IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v128y2016i1d10.1007_s11205-015-1020-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Development Hypothesis of Women Empowerment in the Millennium Development Goals Tested in the Context Women’s Access to Land in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Ambe J. Njoh

    (University of South Florida)

  • Erick Ananga

    (University of South Florida)

Abstract

An important hypothesis implicit in the third of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is tested in this study. The hypothesis is that women empowerment can facilitate attainment of other development goals. Africa is the empirical referent and people’s access to land constitutes the substantive focus. A multiple regression model having as its dependent variable, gender-based inequality in access to land (GENDINEQ) is employed. Indicators of women empowerment—women’s literacy, proportion of women with a secondary education, proportion of women with formal employment, and women in government—as stipulated in Goal #3 of the MDGs constitute the predictor variables. All but one variable, women’s literacy, are negatively associated with GENDINEQ. This affirms the hypothesized inverse relationship between women’s empowerment and gender inequality in access to land. The exception is not statistically significant and might have occurred by chance. Thus, authorities in Africa would do well to pursue gender empowerment policies as a means of increasing women’s access to land and other valuable resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambe J. Njoh & Erick Ananga, 2016. "The Development Hypothesis of Women Empowerment in the Millennium Development Goals Tested in the Context Women’s Access to Land in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 89-104, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:128:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-015-1020-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-1020-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-015-1020-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-015-1020-8?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bezabih, Mintewab & Holden, Stein, 2010. "The Role of Land Certification in Reducing Gender Gaps in Productivity in Rural Ethiopia," RFF Working Paper Series dp-10-23-efd, Resources for the Future.
    2. Bourguignon, F. & Morrisson, C., 1990. "Income distribution, development and foreign trade : A cross-sectional analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1113-1132, September.
    3. C. Mark Blackden, 1999. "Gender, Growth, and Poverty Reduction," World Bank Publications - Reports 9873, The World Bank Group.
    4. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    5. Udry, Christopher, 1996. "Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 1010-1046, October.
    6. Hanan G. Jacoby & Bart Minten, 2007. "Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective? Evidence from Madagascar," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(3), pages 461-485, June.
    7. Forsythe, Nancy & Korzeniewicz, Roberto Patricio & Durrant, Valerie, 2000. "Gender Inequalities and Economic Growth: A Longitudinal Evaluation," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 573-617, April.
    8. Ambe Njoh & Fenda Akiwumi, 2012. "The Impact of Religion on Women Empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 1-18, May.
    9. Feder, Gershon & Noronha, Raymond, 1987. "Land Rights Systems and Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Afric a," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 2(2), pages 143-169, July.
    10. Mr. Emanuele Baldacci & Mr. Larry Q Cui & Mr. Benedict J. Clements & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, 2004. "Social Spending, Human Capital, and Growth in Developing Countries: Implications for Achieving the MDGs," IMF Working Papers 2004/217, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Duflo, Esther, 2003. "Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 267-299, September.
    12. Morrisson, Christian & Jutting, Johannes P., 2005. "Women's discrimination in developing countries: A new data set for better policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1065-1081, July.
    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. Byela Tibesigwa, 2018. "Naturally Available Pollinator Decline Will Decrease Household Food and Increase Gender-Gap in Nutrition between Men and Women Who Head Smallholder Farm Households in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 741, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Qahraman Kakar, 2023. "How does Religious Rule affect the strength of women’s empowerment? A micro-level empirical analysis for Afghanistan," Erudite Working Paper 2023-08, Erudite.
    3. Tibesigwa , Byela, 2018. "Naturally Available Pollinator Decline Will Decrease Household Food Security and Increase the Gender Gap in Nutrition between Men and Women Who Head Smallholder Farm Households in Sub-Saharan Africa," EfD Discussion Paper 18-5, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    4. Muhammad Qahraman Kakar, 2021. "Ethnic Disparities, Women Education and Empowerment in South Asia," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph21-01 edited by Manon Domingues Dos Santos, September.
    5. Samuel T. Partey & Angela D. Dakorah & Robert B. Zougmoré & Mathieu Ouédraogo & Mary Nyasimi & Gordon K. Nikoi & Sophia Huyer, 2020. "Gender and climate risk management: evidence of climate information use in Ghana," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 61-75, January.
    6. Ambreen Khursheed, 2022. "Exploring the role of microfinance in women’s empowerment and entrepreneurial development: a qualitative study," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Wei Wei & Tanwne Sarker & Wioletta Żukiewicz-Sobczak & Rana Roy & G. M. Monirul Alam & Md. Ghulam Rabbany & Mohammad Shakhawat Hossain & Noshaba Aziz, 2021. "The Influence of Women’s Empowerment on Poverty Reduction in the Rural Areas of Bangladesh: Focus on Health, Education and Living Standard," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-18, June.

    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. Marc F. Bellemare, 2013. "The Productivity Impacts of Formal and Informal Land Rights: Evidence from Madagascar," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 89(2), pages 272-290.
    2. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    3. Wisdom Akpalu & Mintewab Bezabih, 2015. "Tenure Insecurity, Climate Variability and Renting out Decisions among Female Small-Holder Farmers in Ethiopia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Kazuhiro Kumo & Alexandra Koval & Irina Korgun & Olga Trofimenko, 2018. "Foreign Trade and Regional Inequality:The Case of the Russian Federation," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(3), pages 884-895.
    5. Ghebru, Hosaena, 2015. "Is There a Merit to the Continuum Tenure Approach? A Case of Demand for Land Rights Formulation in Rural Mozambique," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211683, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Ravi Kanbur, 2008. "Globalization, Growth, and Distribution," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28017.
    7. Hagos, Hosaena Gebru & Holden, Stein T., 2013. "Reverse-share-tenancy and Marshallian Inefficiency: Landowners’ bargaining power and sharecroppers’ productivity," IFPRI discussion papers 1270, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Ademola Obafemi Young, 2019. "Growth Impacts of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 226-262, December.
    9. Tsun Se Cheong & Guanghua Wan & David Kam Hung Chui, 2022. "Unveiling the Relationship between Economic Growth and Equality for Developing Countries," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(5), pages 1-28, September.
    10. Aiyar, Shekhar & Ebeke, Christian, 2020. "Inequality of opportunity, inequality of income and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Jessica Harriger-Lin & Neha Khanna & Andreas Pape, 2020. "Conspicuous consumption and peer-group inequality: the role of preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(3), pages 365-389, September.
    12. Cakal-Velagic Jurdal & Silajdzic Sabina, 2024. "The Effects of Macroeconomic and Financial Development on Income Inequality: Evidence from the Western Balkans," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 19(1), pages 50-62.
    13. Brida, Juan Gabriel & Carrera, Edgar J. Sanchez & Segarra, Verónica, 2020. "Clustering and regime dynamics for economic growth and income inequality," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 99-108.
    14. Séogo, Windinkonté & Zahonogo, Pam, 2023. "Do land property rights matter for stimulating agricultural productivity? Empirical evidence from Burkina Faso," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Emiliano Álvarez & Marcelo Álvez & Juan Gabriel Brida, 2020. "Impuesto progresivo al ingreso y crecimiento. Abordaje desde la complejidad," Documentos de trabajo 2020008, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    16. Kholeka Mdingi & Sin-Yu Ho, 2023. "Income inequality and economic growth: An empirical investigation in South Africa," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2230027-223, June.
    17. Jakub Bartak & Łukasz Jabłoński, 2020. "Inequality and growth: What comes from the different inequality measures?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 185-212, April.
    18. Campus, Daniela, 2017. "Gender differentials in agricultural productivity: an empirical evidence from Uganda," 2017 Sixth AIEAA Conference, June 15-16, Piacenza, Italy 261259, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    19. Arsham Reisinezhad, 2018. "Economic Growth and Income Inequality in Resource Countries: Theory and Evidence," PSE Working Papers halshs-01707976, HAL.
    20. Maru?a Pescu (Beca) & Camelia ?tefan (Baraba?), 2016. "The Effects of Gaps and Disparities on Economic Growth. A Study of 10 Former Socialist Countries from the CEE, Members of the EU," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 18(43), pages 592-592, August.

    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:spr:soinre:v:128:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-015-1020-8. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.