Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture for Nutritional and Food Security Benefits in Tajikistan: Latent Analysis Approach

Although women play an important role in developing countries, they face persistent social and economic constraints limiting their inclusivity in household decision-makings. The Asian enigma, the case in which economic growth is not followed by expected improvements in nutritional outcomes, states that women’s low social status is to blame. This paper sheds some light on the issue by studying the linkages between the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and food security indicators in Tajikistan by using population-based survey in Tajikistan with 2000 households. We apply a latent class approach to represent the relationship between the most disempowering domains and nutritional or food security outcomes. Accordingly, women’s empowerment in the purchase, sale, or transfer of assets has a positive association with improved diet diversity of children. As for food security outcomes, higher women’s empowerment in autonomy in production has a relationship with improved household hunger. Findings clearly indicate that group membership is one of the most promising areas for policy intervention. Precisely, group membership-based women’s empowerment is associated with better diet diversity, decreased number of stunted children and improved household hunger. Considering findings for nutritional outcomes, women’s empowerment and different anthropometric measures have messages for further policy formulations to enhance nutrition-sensitive approaches.