Gender differences in agricultural productivity: evidence from maize farm households in southern Ethiopia

GeoJournal https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-019-10098-y (0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV) Gender differences in agricultural productivity: evidence from maize farm households in southern Ethiopia Girma Gezimu Gebre . Hiroshi Isoda . Dil Bahadur Rahut Yuichiro Amekawa . Hisako Nomura . Ó The Author(s) 2019 Abstract This study examines the impact of gender differences on maize productivity in Dawuro Zone, southern Ethiopia. Our study addressed the limitations of the previous studies in two ways. First, the study separately assessed gender differences in productivity between de facto female-headed households and de jure female-headed households and revealed that female-headed households are not homogenous. Second, the study separately examined the impacts of the covariates on male-headed households and female-headed households using an exogenous switching treatment effect model. We find the existence of gender differences in maize productivity between male-headed households and female-headed households. The maize productivity of male-headed households was overall 44.3% higher than that of female-headed households. However, if femaleheaded households received the same return on their resources as male-headed households, their productivity would increase by 42.3%. This suggests agricultural policy should target female-headed households to help reduce the productivity gap between male-headed households and female-headed households. Finally, the distributions of the gender differentials between male-headed households and female-headed households are more pronounced at mid-levels of productivity. G. G. Gebre (&) Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan e-mail: Y. Amekawa College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: G. G. Gebre Department of Agricultural Economics, Aksum University, Aksum, Ethiopia H. Nomura Center for Promotion of International Education and Research, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan e-mail: H. Isoda Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan e-mail: D. B. Rahut International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Socioeconomics Program, El Batan, Mexico e-mail: 123 GeoJournal Keywords Gender difference  Maize productivity  Household head  Dawuro zone  Ethiopia Introduction Agricultural productivity, in general, is low in many sub-Saharan African countries where most farmers are smallholders. It is even lower for female farmers, who comprise 50% of the agricultural labor force in the region (FAO 2011b). A report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development cited in FAO (2011b) showed that the percentages of female-headed households (FHHs) in rural eastern and southern Africa are ranges from 25 to 60%. Female-headed households are not homogenous. They can largely be divided into two categories: (a) households headed by women who are not married, are divorced or widowed (de jure FHHs) and (b) women whose spouses are away from home because of work or other reasons (de facto FHHs). The main reasons for the increase in the number of female-headed households are the migration of men away from rural areas to seek jobs elsewhere, widowhood, divorce, and other family disruptions (FAO 2011b; Kassie et al. 2014). The extent of agricultural productivity differences between male and female farmers varies across and within countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Empirical evidence shows that the gender differences in agricultural productivity across sub-Saharan African countries are generally around 20 to 30%, with an average of 25% (FAO 2011b; Aguilar et al. 2014; Kilic et al. 2015; Mukasa and Salami 2015). The productivity difference between MHHs and FHHs from northern to southern Ethiopia ranges from 30 to 65%, respectively (Tiruneh et al. 2001; Aguilar et al. 2014; Challa and Mahendran 2015). One of the key reasons’ women farmers have lower productivity is the difference in the use of inputs such as improved seed, fertilizer, and labor, and access to other resources influencing productivity such as education, extension, and credit. However, it is important to note that de facto FHHs and de jure FHHs are not equally constrained. Indeed, FAO (2010) notes that, while the de facto FHHs who receive remittance from their husbands can mitigate the effects of the absence of male agricultural laborers by increasing investment in farm tools and inputs, remittance does not procure labor itself 123 The vast majority of the recent literature and a review of early studies undertaken by Quisumbing (1996) confirm that estimates of the gender productivity gap become insignificant taking into account the difference in use of inputs, access to productive resources, and characteristics of individual farmers. Following recent empirical reviews, FAO (2011b) takes this further: ‘‘If women farmers used the same level of the resource as men on the land they farm, their land productivity could increase by 20–30%. This could raise the total agricultural output in developing countries between 2.5 and 4%, which could, in turn, reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12–17%’’ (pp 5). As Ethiopia is multicultural, women’s roles in agriculture vary across regions. Nonetheless, women from every region face gender-specific constraints related to socio-cultural forces that serve to reduce their agricultural productivity and to limit their ability to ensure production. For example, women in southern Ethiopia face a serious gender gap in access to productive resources, as farming there is culturally considered a man’s task (Aguilar et al. 2014). Previous studies on gender and agriculture tend to focus on understanding efficiency and productivity differences between MHHs and FHHs (e.g., Tiruneh et al. 2001; Njuki et al. 2006; Thapa 2008; Ragasa et al. 2012; Challa and Mahendran 2015). There has been little or no attention paid to gender differences between de facto FHHs and de jure FHHs. Moreover, these studies measure gender effects on productivity by applying pooled regression with a binary gender variable. This type of analysis alone does not generate sufficient evidence to draw understanding for policy options related to gender and agricultural productivity. This is because it fails to recognize the interaction between gender and other covariates in the model. It can only provide the intercept effect (i.e. results in a parallel shift up or down to various productivity profiles). This paper examines the productivity differences between MHHs and FHHs, including analyses that comparatively examine de facto FHHs and de jure FHHs in maize-growing areas of Ethiopia. This is done by taking into account observable and unobservable factors. Specifically, it aims to assess access to productive resources by different gender stakeholders; to analyze the factors that contr (...truncated)