheryl & Theis, Sophie, 2019. "Women's land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 72-82.
    7. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    8. Alkire, Sabina & Foster, James, 2011. "Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 476-487, August.
    9. Vanya Slavchevska, 2015. "Gender differences in agricultural productivity: the case of Tanzania," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(3), pages 335-355, May.
    10. Carla Dohmwirth & Ziming Liu, 2020. "Does cooperative membership matter for women’s empowerment? Evidence from South Indian dairy producers," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 133-150, April.
    11. Cheryl Doss & Chiara Kovarik & Amber Peterman & Agnes Quisumbing & Mara Bold, 2015. "Gender inequalities in ownership and control of land in Africa: myth and reality," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(3), pages 403-434, May.
    12. Sophie Theis & Nicole Lefore & Ruth Meinzen-Dick & Elizabeth Bryan, 2018. "What happens after technology adoption? Gendered aspects of small-scale irrigation technologies in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 671-684, September.
    13. ADEPOJU, Abimbola & OYEWOLE, Olaniyi, 2020. "Determinants Of Multidimensional Poverty Transitions Among Rural Households In Nigeria," Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics (RAAE), Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, vol. 23(1), March.
    14. Naila Kabeer, 1999. "Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 435-464, July.
    15. Isaac B Oluwatayo & Moyosoore A Babalola, 2020. "Asset Ownership and Income as Drivers of Household Poverty In South Africa," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 54(3), pages 119-130, July-Sept.
    16. Jayne, Thomas S. & Zulu, Ballard & Kajoba, Gear & Weber, Michael T., 2008. "Access to Land, and Poverty Reduction in Rural Zambia: Connecting the Policy Issues," Food Security Collaborative Working Papers 54493, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    17. C. Leigh Anderson & Travis W. Reynolds & Pierre Biscaye & Vedavati Patwardhan & Carly Schmidt, 2021. "Economic Benefits of Empowering Women in Agriculture: Assumptions and Evidence," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(2), pages 193-208, February.
    18. Francis Tsiboe & Yacob A. Zereyesus & Jennie S. Popp & Evelyn Osei, 2018. "The Effect of Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture on Household Nutrition and Food Poverty in Northern Ghana," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 89-108, July.
    19. Hazel Jean L. Malapit & Suneetha Kadiyala & Agnes R. Quisumbing & Kenda Cunningham & Parul Tyagi, 2015. "Women's Empowerment Mitigates the Negative Effects of Low Production Diversity on Maternal and Child Nutrition in Nepal," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(8), pages 1097-1123, August.
    20. Jones, Rebecca E. & Haardörfer, Regine & Ramakrishnan, Usha & Yount, Kathryn M. & Miedema, Stephanie S. & Roach, Timmie D. & Girard, Amy Webb, 2020. "Intrinsic and instrumental agency associated with nutritional status of East African women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kumar, Neha & Raghunathan, Kalyani & Arrieta, Alejandra & Jilani, Amir & Pandey, Shinjini, 2021. "The power of the collective empowers women: Evidence from self-help groups in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Ebelechukwu Maduekwe & Walter Timo Vries & Gertrud Buchenrieder, 2020. "Measuring Human Recognition for Women in Malawi using the Alkire Foster Method of Multidimensional Poverty Counting," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 805-824, February.
    3. Malapit, Hazel & Quisumbing, Agnes & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Seymour, Greg & Martinez, Elena M. & Heckert, Jessica & Rubin, Deborah & Vaz, Ana & Yount, Kathryn M., 2019. "Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 675-692.
    4. Rama Lionel Ngenzebuke, 2017. "The Returns of "I Do": Multifaceted Female Decision-making and Agricultural Yields in Tanzania," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2017-05, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Pace, Noemi & Sebastian, Ashwini & Daidone, Silvio & Dela O Campos, Ana Paula & Prifti, Ervin & Davis, Benjamin, 2022. "Cash transfers’ role in improving livelihood diversification strategies and well-being: short- and medium-term evidence from Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. Mahajan, Kanika, 2019. "Back to the plough: Women managers and farm productivity in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Lambrecht, Isabel Brigitte, 2016. "“As a Husband I Will Love, Lead, and Provide.” Gendered Access to Land in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 188-200.
    8. Mauricio Gallardo, 2020. "Measuring Vulnerability to Multidimensional Poverty," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 67-103, February.
    9. Gallardo, Mauricio, 2022. "Measuring vulnerability to multidimensional poverty with Bayesian network classifiers," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 492-512.
    10. Elizabeth Bryan & Elisabeth Garner, 2022. "Understanding the pathways to women’s empowerment in Northern Ghana and the relationship with small-scale irrigation," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(3), pages 905-920, September.
    11. Aziz, Noshaba & Nisar, Qasim Ali & Koondhar, Mansoor Ahmed & Meo, Muhammad Saeed & Rong, Kong, 2020. "Analyzing the women’s empowerment and food security nexus in rural areas of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan: By giving consideration to sense of land entitlement and infrastructural facilities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    12. Cheryl Doss, 2015. "Women and Agricultural Productivity: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Working Papers 1051, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    13. Aziz, Noshaba & Ren, Yanjun & Rong, Kong & Zhou, Jin, 2021. "Women’s empowerment in agriculture and household food insecurity: Evidence from Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    14. Elodie ROSSI, 2023. "Child malnutrition in Nepal: Women’s empowerment or promotion of their socioeconomic status?," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2023-04, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    15. Maduekwe, E., 2018. "Women in Agriculture: Application of Alkire Foster Method of Counting Multidimensional Deprivation towards building a Human Recognition Index for Women in Malawi," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 276974, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Isis Gaddis & Rahul Lahoti & Hema Swaminathan, 2022. "Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 331-377, June.
    17. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    18. DeJaeghere, Joan & Pellowski Wiger, Nancy & Le, Hue & Luong, Phuong & Ngo, Nga Thi Hang & Vu, Thanh Thi & Lee, Jongwook, 2022. "Why do aspirations matter for empowerment?: Discrepancies between the A-WEAI domains and aspirations of ethnic minority women in Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    19. Bonis-Profumo, Gianna & Stacey, Natasha & Brimblecombe, Julie, 2021. "Measuring women's empowerment in agriculture, food production, and child and maternal dietary diversity in Timor-Leste," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    20. Espinoza-Delgado, José & Silber, Jacques, 2018. "Multi-dimensional poverty among adults in Central America and gender differences in the three I’s of poverty: Applying inequality sensitive poverty measures with ordinal variables," MPRA Paper 88750, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor and Human Capital;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:afjare:333977. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaaeaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.