Modes of Access to Land, and Gender Related Productivity Gap in Burkina Faso

This study analyses the sources of gender-related productivity gap and measures the impact of land access patterns on the productivity gap in Burkina Faso. The data used in this research are drawn from the latest available study on the measurement of living standards with respect to integrated agricultural surveys carried out in 2013-2014 in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso, like most countries in the sub-Saharan region, is essentially an agricultural economy. As such, knowing the causes of productivity gap between genders appears to be crucial for the formulation of policies designed to empower women. Theeconometric approach used in this work is based on the estimation of the OaxacaBlinder model, which explains the agricultural productivity gap by three (3) clusters of effects: the endowment effect, the structural effect, and the interaction effect. The results indicate that women farm managers are 26% less productive compared to men. Breaking down the sources of productivity gap reveals that the mode of access to land accounts for -300% of the endowment effect and 211.54% of the structural effect, with land purchase and land renting being the statistically significant modes of access to land. This implies that policy makers need to reform the customary laws that exclude women from land ownership.