Women S Empowerment And Crop Diversification In Bangladesh

The existing literature shows that climate change will likely affect several of the dimensions that determine people’s food security status in Bangladesh, from crop production to the availability of food products and their accessibility. Crop diversification represents a farm-level response that reduces exposure to climate-related risks and it has also been shown to increase diet diversity and contribute to the reduction in micronutrient deficiencies. In fact, the Government of Bangladesh has several policies in place that encourage and support agricultural diversification. However, despite this support the level of crop diversification in the country remains low. Women empowerment has been linked to diversified diets and positively associated with better child nutrition outcomes. Furthermore, although traditionally their role in agriculture tends to be undervalued, women involvement has already been shown to affect agricultural production choices and enhance technical efficiency. This paper connects three different areas of inquiry - climate change, gender and nutrition – by exploring whether women’s empowerment in agricultural production leads to increased diversification in the use of farmland. Specifically, we use a series of econometric techniques to evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence to claim that a higher levels of empowerment lead to greater diversity in the allocation of farmland to agricultural crops. Our results reveal that indeed some aspects of women empowerment, but not all, lead to a more diversified use of farmland and to a transition for cereal production to other uses like vegetables and fruits. These findings provide some possible pathways for gender-sensitive interventions that promote crop diversity as a risk management tool and as a way to improve the availability of nutritious crops.

Increased market inclusion through participation in agricultural value chains may increase employment and household incomes, but evidence on its empowerment impacts is mixed. In societies with restrictive social norms, greater market inclusion can enhance existing income and empowerment inequalities by relegating marginalized groups, including women, to low value chains or lower value nodes within those chains. We use primary data from rural Bangladesh to investigate the associations between households’ primary economic activity – agricultural wage-earning, production, or entrepreneurship – and absolute and relative levels of men’s and women’s empowerment. Women in producer households, on average, fare better on empowerment outcomes than women in wage-earner or entrepreneur households; the opposite is true for men. The gap between men’s and women’s empowerment scores is also lowest in producer households. A decomposition of these results into composite indicators yields insights into potential trade-offs, while accompanying qualitative work highlights the importance of social and cultural norms in shaping the economic roles women can adopt. With a push towards diversification of agriculture into higher value market-oriented crops, more careful programming is needed to ensure that market inclusion translates into an increase in women’s empowerment.

Empowering women is crucial for a country's development because it leads to greater economic growth, increased productivity, and improved social outcomes. When women have access to education, economic opportunities, and decision-making power, they are better able to contribute to their families and communities. This can lead to increased income, improved health and education outcomes, and reduced poverty. In Bangladesh, women and girls still face considerable barriers to accessing education and economic opportunities, and are often subjected to traditional gender roles that may hinder them. Although women play a crucial role in agriculture, they experience many challenges that limit their productivity and economic potential, such as limited access to credit and training. They are also often marginalized and excluded from decision-making processes. As the complexity and importance of gender equity in development work has increased, so too has the need to measure empowerment and progress made toward improving empowerment and achieving gender parity. In Bangladesh, there has been growing momentum by the government and development partners to use evidence to inform gender-sensitive and -responsive policies and programs. The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) has emerged as a key tool to achieve this objective. This brief examines how WEAI data have informed and supported the design of policies and programs to promote women's empowerment in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, IFPRI has received support from USAID through its Policy Research and Strategy Support Program in Bangladesh (PRSSP) to work in the geographic areas targeted by Feed the Future interventions (known as the Zone of Influence) to construct this new WEAI4VC module. The qualitative research study, conducted by IFPRI field officers, complements a 1,200 household quantitative survey, looking in greater depth at the individual, household, and community level experiences of men and women to understand the consequences of value chain participation on them as producers, entrepreneurs, and wage workers on women’s empowerment. The quantitative study sampled 400 households for each of the three economic activities of interest – (1) agricultural production, (2) agricultural entrepreneurship, and (3) agriculture sector employment. It was carried out in ten administrative units (upazilas or sub-districts), and five villages in each upazila to total 50 villages.

Based on the author's dissertation and field studies carried out in 2003 in three villages in Mymensingh district. Assesses the perceived status of rural women and gender division of labour at household level. Analyses the nature of rural women's empowerment and factors influencing it, and develops a strategic framework for promoting the status of rural women.

Using nationally representative survey data from rural Bangladesh, this paper examines the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and indicators of individual dietary quality. Our findings suggest that women’s empowerment is associated with better dietary quality for individuals within the household, with varying effects across the life course. Women’s empowerment is associated with more diverse diets for children younger than five years, but empowerment measures are not consistently associated with increases in nutrient intake for this age group. Women’s empowerment is positively and significantly associated with adult men’s and women’s dietary diversity and nutrient intakes. Different empowerment domains may have different impacts on nutrition, but other characteristics, such as maternal schooling and household socioeconomic status, may play a more important role for younger children. The importance of maternal education in the dietary quality of young children, and the relatively greater importance of women’s empowerment for older children and adults, imply that policies designed to empower women and improve nutritional status should be informed by knowledge of which specific domains of women’s empowerment matter for particular nutritional outcomes at specific stages of the life course.