1. Gender, Agriculture, and
Assets Conceptual
Framework
Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Nancy Johnson,
Agnes Quisumbing, Jemimah Njuki, Julia
Behrman, Deborah Rubin, Amber
Peterman, and Elizabeth Waithanji
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

2. Unpacking the “Gender Box”
Photo credit: Agnes Quisumbing
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3. Why have a conceptual framework?
 Helps identify HOW:
• Gendered asset distribution affects outcomes
• Outcome of agricultural programs differs by
gender
• Building assets takes place in a way that is
gendered
 Guides attention to key processes for evaluation
 Provides basis for comparison and learning
across different case studies
 Makes a meaningful synthesis much easier!

4. Project Synthesis
Project
RESULTS
SYNTHESIZED
ACROSS PROJECTS

5. Context: Ecological, Social, Economic, Political factors, etc.
Shocks
Consumption
Livelihood
Assets Strategies Full Incomes Well-being
Savings/
Investment
Legend: Women Joint Men

6. Each component is gendered
Women’s JOINT Men’s
 Women and men have separate assets,
activities, consumption, etc.
 Households also have some joint assets,
activities, consumption, etc.
 Shading of each component as a reminder
that we need to consider gender—separation
and jointness in each

7. ♀ Context ♂
 Agroecology
 Location
 Institutions
 Markets
 Gender relations
 etc.

8. ♀ Assets ♂
•Natural
•Physical
•Financial
•Human
•Social
•Political
•Enable livelihoods
•Resist shocks
•Direct effect on well-being

9. ♀ Livelihood Strategies ♂
•What are the livelihood options available to
women and men?
•What assets do those livelihoods require?
•Are women (or men) precluded from good
livelihoods by lack of assets?

10. ♀ Shocks ♂
•What are the major shocks that affect
women, men, and households?
•How do women, men respond to shocks?
•What role do assets play in responding to
shocks?

11. ♀ Full Income♂
• Includes cash and direct consumption
• What affects the income women and men
earn?
• What affects the control of income within
the household?

12. ♀ Consumption ♂
• Includes food and nonfood
• How are women’s, men’s, and joint
income used for different types of
consumption by different family members?
• What affects decisions on consumption?
(Does control of assets play a role?)

13. ♀ Savings/Investment ♂
• This feeds back to + or – asset
accumulation
•How are women’s, men’s, and joint
income used for different types of
investment by different family members?
• What affects decisions on investment?
• Are there enough mechanisms for women
to build assets?

14. ♀ Well-Being ♂
•Health
•Nutritional status
•Time use
•Stress
•Empowerment
•etc.

15. Example:
Bangladesh Homestead Vegetable Project

16. Homestead Vegetable Production
Project intervention
•Flood-prone area, 1.5 hrs from Dhaka, lots of NGO
activity
•Technology transferred with micro-finance and training by
small local NGO
•Targeted to women in near landless hhs with some
homestead land
Impact assessment
•Census 1996
•HH panel survey 1996/1997 with anthropometrics
•Qualitative, quantitative studies of empowerment
•Qualitative data collected in same villages in 2001
•Resurveyed 2010
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17. Context: Ecological, Social, Economic, Political factors, etc.
Shocks
Consumption
Livelihood
Assets Strategies Full Incomes Well-being
Savings/
Investment
Legend: Women Joint Men

18. ♀ Context ♂
Market access (close to Dhaka, easier for men than women)
Norms of social seclusion
NGO operating in area (women more likely to participate)
Focus groups showed importance of wider range of aspects
- vulnerability to fluctuating markets
- lack of access to justice (access to land by the poor)
- law and order problems
- low level of trust of government and NGO services
- lack of technical knowledge increases risk
- female dependence subordination (permission to undertake
prod. activities; access to profits)

19. Assets needed to participate
♀ ♂
•Land: poor women unlikely to own land, but more
control over homestead
•Social capital: used group-based approach to build
financial capital (savings) and human capital
(training) needed for adoption
NGO membership weighted towards poor, but physical assets
allow many non-poor to join.
Very poor excluded from NGO membership (& hence adoption of
technologies) by:
-lack of physical assets
-lack of social connections, leading to isolation and inability to
form groups
-lack of education, which undermines confidence

20. ♀ Livelihood Strategies ♂
•Vegetable cultivation for market
•Women restricted from going to market, so
got traders to buy from homestead
-Adoption said to contribute to somewhat heavier workloads,
trade-off described favorably: ‘Though we work harder,
we wear better clothes.’ (FP)
-Wide variations within and between sites in social attitudes
toward adoption (I.e., women’s involvement) as a
livelihood strategy. Some men feel undermined; others
value female contribution of income and increased
social networks.

21. ♀ Shocks ♂
•Market fluctuations
•Family illness (women have prime
responsibility)
•Does project intervention increase or
decrease likelihood of these shocks?

22. ♀ Full Income♂
+Cash income from vegetable sales
-Loss of income from women in wage labor
Net income gains not large
BUT also consider
•Direct vegetable consumption by household
•Gifts to neighbors

23. Consumption

24. ♀ Consumption ♂
Total monthly per capita income & expenditures do not
differ by adoption status, though sources do slightly
-Health and nutrition improvements for selected types of
individuals in adopter hhs:
-school-aged, adolescents, and elderly more non-
staple plant consumption
-adolescent girls consume more total calories
-school-aged and adolescents had better nutritional
outcomes (height)
-preschoolers and elderly have lower morbidity

25. ♀ Savings/Investment ♂
• Financial
savings
• Schooling
• Trees
• Hand pumps
• Electric pumps
• Jewelry

27. Impacts of project on overall well-being -
Focus groups
-Exchange of vegetables said to be major tool
of women for increasing social networks
(horizontal and vertical), thus reducing
vulnerability.
-Better nutrition seen as a result of adoption.
-Children’s educational attainment may be
improving: ‘If I didn’t grow fish, I could not
educate my children.’
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28. Empowerment—Focus Group Results
♀ ♂
-Women have gained direct access to cash (esp. in
vegetable site), greater understanding of ‘money
matters’, and higher status at home: “Now women
give money to their husbands from their own
earnings. Once husbands would have been angry
about this, but now they don’t say anything.”
-Some women report changing community norms as a
result of adoption: if women go outside the home
in pairs or groups “no one complains nowadays”

29. Empowerment—Survey Results
Women’s empowerment Adopter Control
Visited friends/relatives outside 95 90
village in past year
Attended NGO training or 31 17
programs in past year
Husband/family member beat year 23 33
in past year
Knows name of UP chairman 82 74
Knows name of prime minister 88 81
All differences significant at 5% level or better
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