Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity and Differences in Crop Choice within the farm household in Burkina Faso

The question of whether observed or unobserved factors contribute to gender productivity differences in agriculture remains unresolved. This study uses individually managed plots of data collected in Burkina to decompose the gender productivity gap. As opposed to the existing literature, we find that female-managed plots are on average 9.4% more productive than male-managed plots. Next, the results reveal that differences in observable factors account for about 123% of this productivity gap. Consistent with the existing literature, smaller plot sizes managed by female farmers contribute to closing a large portion of the productivity gap associated with this endowment effect. Another key finding from this study is that crop choice seems to play a critical role in explaining the gender productivity differential. Staple food crops, in particular, contribute to reducing the productivity differential, while cash and semi-cash crops contribute to widening it. A deeper analysis suggests that men and women do not always cultivate the same type of crops. Male farmers are more likely to plant staple food crops and pure cash crops, while women widely cultivate semi-cash crops. This gender crop preference provides a potential explanation of the narrow gender productivity gap among small-scale farmers in Burkina Faso. Lastly, in line with previous literature, non-labor inputs increase the portion of the gender gap that observable differences explain. On the other hand, we do not find evidence of heterogenous returns in the use of non-labor inputs