Women’s ability to accumulate wealth is often attributed to whether they have property rights; i.e., a legal personality to own and manage property. In this paper we argue that basic property rights ...are insufficient; whether women are able to accumulate wealth also depends upon the marital and inheritance regimes in particular contexts. Drawing upon surveys which collected individual level ownership data in Ecuador, Ghana and the state of Karnataka in India, we estimate married women’s share of couple wealth and relate it to how assets are owned within marriage as well as to different inheritance regimes and practices. In Ecuador, married women own 44 %, in Ghana, 19 %, and in Karnataka, 9 % of couple wealth. Ecuador is characterized by the partial community property regime in marriage while inheritance laws provide for all children, irrespective of sex, to be treated equally, norms that are largely followed in practice. In contrast, Ghana and India are characterized by the separation of property regime which does not recognize wives’ contribution to the formation of marital property, and by inheritance practices that are strongly male biased. Reforming marital and inheritance regimes must remain a top priority if gender economic equality is to be attained.
Advancing women's land rights is a priority for the international development agenda. Little consensus exists, however, on which rights should be monitored and reported, especially in Sub-Saharan ...Africa where individual property rights and customary tenure regimes coexist and where much agricultural land remains unregistered. In such contexts, land ownership statistics may provide only a limited picture of women's and men's land rights. While some surveys collect information on women's land ownership, others collect information on women's management of land or control over the output produced. Using recent waves of the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) for six African countries, we examine who holds the different rights on each plot of agricultural land and the extent to which these rights are held by the same person. We focus on (a) reported ownership, (b) who decides and manages the agricultural activities, and (c) who controls the output of land. We find that these rights over land do not always overlap, indicating that concepts of ownership, management and economic rights should not be used interchangeably. Consistent measures of women's and men's land rights are fundamental for the development of policies to empower rural women and to contribute to poverty reduction.
Why do men and women adopt agricultural technologies at different rates? Evidence from Ghana suggests that gender-linked differences in the adoption of modern maize varieties and chemical fertilizer ...result from gender-linked differences in access to complementary inputs. This finding has important policy implications, because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system, but rather introduction of measures that ensure better access for women to complementary inputs, especially land, labor, and extension services.
A largely unexplored feature of structural transformation is the change in the composition of an economy's asset holdings. In most poor economies, assets are concentrated in land. In rich economies, ...physical and human capital are more important. This paper focuses on the changes in the composition of household wealth and the share of assets owned by women in Ghana over two decades of relatively rapid growth and significant structural changes. We find that land's share of household portfolios decreased and the share of financial assets increased. Women's share of land, savings and business assets rose over the period.
This paper discusses the need for better data, the possibilities for collecting such data, and the initial findings of efforts to gather sex disaggregated data on important economic activities. ...Better data at the individual level, for both men and women, will facilitate much better analyses by both macroeconomists and microeconomists. While some data, especially on education and employment, are now routinely collected on individuals, other data, including on asset access and ownership, are still typically collected only at the household level. The paper argues that it is both feasible and important to collect individual-level asset data, rather than simply collecting data at the household level. At the macro level, these data are needed to understand changing patterns within the economy; at the micro-level, the data are needed to understand the economic relationships among individuals, households and communities and can help in the design of policies to promote poverty reduction, growth and development. Drawing on the data collected under the Gender Asset Gap Project, differences are demonstrated between women and men in the ownership and control of assets and in the access to specific types of capital. Periodic data on gender asset and wealth gaps tracked over time would provide insights into policies designed to reduce poverty and promote economic growth.
An extensive literature shows how property inheritance is biased against women in many developing countries, yet relatively little attention has been given to gender bias in other means of acquiring ...physical assets, such as the market. Using individual-level data from Ecuador, Ghana, and Karnataka, India, this study analyzes modes of acquisition and financing of housing, agricultural land, other real estate, and businesses. The findings show that women acquire fewer of their assets through the market than men, and that in asset markets, both men and women are more likely to use their own savings than to use credit. The study also analyzes current loans for asset acquisition and finds that, in general, women tend to be somewhat disadvantaged in securing formal bank loans. The results suggest that financial inclusion to promote more gender equal access to accumulation of assets should focus on both savings and credit, with priority to savings.
•Men and women respond differently to questions about housing values in Ecuador, Ghana, and Karnataka, India.•The distributions of values reported by men are wider than those reported by women.•Data ...collection on wealth must consider the sex of the respondent.
Wealth data are typically obtained by asking respondents about the value of their key assets. Yet, what if the answers to valuation questions vary systematically depending on who is interviewed? Using nationally representative data from Ghana and Ecuador and for the state of Karnataka, India, we analyze whether men and women provide different responses to questions about the monetary value of their home. Using a DFL decomposition across the full sample and comparing the responses of husbands and wives in our couple sample, we find that overall, the distribution of monetary values reported by women tends to be narrower than that reported by men. This finding has implications both for data collection efforts and for measures of the gender wealth gap.
•Develops a conceptual framework to analyze women’s land tenure security.•Identifies multiple dimensions of women’s tenure security.•Outlines key factors influencing women’s tenure security across ...contexts.
While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it. To be able to compare women’s tenure security in different places, we need information on the context, the threats and opportunities facing tenure security, and the action arena that includes both the people who play a role in promoting or limiting women’s tenure security and the resources used in doing so.
Market-based development efforts frequently create opportunities to generate income from goods previously produced and consumed within the household. Production within the household is often ...characterized by a gender and age division of labor. Market development efforts to improve well-being may lead to unanticipated outcomes if household production decisions are noncooperative. We develop and test models of household decision making to investigate intrahousehold decision making in a nomadic pastoral setting from Kenya. Our results suggest that household decisions are contested, with husbands using migration decisions to resist wives' ability to market milk.
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