IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2013-1055.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is women's ownership of land a panacea in developing countries? Evidence from land-owning farm households in Malawi

Author

Listed:
  • Sumon K. Bhaumik
  • Ralitza Dimova
  • Ira N. Gang

Abstract

Our analysis of a rich representative household survey for Malawi, where patrilineal and matrilineal institutions coexist, suggests that (a) in matrilineal societies the likelihood of cash crop cultivation by a household increases with the extent of land owned (or de facto controlled) by males, and (b) and cultivation of cash crops increases household welfare. The policy implication is that facilitating female ownership of assets through informal and formal institutions does not, on its own, increase welfare, if women do not have access to complementary resources that are needed to generate income from those assets.

Suggested Citation

  • Sumon K. Bhaumik & Ralitza Dimova & Ira N. Gang, 2013. "Is women's ownership of land a panacea in developing countries? Evidence from land-owning farm households in Malawi," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1055, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2013-1055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133074/1/wp1055.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhaumik, Sumon Kumar & Estrin, Saul, 2007. "How transition paths differ: Enterprise performance in Russia and China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 374-392, March.
    2. Quisumbing, Agnes R., 1994. "Intergenerational transfers in Philippine rice villages : Gender differences in traditional inheritance customs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 167-195, April.
    3. Kilic, Talip & Palacios-López, Amparo & Goldstein, Markus, 2015. "Caught in a Productivity Trap: A Distributional Perspective on Gender Differences in Malawian Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 416-463.
    4. Duflo, Esther & Udry, Christopher R., 2003. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Cote D'Ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices," Center Discussion Papers 28404, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    5. Carmen Diana Deere & Cheryl R. Doss, 2006. "Gender and the Distribution of Wealth in Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-115, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Adams, Richard H. Jr., 2006. "Remittances and poverty in Ghana," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3838, The World Bank.
    7. Markus Goldstein & Christopher Udry, 2008. "The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 981-1022, December.
    8. Ralitza Dimova & Shubhashis Gangopadhyay & Katharina Michaelowa & Anke Weber, 2015. "Off-Farm Labor Supply and Correlated Shocks: New Theoretical Insights and Evidence from Malawi," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(2), pages 361-391.
    9. M. Fafchamps & A. R. Quisumbing, 2002. "Control and Ownership of Assets Within Rural Ethiopian Households," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 47-82.
    10. C. Mark Blackden, 1999. "Gender, Growth, and Poverty Reduction," World Bank Publications - Reports 9873, The World Bank Group.
    11. Adams, Richard H. Jr., 2004. "Remittances and poverty in Guatemala," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3418, The World Bank.
    12. Udry, Christopher, 1996. "Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 1010-1046, October.
    13. Bhaumik, Sumon Kumar & Gang, Ira N. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2006. "Ethnic conflict and economic disparity: Serbians and Albanians in Kosovo," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 754-773, December.
    14. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    15. Allendorf, Keera, 2007. "Do Women's Land Rights Promote Empowerment and Child Health in Nepal?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1975-1988, November.
    16. Dimova, Ralitza & Wolff, François-Charles, 2008. "Are private transfers poverty and inequality reducing? Household level evidence from Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 584-598, December.
    17. Glewwe, Paul & Hall, Gillette, 1998. "Are some groups more vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks than others? Hypothesis tests based on panel data from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 181-206, June.
    18. Harrigan, Jane, 2003. "U-Turns and Full Circles: Two Decades of Agricultural Reform in Malawi 1981-2000," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 847-863, May.
    19. Puetz, Detlev & Webb, Patrick & von Braun, Joachim, 1989. "Irrigation technology and commercialization of rice in the Gambia: effects on income and nutrition," Research reports 75, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    20. Talip Kilic & Amparo Palacios-Lopez & Markus Goldstein, 2013. "Caught in a Productivity Trap," World Bank Publications - Reports 25461, The World Bank Group.
    21. Goetz, Anne Marie & Gupta, Rina Sen, 1996. "Who takes the credit? Gender, power, and control over loan use in rural credit programs in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 45-63, January.
    22. Doss, Cheryl & Grown, Caren & Deere, Carmen Diana, 2011. "Gender and asset ownership : a guide to collecting individual-level data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4704, The World Bank.
    23. Place, Frank & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2001. "Population, Tenure, and Natural Resource Management: The Case of Customary Land Area in Malawi," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 13-32, January.
    24. Joireman, S.F., 2008. "The Mystery of Capital Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Women, Property Rights and Customary Law," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1233-1246, July.
    25. Folbre, Nancy, 1986. "Hearts and spades: Paradigms of household economics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 245-255, February.
    26. Agnes R. Quisumbing & John A. Maluccio, 2003. "Resources at Marriage and Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 283-327, July.
    27. Agarwal, Bina, 1994. "Gender and command over property: A critical gap in economic analysis and policy in South Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 1455-1478, October.
    28. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 903-937, October.
    29. Cheryl Doss, 2006. "The Effects of Intrahousehold Property Ownership on Expenditure Patterns in Ghana," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(1), pages 149-180, March.
    30. Luke, Nancy & Munshi, Kaivan, 2011. "Women as agents of change: Female income and mobility in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 1-17, January.
    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. Rutakumwa, Rwamahe & Pain, Adam & Bukenya, Dominic & Tumwekwase, Grace & Ssembajja, Fatuma & Seeley, Janet, 2017. "Gender, land and responses to health and environmental shocks in rural South Western Uganda," Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), Africa Centre for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment, vol. 2(02), April.
    2. Deininger, Klaus & Xia, Fang & Kilic, Talip & Moylan, Heather, 2021. "Investment impacts of gendered land rights in customary tenure systems: Substantive and methodological insights from Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Bhaumik, Sumon Kumar & Gang, Ira N. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2017. "Poverty’s Deconstruction: Beyond the Visible," GLO Discussion Paper Series 147, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Bizoza, Alfred R. & Opio-Omoding, James, 2021. "Assessing the impacts of land tenure regularization: Evidence from Rwanda and Ethiopia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    5. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Quisumbing, Agnes & Doss, Cheryl & Theis, Sophie, 2019. "Women's land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 72-82.
    6. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S. & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Theis, Sophie & Doss, Cheryl R., 2017. "Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: A framework and review of available evidence," IFPRI discussion papers 1663, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Burrone, Sara & Giannelli, Gianna Claudia, 2023. "Do Households Where Women Own Land Fare Better for Food Security? Evidence for Tanzania," IZA Discussion Papers 16382, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Sara Ratna Qanti & Alexandra Peralta & Di Zeng, 2022. "Social norms and perceptions drive women’s participation in agricultural decisions in West Java, Indonesia," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(2), pages 645-662, June.
    9. Sadou Diallo & Henri Atangana Ondoa, 2025. "Climate shocks and labor market in sub-Saharan Africa: effects on gender disparities in urban and rural areas," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 27(1), pages 203-225, April.
    10. Martin Mwale & Dieter von Fintel & Anja Smith, 2022. "School drop out and farm input subsidies: gender and kinship heterogeneity in Malawi," Working Papers 01/2022, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    11. Amadu, Festus O. & McNamara, Paul E. & Miller, Daniel C., 2020. "Understanding the adoption of climate-smart agriculture: A farm-level typology with empirical evidence from southern Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Peter Agamile & Ralitza Dimova & Jennifer Golan, 2021. "Crop Choice, Drought and Gender: New Insights from Smallholders’ Response to Weather Shocks in Rural Uganda," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 829-856, September.
    13. Tahmina Sultana & Kazi Tanvir Mahmud & Md. Moniruzzaman & Mohammad Tareque, 2024. "Impact of Access to Land on Women’s Economic Well-Being: An Empirical Evidence From Rural Bangladesh," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1), pages 21582440241, January.
    14. Valeria Strusi & Sara Balestri, 2025. "Land, Women and Development: a Systematic Review of Causal Evidence," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2502, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    15. Ebelechukwu Maduekwe & Walter Timo de Vries & Gertrud Buchenrieder, 2020. "Identifying Human Recognition Deprived Women: Evidence from Malawi and Peru," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(8), pages 1594-1614, July.

    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. Doss, Cheryl, 2013. "Intrahousehold bargaining and resource allocation in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6337, The World Bank.
    2. Ralitza Dimova & Ira N. Gang, 2015. "Female Engagement in Commercial Agriculture, Interventions and Welfare in Malawi: What Works for the Poorest?," Departmental Working Papers 201522, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    3. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Quisumbing, Agnes & Doss, Cheryl & Theis, Sophie, 2019. "Women's land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 72-82.
    4. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S. & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Theis, Sophie & Doss, Cheryl R., 2017. "Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: A framework and review of available evidence," IFPRI discussion papers 1663, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Huntington, Heather & Stevens, Caleb, 2023. "Taking stock of global land indicators: A comparative analysis of approaches for a globally consistent land tenure security measure," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Muchomba, Felix M., 2017. "Women’s Land Tenure Security and Household Human Capital: Evidence from Ethiopia’s Land Certification," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 310-324.
    7. Sraboni, Esha & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Ahmed, Akhter, 2021. "Women's empowerment in agriculture: What role for food security in Bangladesh?," IFPRI book chapters, in: Securing food for all in Bangladesh, chapter 14, pages 483-548, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Feyertag, Joseph & Childress, Malcolm & Langdown, Ian & Locke, Anna & Nizalov, Denys, 2021. "How does gender affect the perceived security of land and property rights? Evidence from 33 countries," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    9. Valeria Strusi & Sara Balestri, 2025. "Land, Women and Development: a Systematic Review of Causal Evidence," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2502, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    10. Deininger, Klaus & Hilhorst, Thea & Songwe, Vera, 2014. "Identifying and addressing land governance constraints to support intensification and land market operation: Evidence from 10 African countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 76-87.
    11. Ahmed, Akhter U. & Malapit, Hazel J. & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Sraboni, Esha, 2013. "Women’s empowerment in agriculture: What role for food security in Bangladesh?:," IFPRI discussion papers 1297, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. 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.
    13. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2019. "Does female empowerment promote economic development?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 309-343, December.
    14. Wang, Shing-Yi, 2014. "Property rights and intra-household bargaining," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 192-201.
    15. Esha Sraboni & Agnes R Quisumbing & Akhter U Ahmed, 2014. "How Empowered are Bangladeshi Women in the Agricultural Setting? Empirical Evidence using a New Index," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 37(3), pages 1-25.
    16. Walther, Selma, 2018. "Noncooperative decision making in the household: Evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 428-442.
    17. Kang, Munsu & Schwab, Benjamin & Yu, Jisang, 2020. "Gender differences in the relationship between land ownership and managerial rights: Implications for intrahousehold farm labor allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Madhav Prasad Dahal, 2017. "Do Female Education and Ownership of Asset Matter for Poverty Reduction in Nepal?," Journal of Development Innovations, KarmaQuest International, vol. 1(2), pages 58-85, October.
    19. 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.
    20. Yang Yang, 2023. "Hukou Identity and Economic Behaviours: A Social Identity Perspective," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph23-02 edited by Catherine Bros & Julie Lochard, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    female ownership of assets; informal institutions; cash crops; household welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wdi:papers:2013-1055. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.html .

    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.