Empowerment in agricultural value chains: Mixed methods evidence from the Philippines
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•52 views
This presentation was given by Catherine Ragassa (International Food Policy Research Institute), as part of the Annual Scientific Conference hosted by the University of Canberra and co-sponsored by the University of Canberra, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research. The event took place on April 2-4, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. Read more: https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/aisc/seeds-of-change and https://gender.cgiar.org/annual-conference-2019/
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Empowerment in agricultural value chains: Mixed methods evidence from the Philippines
Similar to Empowerment in agricultural value chains: Mixed methods evidence from the Philippines (20)
More from CGIAR
More from CGIAR (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (16)
Empowerment in agricultural value chains: Mixed methods evidence from the Philippines
- 1. Empowerment in agricultural value chains: Mixed methods evidence from the Philippines Hazel Malapit1, Catherine Ragasa1, Elena Martinez1, Deborah Rubin2, Agnes Quisumbing1, Greg Seymour1 1International Food Policy Research Institute 2Cultural Practice
- 2. Motivation Large body of literature on tools and methods to analyze economic dimensions in VC analysis Only recently have equity and distributional impacts been included in the VC analysis Getahun and Villanger 2018; Van den Broeck, Van Hoyweghen, and Maertens 2018; Said-Allsopp and Tallontire 2015; Senders et al. 2014; Riisgaard et al. 2008, 2010; Rubin, Manfre, and Nichols Barrett 2009; Mayoux and Mackie 2009 The early work on gender in VCs uncovered important insights into the unintended consequences of VC participation Recent studies on the horticulture boom find positive impacts on rural employment, especially women’s employment, which contributes to poverty reduction and improved child outcomes Maertens and Swinnen 2009, 2012; Maertens, Colen, and Swinnen 2011; Maertens and Verhofstadt 2013 Gendered responsibilities and time burdens changed with greater commercialization and adversely impact domestic care, food production, or food security Lyon, Mutersbaugh, and Worthen 2017; Forsythe, Martin, and Posthumus 2015; Filipski et al. 2017; Arndt, Benfica, and Thurlow 2011; Shackleton et al. 2011 As commercialization intensifies and a commodity gains higher value, women start losing control over production/marketing & men start taking charge Ashby et al. 2009; Forsythe, Posthumus, and Martin 2016 Gendered VC research tends to be more qualitative, with limited quantitative, dearth of mixed method approach, focus exclusively on women and producers and laborers, with rare mention or analysis of men or of intermediary actors of the VC We fill these gaps by using a mixed methods approach, combining index-based measure of empowerment and qualitative approach, comparing both women and men along stages of the VC—production, processing, and marketing—in the context of the Philippines
- 3. Research Questions How empowered are women and men participants in focus agricultural value chains? What are the sources of disempowerment of women and men in these VCs? What gender-based constraints do women and men face within each VC? Are some VCs and higher nodes of the VCs more empowering than others?
- 4. Data Sources and Methods WEAI4VC - Expands empowerment measure to cover multiple stages, different types of actors in VC Pro-WEAI quantitative & qualitative protocols as starting point Expands production module to livelihoods, including entrepreneurship and wage work Naila Kabeer (1999): expanding people’s ability to make strategic life choices, particularly in contexts in which this ability had been denied to them; Resources, Agency, and Achievements Philippines WEAI4VC Pilot • Supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation • Assess empowerment and intrahousehold equality of participants in 4 priority value chains (abaca, coconut, seaweed, swine) • Survey with 1600 households in 4 provinces (Sorsogon, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte); 40 KIIs (coconut, seaweed) • 400 HH per VC; 1250 DHH (1200 M, 1200 W) and 350 WOH
- 5. Abaca (Manila hemp) Philippines is the leading producer of abaca fiber, supplying 87 percent of global output Coconut Major export; ¼ of agricultural land devoted to coconut farming
- 6. Seaweed Philippines is third largest producer globally, mainly producing Eucheuma extract carrageenan Swine 2nd largest ag revenue earner; pork is main meat consumed; 65% of swine were raised in backyard farms
- 7. Domains and indicators of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)
- 8. Result 1: Relatively higher empowerment scores for both women and men and intrahousehold equality compared to other countries; but still, most women and men in all 4 VCs are not empowered 34 32 29 23 29 13 47 47 36 29 27 36 0 20 40 60 80 100 M W WOH M W WOH M W WOH M W WOH Abaca Coconut Seaweed Swine %ofrespondentsempowered
- 9. Result 2: Main source of disempowerment is weak intrinsic agency; other main sources are control over use of income, workload and collective agency, with varying degree depending on VC and gender 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Abaca Abaca Coconut Coconut Seaweed Seaweed Swine Swine Totaldisempowerment Membership in influential groups Group membership Work balance Control over use of income Access to and decisions on credit and financial accounts Ownership of land and other assets Input in livelihood decisions Respect among household members Attitudes about gender based violence Autonomy in income
- 10. Result 2a: There are differences across VC and nodes along the VCs (abaca) 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.250 0.300 0.350 0.400 Women Men Women Men Women Men Production Production Processing Processing TradingTrading/marketing Abaca Abaca Abaca Abaca Abaca Abaca Totaldisempowerment Membership in influential groups Group membership Work balance Control over use of income Access to and decisions on credit and financial accounts Ownership of land and other assets Input in productive decisions Respect among household members Attitudes about gender based violence Autonomy in income
- 11. Result 2b: There are differences across VC and nodes along the VCs (coconut) 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.250 0.300 0.350 0.400 Women Men Women Men Women Men Production Production Processing Processing Trading Trading/marketing Totaldisempowerment Membership in influential groups Group membership Work balance Control over use of income Access to and decisions on credit and financial accounts Ownership of land and other assets Input in productive decisions Respect among household members Attitudes about gender based violence Autonomy in income
- 12. Result 3: Strong gender stereotypes persist, constraining participation and gains from VCs Strong attitudes of maintaining sex-aggregation in the workforce Both men and women spoke about the different types of work they do (and should do) Some sub-indicators favor men, some favor women Coconut: Low involvement of women in coconut production (climbing trees), mainly involved in low-value crafts and processing; low involvement of men in groups Seaweed: Piecework for women seaweed producers offers more flexibility to combine with domestic responsibilities, but still paid less than men Only 25% of women say they have childcare—so a vast majority still needs to juggle domestic and productive work Autonomy in income was a large contributor to disempowerment in all 4 VCs, and larger for men than women Workload is more disempowering for women than men
- 13. Result 4a. Women and men in seaweed households were more empowered than those in other VCs The seaweed VC provided increased employment and livelihood opportunities, consistent with Arnold (2008) Seaweed requires less capital investment and provides higher returns than other export commodities and other aquaculture species, so it is potentially a pro-poor, empowering, export- oriented VC Entrenched social inequities are slowly shifting and previously marginalized people can take advantage of opportunities to improve their standard of living, mobility, and influence due to increased income from seaweed farming Other VCs have been less empowering Autonomy in income was a large contributor to disempowerment, especially in other 3 VCs Lack of autonomy in income can reflect dissatisfaction towards the VC or aspirations for other livelihoods, reflecting the limits of agricultural VCs in improving welfare Most households augment income and cope with risk by diversifying their livelihoods beyond these VCs, suggesting that nonagricultural jobs may be more lucrative or stable
- 14. Result 4b. Women and men in higher nodes of VC are not always the most empowered Women coconut traders, men abaca processors, and men and women swine traders were more empowered than producers in those VCs While coconut and swine processors and seaweed and abaca traders were less empowered than producers in those VCs Workload is most disempowering among women processors and traders in abaca, coconut and seaweed VCs, suggesting that moving up along the nodes of the VC may pose greater work load for women, disproportionate to the additional market and income access they derive Most women did not aspire to move up the VC; for the few who did, lack of capital restricted this goal, implying much needed support for both capital, facilitation and skills development support for women agrientrepreneurship, beyond micro-credit
- 15. Some reflections Despite a relatively egalitarian culture in the Philippines, gender norms persist across all four VCs that lead to disempowerment for both women and men will require transformative approaches that cut across VCs and locations Stratifying by VC, we found that both overall empowerment and some of the most important areas of disempowerment vary between households engaged in different VCs, even in the same geographical area Work balance, control over use of income, and group membership were the second most important contributors to disempowerment but varied by VC, suggesting that interventions intended to empower women should be tailored by VC Paper shows how researchers and practitioners can measure, compare and identify sources of disempowerment of women and men in specific VCs and find ways to address them that are targeted specifically to each VC The indicators used in this study can be used in impact evaluations of VC interventions and can be part of a rigorous impact assessment design WEAI4VC adjustments ongoing AUDA/NEPAD-led women-targeted agricultural vocational training in Malawi and Benin
- 16. gender.cgiar.org We would like to acknowledge all CGIAR Research Programs and Centers for supporting the participation of their gender scientists to the Seeds of Change conference. Photo: Neil Palmer/IWMI
Editor's Notes
- Preliminary mixed methods results from the Philippines pilot In the Philippines gender norms are generally more egalitarian – it is ranked #10 in the 2017 World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap report, highest in Asia. But what does that mean to men and women who we see in their daily lives in rural areas? Do they consider themselves empowered?
- Linked to results
- Why extend the WEAI? Many development agencies are looking at agricultural interventions at the level of the value chain—covering multiple stages and different types of actors Track empowerment of and identify the constraints facing female agricultural entrepreneurs and wage earners Identify opportunities for empowerment in different value chains Philippines Out of 144 countries, the Philippines ranks 10th in the Global Gender Gap score (World Economic Forum [WEF], 2017), with high rankings in educational attainment (1st), political empowerment (13th), and economic participation and opportunity (25th). purposive sampling design focusing on top-producing provinces and villages and ensuring sufficient respondents for each VC and node. Information on these four VCs was collected in six provinces in the Bicol and Visayas regions of the Philippines The purposive non-random selection of households could result in sample bias. Selected households were better connected to barangay leaders and located in relatively accessible areas of the barangay, so women in these households may be more empowered than women elsewhere. This suggests that our results should be interpreted as the higher bound of the empowerment distribution in the population. A screening questionnaire was used to identify households that represent these three activities, as well as households with an adult woman and man (dual-adult households [DHH]) and households with only an adult woman (no adult man) (woman-only households [WOH]). All households sampled included at least one adult involved in one of the target VCs. There’s some inconsistency between the footnote that talks about identifying respondents in each VC role and the main text that talks about identifying households. The link between the two needs to be clarified in the text.
- It is the second largest revenue earner, valued at 207 billion pesos in 2015 (Philippine Statistics Authority 2016). Pork is the main meat consumed in the Philippines, with per capita consumption of 15 kilograms per year compared with 8 kilograms of chicken and 0.9 kilograms of beef (Department of Agriculture 2014). In 2013, around 65 percent of the swine population were being raised in backyard farms and only 35 percent were produced on commercial farms (Department of Agriculture 2014).
- . . . (i.e., inadequate in at least 75 percent of the indicators). Empowerment is lowest in the coconut VC (23% of men, 29% of women) and highest in seaweed VC (47% of women and men). Empowerment was lower for women in WOHs compared to those in DHHs, except in the swine VC.
- Most important source of disempowerment across all VC is intrinsic agency (3 top colors); second main sources: 4 bottom colors. Control over use of income by women and men is weakest in coconut and swine VCs; excessive workload is most disempowering among women than men; and group membership is lowest among men in coconut VC.
- Excessive workload is most disempowering among women than men (particularly women processors and traders in abaca. Lower collective agency for men than women.
- Control over use of income by women and men is weakest in coconut VCs; excessive workload is most disempowering among women than men (particularly women processors and traders and men traders ); and group membership is low for women and men, esp. among men in coconut VC. More disempowered in processing for both women and men, and men traders.
- Linked to results Women are paid “piece work” for tying, while men are paid a flat fee for each day. Women earn 5-6 pesos per line; most tie 40-50 lines per day, earning 200 to 250 pesos. Men are paid a flat rate of 250 to 300 pesos per day, and typically work shorter days Women are considered more skilled in tying, and typically tie seaweed strips, divide plants into seedlings, plant seedlings, and dry seaweed. Adult men do not perform this work, until they are too old to work in a boat. Women mention that they like the work because they can work in groups, talk to co-workers, sit down, and interrupt the work if needed. In contrast, men are described as stronger and “more capable of the harder physical work” of diving to attach seaweed lines to stakes. They work offshore for the whole workday. However, both boys and girls learn to swim and tie knots, so these statements seemed inadequate explanations. Women and men are also compensated differently for seaweed work. In general, women are paid “piece work” for tying, while men are paid a flat fee for each day. Women earn five to six pesos per line; most tie 40 to 50 lines per day, earning 200 to 250 pesos. Men are paid a flat rate of 250 to 300 pesos per day, and typically work shorter days. The gender stereotypes about appropriate work are buttressed by economic factors that favor paying men more.
- Linked to results
- Linked to results
- Linked to results. One strategy is to increase gender awareness in communities, targeting both women and men. Incorporating gender awareness in schools, starting in primary school, may prove useful. Recent studies of behavior change communication combined with transfers show that these strategies can change behavior and reduce physical violence (Roy et al. 2017). Social networks also play a role in promoting collective power and changing behavior against GBV and stereotyped gender roles across different VCs. ults