Effect of women-centric community-based programme on intra-household decision making in Agriculture

We used treatment effect models to assess the effect of the women-centric community-based programme on intra-household decision making in agriculture. Using the data collected from an intra-household survey of 815 targeted and non-targeted households of a programme, we assessed the impact of women membership in a Self Help Group on dynamics of 14 farm and household related decisions by the primary decision maker and SHG member in the household. The study shows that though the role of women in decision making increased (8-10%), the effects vary according to the level of intervention and type of decision. Our results show that unlike micro-finance based SHGs, the conflicts were lesser in seed SHGs. Our study concludes that engagement of women in agriculture-based interventions could encourage joint decision making. Our finding suggests that development agencies engaged in interventions targeted to empower women should engage them in enterprising activities. Acknowledgement : We would like to acknowledge the funding support provided by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to RGMVP for the project. We acknowledge Pooja Trivedi, Neelakshi Mann, P.S. Mohanan, K.S. Yadav, Yadavendra for helping us in understanding the project and designing the study. We appreciate the team members at RGMVP especially Vivek, Samarth, Somanath, Uma, Vineet and 20 enumerators involved in the primary survey. We would also sincerely thank Mamta, Prakashan, Dhandapani, Taj, and Araty for their intellectual support and guidance in analysing the data. We also whole-heartedly thank the household members for sparing their valuable time for the study.