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Women’s empowerment in agriculture and productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms

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  • Mohammad Hasan Mobarok
  • Theodoros Skevas
  • Wyatt Thompson

Abstract

Using productivity change as a measure of farm economic performance, we analyze the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and farm productivity change and its components, which include efficiency change, technological change, and scale efficiency change. A non-parametric Malmquist approach is used to measure farm specific productivity change and its decomposition. We use a bootstrap regression to analyze factors that cause differences in productivity change and its components, testing, in particular, the role women’s empowerment plays. The empirical application focuses on a sample of Bangladesh rice farms over the crop cultivation period 2011 and 2014. Results suggest that improvements in women’s empowerment in agriculture were associated with higher levels of productivity change, efficiency change, and technical change, while they had no impact on scale efficiency change. We find that empowering women, specifically, improving their ability to make independent choices regarding agricultural production had a statistically significant positive association with productivity change, efficiency change, and technical change. We also find that lowering the gender parity gap is positively related with improving productivity of the sample farms.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Hasan Mobarok & Theodoros Skevas & Wyatt Thompson, 2021. "Women’s empowerment in agriculture and productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0255589
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255589
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. World Bank & Food and Agriculture Organization & International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2009. "Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook [Agricultura y desarrollo rural : manual sobre género en agricultura]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6603, December.
    2. Alkire, Sabina & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Peterman, Amber & Quisumbing, Agnes & Seymour, Greg & Vaz, Ana, 2013. "The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-91.
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    Cited by:

    1. Theodoros Skevas & Jasper Grashuis, 2023. "Evaluating dynamic productivity change of US farm supply cooperatives," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1238-1253, October.

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