IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/afgend/361304.html

Beyond the sex of the holder: understanding agricultural production decisions within household farms in Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Hillesland, Marya
  • Slavchevska, Vanya
  • Henderson, Heath
  • Okello, Patrick
  • Oumo, Flavia Naiga

Abstract

While gender equality is an integral part of the development conversation, there are still data gaps that inhibit the measurement and analysis of gender-related issues. In particular, traditional agricultural surveys are administered to a representative male "holder" and often do not collect information about who else in the household is managing the different agricultural activities. As a result, they risk misrepresenting women’s participation in agricultural decision-making. This paper examines the extent of such misrepresentation using data from Uganda that included an agricultural decision-making module administered to both the holder and the holder’s spouse. We find that within men’s holdings many decisions are made jointly, and a notable number of decisions are made exclusively by women. We also find that male holders often underestimate their spouse’s management of agricultural activities. The traditional approach thus may conceal the complexity of decision-making in agricultural households and may consequently limit the design and implementation of inclusive agricultural programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Hillesland, Marya & Slavchevska, Vanya & Henderson, Heath & Okello, Patrick & Oumo, Flavia Naiga, . "Beyond the sex of the holder: understanding agricultural production decisions within household farms in Uganda," Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), Africa Centre for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment, vol. 5(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:afgend:361304
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.361304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/361304/files/Oumo.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.361304?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. Alderman, Harold, et al, 1995. "Unitary versus Collective Models of the Household: Is It Time to Shift the Burden of Proof?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Chen, Zhiqi & Woolley, Frances, 2001. "A Cournot-Nash Model of Family Decision Making," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(474), pages 722-748, October.
    3. Bernard, Tanguy & Doss, Cheryl & Hidrobo, Melissa & Hoel, Jessica & Kieran, Caitlin, 2020. "Ask me why: Patterns of intrahousehold decision-making," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    4. Becker, Stan & Fonseca-Becker, Fannie & Schenck-Yglesias, Catherine, 2006. "Husbands' and wives' reports of women's decision-making power in Western Guatemala and their effects on preventive health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(9), pages 2313-2326, May.
    5. Anderson, C. Leigh & Reynolds, Travis W. & Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2017. "Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-making Authority and Evidence on Intra-household Accord in Rural Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 169-183.
    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. Noel Kishaija & Bálint Heil, 2025. "Rural Land Rights, Markets, and Structural Transformation: A Review of a Ugandan Case," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, April.

    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. repec:ags:aaea21:338764 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leight, Jessica, 2021. "Like father, like son, like mother, like daughter: Intergenerational transmission of intrahousehold gender attitudes in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Baland, Jean-Marie & Bequet, Ludovic & Guirkinger, Catherine & Manuel, Clarice, 2024. "Sharing norm, household efficiency and female demand for agency in the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    4. Anderson, C. Leigh & Reynolds, Travis W. & Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2017. "Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-making Authority and Evidence on Intra-household Accord in Rural Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 169-183.
    5. Cheryl R. Doss & Agnes R. Quisumbing, 2020. "Understanding rural household behavior: Beyond Boserup and Becker," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(1), pages 47-58, January.
    6. Malapit, Hazel Jean L., 2012. "Why do spouses hide income?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 584-593.
    7. Nobuhiko FUWA & Seiro ITO & Kensuke KUBO & Takashi KUROSAKI & Yasuyuki SAWADA, 2006. "Gender Discrimination, Intrahousehold Resource Allocation, And Importance Of Spouses’ Fathers: Evidence On Household Expenditure From Rural India," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 44(4), pages 398-439, December.
    8. Bárcena-Martín, Elena & Blázquez, Maite & Moro-Egido, Ana I., 2020. "Intra-household arrangements: How important are they in terms of male-female subjective well-being?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Roy Chowdhury, Soumi & Bohara, Alok K. & Horn, Brady P., 2018. "Balance of Power, Domestic Violence, and Health Injuries: Evidence from Demographic and Health Survey of Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 18-29.
    10. Ambler, Kate & Doss, Cheryl & Kieran, Caitlin & Passarelli, Simone, 2022. "Spousal concordance in joint and separate households: Survey evidence from Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    11. Rachel C Voss & Zachary M. Gitonga & Jason Donovan & Mariana Garcia-Medina & Pauline Muindi, 2024. "Can I speak to the manager? The gender dynamics of decision-making in Kenyan maize plots," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 41(1), pages 205-224, March.
    12. Calasanti, Anna, 2025. "Asset, voice, leverage? Women’s property ownership and household decision-making in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    13. Chiappori, Pierre-André & Donni, Olivier, 2009. "Non-unitary Models of Household Behavior: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 4603, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Doss, Cheryl R., 1996. "Testing among models of intrahousehold resource allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1597-1609, October.
    15. Munro, Alistair & Bateman, Ian J. & McNally, Tara, 2008. "The family under the microscope: an experiment testing economic models of household choice," MPRA Paper 8974, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Peterman, Amber & Schwab, Benjamin & Roy, Shalini & Hidrobo, Melissa & Gilligan, Daniel O., 2021. "Measuring women’s decisionmaking: Indicator choice and survey design experiments from cash and food transfer evaluations in Ecuador, Uganda and Yemen," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    17. Teklewold, Hailemariam, 2023. "Understanding gender differences on the choices of a portfolio of climate-smart agricultural practices in sub-saharan Africa," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    18. Heggeness, Misty L., 2009. "Evidence of shifts in intra-household allocation under exogenous changes in family policy and administrative procedures: The case of school enrollment in Chile," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49450, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Judith Derndorfer & Franziska Disslbacher & Vanessa Lechinger & Katharina Mader & Eva Six, 2021. "Home, sweet home? The impact of working from home on the division of unpaid work during the COVID-19 lockdown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(11), pages 1-26, November.
    20. Donni, Olivier & Molina, José Alberto, 2018. "Household Collective Models: Three Decades of Theoretical Contributions and Empirical Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 11915, IZA Network @ LISER.
    21. Kristian Orsini & Amadéo Spadaro, 2006. "Strategic weight within couples: a microsimulation approach," Working Papers halshs-00590395, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:ags:afgend:361304. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://agrigender.net/ .

    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.