LAND OWNERSHIP AND FARM MANAGEMENT IN ECUADOR: EGALITARIAN FAMILY FARMING SYSTEMS AND GENDERED CONSTRAINTS Carmen Diana Deere Gender and Assets Workshop, World Bank Jennifer Twyman June 14, 2012

Objective  Determine if female landowners are also the farm managers.  Not typically addressed, but…  Assumed that owners and managers are the same.  Research Questions:  Is the form of land ownership (individual vs. joint) related to whether women participate in decision-making?  What other factors are associated with women landowners’ participation in decisions regarding their own plots?

Land Ownership & Farm Management: Honduras & Nicaragua NicaraguaHonduras Women as principal ag decision-maker 8.8%8.7% Women have land rights 21%13.9%  Issues  Definitions Principal decision- maker Land rights  Unit of analysis Household, farm, parcel Percent of Households reporting… Source: Deere, Alvarado & Twyman 2012

Data: 2010 Ecuador Household Asset Survey (n=2,892)  Interviewed husband & wife together when possible  Household member registry  Assets inventory  Household level characteristics and experiences  Interviewed husband and wife separately  Participation in decisions  Financial assets  Marital & inheritance regimes—legal knowledge Household QuestionnaireIndividual Questionnaire

Data: Form of Ownership  12.4% of households reported owning land  513 parcels Form of Ownership % of parcels Individual man29.0 Individual woman28.1 Joint by couple34.4 Other joint8.6 Total100.0

Data: Agricultural Decision Questions  Who in the household made the decision on what to plant?  Who made the decision on what inputs to use?  If some of the harvest was sold, who made the decision on how much to sell?  Who decided how to spend the money generated from the sale?

Data: Sample Size & Cultivation Decision  Partnered women  228 parcels  Owned by women and  A household member works land Ind. Owner Jt. Owner Total Alone47%12%18% Joint26%66%60% None27%22% Total100% (n = 35) 100% (n = 193) 100% (n = 228) Women’s Responses Woman’s Participation in the Cultivation Decision

Models  Modeled each decision separately  Binary dependent variable logistic regression models  Wife participates= 1  Otherwise = 0  Key Variables of interest:  Form of Land Ownership (individual v. joint)  Wife’s share of couple’s wealth  Off-farm employment  Fieldwork

Results—Form of Land Ownership Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Joint Owner (base: individual owner) 1.35* (0.720) 0.93 (0.778) (1.548) (2.330)  Women who are joint owners are more likely than individual owners to participate in the decision about what to plant. (Odds ratio: 3.85)

Results—Wife’s share of couple’s wealth Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Wife’s share of couple’s wealth (4.094) * (4.698) (5.742) ( ) Wife’s share squared (3.753) 7.859* (4.483) (6.374) * ( )

How wife’s share and odds of wife participating in input use decision Min Odds (0.51), wife’s share = 0.51

How wife’s share and odds of wife participating in input use decision Min Odds (0.51), wife’s share = 0.51

Results—Off-farm Employment Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Wife works off-farm (0.559) (0.637) (0.946) (1.726) Husband works off (0.524) (0.540) (0.924) (2.309)  Off-farm employment is not statistically significant; it is not related to wife’s participation in agricultural decision-making.

Results—Fieldwork Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Wife does fieldwork 3.849*** (0.560) 3.277*** (0.649) 3.763*** (0.850) (1.304) Husband fieldwork * (1.071) * (1.114) (2.02) (3.514)  Wives who participate in fieldwork on the parcel are more likely to participate in the decision-making than wives who do not do fieldwork.  If the husband participates in fieldwork, women are less likely to participate in the decision-making than when the husband does not do fieldwork.

Results—Other Variables Variables: What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Parcel size (ha) Wife’s age Age Difference+ Wife’s edu+ Edu difference Consensual Union- Children under 6+ Rural(n/a) Coast Indigenous

Results—Model Statistics Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Number of Cases (N) Likelihood Ratio Chi-Square (df) (17)*** (17)*** (17)*** (16)*** Pseudo R

Conclusions  Majority of women landowners in Ecuador participate in the agricultural decisions  Participation in fieldwork is highly correlated with women’s participation in decision-making  Positively related to women’s participation in fieldwork  Negatively related to men’s participation in fieldwork  No correlation between off-farm work and women’s participation in agricultural decision-making

Conclusions  Joint land owners more likely than individual owners to participate in cultivation decision.  Important to exert her land rights if less secure than individual ownership?  Wife’s share of couple’s wealth was negatively related to her participation in input decision  Is she choosing in which decisions to participate? Does not choose agriculture.  Future work  Do same analysis with men’s responses—can examine women who own jointly in comparison to wives who do not own land  Explore the relationship between wife’s share of wealth and agricultural decision-making

Thank You!

Who are the farmers?  Household head  What about women within dual/male- headed households?  Landholder  Makes most decisions  Best informed  Keeps revenue from crops  Various people within the household?

Gender Analyses  Productivity (and/or efficiency)  Typically by plot  Sometimes by head of household  Does type of decision matter?  Gender roles & responsibilities  Size of landholdings?  Women participate more on small farms?  Important to ask about specific decisions, o.w. typically response is male household head.  Regional differences in women’s participation

Data: Input Use Decision Ind. Owner Jt. Owner Total Alone45%18%23% Joint25%54%48% None30%28%29% Total100% Women’s Participation in Input Use Decision n = 164

Data: Selling & Spending Decisions Ind. Owner Jt. Owner Total Alone59%8%15% Joint22%67%61% None19%25%24% Total100% Ind. Owner Jt. Owner Total Alone67%16%23% Joint26%78%71% None7%6% Total100% Women’s Participation in Selling Decision Woman’s Participation in Spending Decision n = 115

Explanatory Variables VariableMeanStd. Dev.MedianRange Size (ha) – 710 Wife’s share – Wife’s age – 82 Age Difference – 29 Wife’s Yrs. Schooling – 18 Edu. Diff – 12 Descriptive Stats—Continuous Variables

Explanatory Variables Variable% Joint owner (ind.)85 Consensual union (married)8 Children under 632 Rural85 Coast17 Variable% Indigenous19 Wife works off-farm31 Husband works off-farm52 Wife does fieldwork72 Husband does fieldwork87 Descriptive Stats—Categorical Variables

How wife’s share and odds of wife participating in cultivation decision Min Odds (12.5), wife’s share = 0.59

Results—Age Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Wife’s Age (0.025) (0.028) (0.040) (0.103) Age Difference (husband – wife) (0.048) (0.053) (0.068) 0.570* (0.338)

Results—Education Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Wife’s Years of Schooling (0.084) (0.085) (0.120) 0.567* (0.333) Schooling Difference (husband – wife) (0.085) (0.082) (0.133) (0.308)

Results—Type of Relationship Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Consensual Union (Marriage) (1.001) (0.937) * (1.532) (2.910)

Results—Children Under 6 in Household Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Children under *** (0.614) (0.638) (0.895) (2.259)

Results—Location Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Rural (Urban) (0.763) (0.779) (1.301) - Coast (Sierra) (0.671) (0.730) (0.993) (1.863)

Results—Ethnicity Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Coefficient-- β (Std. Error) Indigenous (Other ethnicities) (0.795) (0.798) (1.200) (2.337)

Results—Model Statistics Woman’s participation in the decision about… What to CultivateInput Use How much to sell How to spend proceeds Number of cases (N) Likelihood ratio chi-square (df) (17)*** (17)***74.96 (17)***39.10 (16)*** Pseudo R