IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0255589.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women’s empowerment in agriculture and productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammad Hasan Mobarok
  • Theodoros Skevas
  • Wyatt Thompson

Abstract

Using productivity change as a measure of farm economic performance, we analyze the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and farm productivity change and its components, which include efficiency change, technological change, and scale efficiency change. A non-parametric Malmquist approach is used to measure farm specific productivity change and its decomposition. We use a bootstrap regression to analyze factors that cause differences in productivity change and its components, testing, in particular, the role women’s empowerment plays. The empirical application focuses on a sample of Bangladesh rice farms over the crop cultivation period 2011 and 2014. Results suggest that improvements in women’s empowerment in agriculture were associated with higher levels of productivity change, efficiency change, and technical change, while they had no impact on scale efficiency change. We find that empowering women, specifically, improving their ability to make independent choices regarding agricultural production had a statistically significant positive association with productivity change, efficiency change, and technical change. We also find that lowering the gender parity gap is positively related with improving productivity of the sample farms.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Hasan Mobarok & Theodoros Skevas & Wyatt Thompson, 2021. "Women’s empowerment in agriculture and productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0255589
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255589
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0255589
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0255589&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0255589?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. Alkire, Sabina & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Peterman, Amber & Quisumbing, Agnes & Seymour, Greg & Vaz, Ana, 2013. "The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-91.
    2. World Bank & Food and Agriculture Organization & International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2009. "Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook [Agricultura y desarrollo rural : manual sobre género en agricultura]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6603.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theodoros Skevas & Jasper Grashuis, 2023. "Evaluating dynamic productivity change of US farm supply cooperatives," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1238-1253, October.

    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. Marenya, Paswel & Kassie, Menale & Tostao, Emilio, 2015. "Fertilizer use on individually and jointly managed crop plots in Mozambique," Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), Africa Centre for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment, vol. 1(2).
    2. 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.
    3. 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).
    4. Khan, Md. Tajuddin & Kishore, Avinash & Joshi, Pramod Kumar, 2016. "Gender dimensions on farmers’ preferences for direct-seeded rice with drum seeder in India:," IFPRI discussion papers 1550, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. O'Hara, Corey & Clement, Floriane, 2018. "Power as agency: A critical reflection on the measurement of women’s empowerment in the development sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 111-123.
    6. Malapit, Hazel Jean L. & Sproule, Kathryn & Kovarik, Chiara, 2017. "Using cognitive interviewing to improve the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index survey instruments: Evidence from Bangladesh and Uganda," Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), Africa Centre for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment, vol. 2(2), April.
    7. Andre Croppenstedt & Markus Goldstein & Nina Rosas, 2013. "Gender and Agriculture: Inefficiencies, Segregation, and Low Productivity Traps," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 79-109, February.
    8. Janzen, Sarah A. & Magnan, Nicholas & Thompson, William M., 2017. "Short-term impacts of a livestock transfer and training program in rural Nepal," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 259137, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Lizanne Wheeler & Lisa Kitinoja & Diane M. Barrett, 2015. "Use of Insulated Covers over Product Crates to Reduce Losses in Amaranth during Shipping Delays," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-20, December.
    10. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2018. "Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives in Nigeria and Rural Women Livestock Keepers in Oil Host Communities," Research Africa Network Working Papers 18/060, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    11. Álvaro José Altamirano Montoya & Karla Maria Damiano Teixeira, 2017. "Multidimensional Poverty in Nicaragua: Are Female-Headed Households Better Off?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 1037-1063, July.
    12. Soumya Gupta & Prabhu L. Pingali & Per Pinstrup-Andersen, 2017. "Women’s empowerment in Indian agriculture: does market orientation of farming systems matter?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 9(6), pages 1447-1463, December.
    13. Eric R. Morgan & Johannes Charlier & Guy Hendrickx & Annibale Biggeri & Dolores Catalan & Georg Von Samson-Himmelstjerna & Janina Demeler & Elizabeth Müller & Jan Van Dijk & Fiona Kenyon & Philip Skuc, 2013. "Global Change and Helminth Infections in Grazing Ruminants in Europe: Impacts, Trends and Sustainable Solutions," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Burton, Laura J., 2015. "Underrepresentation of women in sport leadership: A review of research," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 155-165.
    15. Savath, Vivien & Fletschner, Diana & Peterman, Amber & Santos, Florence, 2014. "Land, assets, and livelihoods: Gendered analysis of evidence from Odisha State in India:," IFPRI discussion papers 1323, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Murata, Akira & Miyazaki, Suguru, 2014. "Ex-post Risk Management Among Rural Filipino Farm Households," Working Papers 67, JICA Research Institute.
    17. Sheremenko, Ganna & Magnan, Nicholas, 2015. "Gender-specific Risk Preferences and Fertilizer Use in Kenyan Farming Households," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205766, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Cull, Robert & Navajas, Sergio & Nishida, Ippei & Zeiler, Renate, 2015. "A New Index of the Business Environment for Microfinance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 357-388.
    19. Dave Nyongesa & Martin Kiogora Mwirigi & David Yongo & Stella Makokha, 2016. "Gender-concerns: do they matter in smallholder dairy groups in Kenya?," International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17.
    20. Espinoza-Delgado, José & Klasen, Stephan, 2018. "Gender and multidimensional poverty in Nicaragua: An individual based approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 466-491.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0255589. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.