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Intra-household decision-making processes: What the qualitative and quantitative data tell us
The document explores intra-household decision-making patterns related to agricultural practices and household expenses in family farms in Cauca, Colombia, and Tuma La Dalia, Nicaragua. It uses qualitative and quantitative data to highlight gender dynamics in decision-making, revealing different typologies of joint versus individual decisions. Findings indicate varying perceptions between men and women on decision-making authority, with some households adhering to traditional gender norms while others exhibit more egalitarian practices.
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Intra-household decision-making processes: What the qualitative and quantitative data tell us
- 1. Intra-household decision- making processes:What the qualitative and quantitative data tell us Seeds of Change Conference, April 2-4, 2019 Juliana Muriel, CIAT Jennifer Twyman, CIAT Diksha Arora, CIAT Wendy Godek, Roger Williams University Maria A. Garcia, Michigan State University j.Muriel@cgiar.org
- 2. Why are weinterested in intra-household decision-making? • To understand household gender relations and how these shape agricultural decisions. • To better target development projects and interventions to achieve a variety of agricultural development outcomes. • Women’s empowerment women’s participation in decision-making. • Productivity and sustainability technology adoption and farm management practices. • Decisions can be made by an individual male, individual female or jointly by couples or different members of the family.
- 3. Study objective andmethods • Objective: • Understand intra-household decision-making patterns on family farms. • Data: • Qualitative and quantitative data to classify household decision-making processes. • Focus on households with couples in two sites of Latin America: Cauca, Colombia and Tuma La Dalia, Nicaragua • Intra-household gender survey. • Colombia (2014): 198 households (125 partnered) • Nicaragua (2015): 270 households (206 partnered) • Semi-structured interviews with female-male couples. • Colombia (2017): 18 couples • Nicaragua (2017): 10 couples
- 4. Which type ofdecisions did we consider? Type of decisions Agricultural decisions - Agricultural practices. - CSA adoption - Agricultural investments Household decisions - Income decisions. - Daily expenses. - Children expenses.
- 5. Quantitative findings: Typeof decisions, Colombia 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Agricultural decisions CSA adoption decision Agricultural investments Income decision Daily expenses decisions Children expenses decisions Percentageofhouseholds joint DM wife dominates husband dominates others
- 6. Qualitative findings: Jointdecision-making typologies Typology Colombia Nicaragua The man makes the decision (no discussion) X The man informs the woman before making the decision, and the woman conforms to what he says X The man informs the woman before the fact, but he does not consider the woman’s opinion X The man considers the woman’s opinion, but makes the final decision X X The woman considers the man’s opinion, but makes the decision herself X The man and woman exchange opinions and make a decision together X X The man and woman exchange their opinions with other family members and make the decision as a family X X
- 7. Colombia • Joint decisionsare characterized as a conversation, an agreement, and a way to support each other. • Individual decision is a conversation with no agreement or when one spouse acts without informing the other spouse. • Men and women tended to view individual decisions negatively (create conflict) and joint decisions positively (more equitable). Nicaragua • Joint decision-making implies reaching an agreement, typically through dialogue. • Individual decisions is one made without consulting one’s spouse. • Men and women had slightly different views of individual and joint decisions. The differences were mainly predicated on men’s concern with conflict generated by not making decisions together. Qualitative findings: Perceptions of joint and individual decisions
- 8. Agricultural decisions Typology Households (n=123) Asymmetricin agricultural activities and CSA adoption and did not make agriculture investments. 46% Husband dominates in all the three decisions (agriculture, CSA adoption and agriculture investments.) 31% Joint decisions in agricultural activities and CSA adoption and asymmetric in agriculture investments. 22% Wife dominates in agricultural activities and agriculture investments. 0.2% Household decisions Typology Households (n=123) Asymmetric in child and daily expenditures and use of income. 52% Joint decisions in child expenditures, daily expenditures and use of income decisions. 32% Husband dominates in child and daily expenditures decisions. 16% Quantitative findings: Decision-making typologies in Colombia
- 9. Qualitative findings • Conventionalgender norms • Men’s and women’s role in decision-making highly correspond to conventional gender norms. • Men as head of households and making decisions about agriculture and the farm. • Women were responsible for domestic and care work, generally making decisions about food. • Spousal discord regarding farm and non-farm related activities. • Women reported that men made most agricultural decisions. • On the contrary, men reported agricultural decisions as being made jointly, thus perceiving that his spouse had a greater role in the process than she herself perceived.
- 10. Conclusion / NextSteps Quantitative and qualitative results suggest • Men and women have different perceptions of how decisions are made. • In some households decision-making roles seem to follow traditional gender norms; in others there is more disagreement about how decisions are made, and others are more egalitarian, making many decisions jointly. Next steps: Explore relationships between these typologies, other household characteristics, and ag development outcomes (technology adoption, productivity, nutrition, etc).
- 11. gender.cgiar.org We would liketo 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
- #3 Decision making is crucial to … Intra-hh DM help us … HHs make many decisions and each one of these decisions can be made in different ways. Sometimes they are made individually by a man or woman while at other times they are made jointly by … Therefore, our study tries to explore these patterns of DM across different kinds of decisions.
- #5 In quantitative analysis we considered decisions about agricultural activities --which include decisions about …. and household decisions that include decisions related to the use of income … Each one of the six categories includes various decisions. For example, among agricultural practices we asked about decisions related to crop choice, land preparation methods, and use of fertilizer, among others. We aggregated them based on who makes the majority of those decisions. In the qualitative analysis we only included farm-related activities.
- #6 Men and women report differently who makes the decision about what An overall trend: Husband alone dominates in ag decisions (blue bars) While hh decisions are mainly done jointly (gray bars) In general, men report that they alone make ag decisions, while women are more likely to report joint decisions. So we wanted to better understand how men and women perceive joint decision-making processes using the qualitative data. When we look at it we found…
- #7 Quantitative and qualitative data suggest that men and women have different perceptions of how joint decisions are made.
- #8 Even though men and women have different perceptions about how decisions are made, the qualitative research suggests that they have similar ideas about what joint (and individual) decisions mean. The majority of individuals interviewed agreed that one of the defining characteristics of a joint decision is agreement… And individual decisions are made when one makes a decision without consulting their spouse or when a decision is made without agreement. To explore intra-household decision-making more, we are currently looking at whether there are patterns related to how different decisions are made.
- #9 Using the quantitative data, we create household typologies of agricultural and household-management decisions. Applying multiple correspondence analysis, we reduce the dimensions of the three different questions in each agricultural and household-management decisions. And then we employ the cluster analysis to create typologies. For agricultural decision-making, the results show… These results seem to be correlated with the qualitative analysis
- #10 In addition, the qualitative findings regarding spousal discord suggest that women generally reported that men made most agricultural decisions.
- #11 There is still work to be done in this area to explore relationships between household decision-making typologies and other household characteristics, and how these relate to different agricultural development outcomes (i.e…). We hope this type of analysis will provide insight into how to better design and implement agricultural development projects to achieve dual goals of agricultural development and gender equality.