This document summarizes a study on gender roles in small ruminant management in rural Ethiopia. The study found that activities like barn cleaning, feeding/watering, and caring for sick animals were shared among household members, while activities like breeding, marketing, and coordinating veterinary inputs were male-dominated. Men generally reported higher participation than women in management activities. Participation also varied significantly by agro-ecology, with adults reporting higher involvement in highland and midland areas than lowlands. The study concludes that analyzing roles at broader levels hides gender differentials in sub-activities and that targeting interventions for women and youth could help address gender imbalances and reduce disease risk exposure.

1. Kinati, W., Mulema, A.A.., Desta, H., Alemu, B. and Wieland, B.
CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research
Annual Scientific Conference and Capacity Development Workshop,
ILRI, Addis Ababa, 25-28 September 2018
Does participation of household members in small
ruminant management activities vary by agro-ecologies and
category of respondents? Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

2. Understand disease priorities and how that affects
individual members of households
Identify and test appropriate interventions
Scaling out, policy recommendations
Introduction: Back Ground
 Data taken from Participatory Epidemiology
& Gender Project in Ethiopia

3. Introduction: Small Ruminants & Gender in Ethiopia
• Small ruminants (SR) ensure food
security for millions of Ethiopian
farmers
• Are integral part of the mixed crop-
livestock & pastoralist farming systems
• Significant gender differentials exist in
Ethiopian agriculture influenced by
socio-cultural, socio-economic and
agro-ecological factors
• However, study on gender roles in SR
production is scanty based on
headship analysis
• Who reports about these roles from
the HH matters a lot and need to be
considered

4. Research Questions
1. What is the intra-household gender differentials in the
intensity of participation in small ruminant management
activities?
 Identify differences in risk of exposure to zoonoses
2. Do respondents agree on how much each of HH members
contributes to small ruminant management? What about level
of participation in terms of agro-ecology?
 Design gender-sensitive interventions

5. Research Design & Sampling Strategy
Focus Group Discussions (FGDs):
• Conducted in 24 sites (Kebeles)
 FGDs in separate groups with
men, women, young male,
young female: 92 FGDs in
total
 Tools used: Checklist,
proportional scoring, ranking,
seasonal calendar etc.
• Key areas of discussion
 Importance of livestock
species
 Role of household members
in SR management
 Diseases in small ruminants:
clinical & PM signs
 Impact of diseases on
different household members
Household survey:
• 430 HHs: following systematic
random sampling.
 MHH=236
 WHH= 88 &
 WMHH=322
(total=646 individuals) enrolled in
37 sites
• Four main regions of Ethiopia:
 Amhara: 132HHs,
 Oromia: 106HHs,
 SNNPR: 96HHs,
 Tigray: 96HHs
• From three Agro-ecologies:
 Highland= 21 kebeles
 Midland= 8 kebeles
 Low land= 7 kebeles

6. Data analysis
• Data entered into Epi info software version 7 and
analysed using SPSS (23).
• Qualitative Data from FGDs were coded &
further synthesized and categorized in to
themes:
 linked these themes to the main objectives
of the study
• In addition, for quantitative data descriptive
statistics and analysis of variance conducted.

7. Findings
 List of SR husbandry/
management practices
identified:
Barn Cleaning
Feeding & watering
Breeding
Herding
Assisting delivery
Caring for sick animals
Coordinating vet inputs
Slaughtering and
Marketing

8. Roles related to small ruminant health
management in Ethiopia
prevent - detect
Findings: Gender Roles in SR management
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0
Cleaning
Feeding & Watering
Breeding
Marketing
Herding
Caring for sick…
Coordinating Vet…
Slaughtering
Assisting Delivery
3.5
5.9
8.9
12.3
5.4
7.5
10.7
11.7
7.4
9.3
7.3
3.3
4.2
4.6
7.3
5.0
2.8
6.2
2.0
2.8
4.7
2.7
4.1
2.8
2.9
4.3
3.6
2.8
1.8
0.9
0.5
1.4
1.0
0.7
0.5
1.0
2.4
2.3
2.4
0.3
4.6
1.5
0.7
0.8
1.8
Mean Score Out of 20
Men Women YM YF CH
Intensity of participation in SR husbandry/management practices

9. Gender Roles in SR Production
Shared
Activities

10. Barn Cleaning
 Daily cleaning and tethering
of animals inside barn
 Daily removal of dung from
barn
 Commanding others &
monitoring to make sure that
barn is cleaned by someone
assigned
Caring for sick animals
 Instruct HH members to
take care of sick animals
 Diagnose, separate sick
animals from herd &
monitor them
 Feed & water sick animals
 Follow up the daily care of
diseased animals

11. Gender Roles in SR Production
Shared
Activities

12. Gender Roles in Livestock Production
Shared
Activities
Un equal Power
relations!

13. Agreement among respondents on Intensity of participation
N= 646
 HH Structure: WHHs have less adult men
members in their family.
 Intra HH (Gender disaggregated) analysis!

14. Intensity of participation by Agro-ecologies
N= 646
None Parametric test suggested that:
 Across agro-ecologies, intensity of participation
significantly different (except for young female &
children) for most of the SR activities:
 Adult men & women have higher levels of
involvement in high & midland agro-ecologies than
in lowlands (pastoralist systems), whereas for
youth in lowlands than in the high & midland areas

15. Conclusions & Implications
 The SR activities considered are composed of different sub-activities – where
gender differentials can be clearly observed  understand local meanings.
 Looking at Gender roles at higher level of husbandry practices/activities
is misleading.
 Women’s role are more in the production activities while men’s are in the
activities involving businesses & decisions men control the political
aspects of SR management activities.
 Adult men and women respondents in MHHs tends to agree on the gender
roles but in contrary to the adult women in WHHs.
– Headship based analysis & reporting is misleading.
 The observed gender differences in participation could disproportionately
expose HH members to the risk of zoonotic diseases
 Target women & youth:- e.g. women might be ideally placed for early
detection of diseases and could also play an important role in provision
of animal health services.

16. CGIAR Research Program on Livestock
livestock.cgiar.org
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock aims to increase the productivity of productivity of livestock agri-food
systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.
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