This document examines the relationship between women's empowerment in agriculture and household food security in rural Bangladesh. It finds that women experience the greatest gaps in empowerment in leadership roles in the community and control over resources. Higher levels of women's overall empowerment, group participation, control over assets and credit decisions are positively associated with greater per capita calorie availability and household dietary diversity. Reducing gender disparities between men and women in households also contributes to improved food security. Increasing agricultural production diversity and expanding targeted assistance programs for vulnerable groups can further support women's empowerment and household food security.

1. Women’s Empowerment in
Agriculture: What role for food
security in Bangladesh?
Esha Sraboni, Hazel Malapit, Agnes Quisumbing,
and Akhter Ahmed
Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division
International Food Policy Research Institute

2. Introduction
 Achieving gender equity and empowering women is a goal in
itself (MDG3). Would women’s empowerment also lead to
improved food security outcomes?
 We use a new measure of women’s empowerment:
– To diagnose areas where gaps in empowerment exist for
women in rural Bangladesh
– To examine the relationship between women’s
empowerment in agriculture and two measures of
household food security
• Per capita calorie availability
• Household dietary diversity

3. The Women’s Empowerment in
Agriculture Index (WEAI)
Survey-based index designed to measure empowerment
and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector
– Collaboration between USAID, IFPRI and the Oxford Poverty and
Human Development Initiative
– Designed initially as tool to monitor US government’s Feed the
Future interventions
– Broadly applicable as a diagnostic tool to identify potential areas
for policy intervention
WEAI is made up of two sub indices
– Five domains of empowerment (5DE)
– Gender parity index (GPI)
– All range from zero to one (higher values mean greater
empowerment)

4. A woman’s empowerment score shows her
own achievements

5. Who is empowered?
A woman who has achieved ‘adequacy’ in
80% or more of the weighted indicators
is empowered

6. Data
 IFPRI’s Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS)
2011-2012; nationally representative of rural Bangladesh
 Final estimation sample: 3,273 farm households
 Household-level data on weekly food acquisition used to
construct calorie and dietary diversity measures
 WEAI survey data used to construct individual
empowerment scores for primary males and females in
households

7. Which domains contribute most to women’s
disempowerment in Bangladesh?
Inadequacy in
LEADERSHIP 35.1%
Inadequacy in
RESOURCES 21.6%
Inadequacy in
INCOME 15.8%
Inadequacy in
PRODUCTION
14.9%
Inadequacy in
TIME
12.7%

8. Food security outcome variables
1. Per capita calorie availability
– Daily calorie equivalents from 7-day household food
consumption data, divided by the number of household
members
2. Diet diversity score
– Count of food groups consumed using the 7-day household
food consumption data
– Food was grouped into 12 categories:
• 1) cereals; 2) white tubers and roots; 3) vegetables;
• 4) fruits; 5) meat; 6) eggs; 7) fish and other seafood;
• 8) legumes and nuts; 9) milk and milk products; 10) oils and fats;
• 11) sweets; and 12) spices, condiments, and beverages

9. Empowerment measures
 Empowerment score of primary female (overall empowerment in
the five domains)
 Gender parity gap (=0 if have gender parity)
 Leadership domain:
– Number of groups in which she is an active member
 Resources domain:
– Average number of credit decisions she participates in
solely/jointly
– Number of assets she has sole/joint ownership of
– Number of decisions over purchase/sale/transfer of assets
she participates in solely/jointly

10. Other control variables
– Household characteristics (age, education, occupation of
household head, demographic and other socio-economic
characteristics)
– Price of rice
– Production diversity: Number of food crops produced by
household
Method of impact estimation
– Instrumental variables regression

11. Impacts on calorie availability
(kcal per capita per day)
892
814 806
146
20
-1282
-1500
-1000
-500
0
500
1000
1500
Empowerment
score
Group
membership
Credit
decisions
Asset
ownership
Rights over
assets
Gender
parity
gap

12. Impacts on weekly household dietary
diversity (number of food groups)
1.9
1.7
0.9
0.2
0.01
-2.6
-3
-2.5
-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Empowerment
score
Group
membership
Credit decisions Asset
ownership
Rights over
assets
Gender
parity gap

13. Summary of results
 Empowerment gaps are greatest in terms of leadership in
the community and control and access to resources
 Overall women’s empowerment score, the number of
groups in which women actively participate, women’s
control of assets and ability to take decisions regarding
credit have a positive impact on calorie availability and
dietary diversity.
 Reducing the empowerment gap between men and women
in the same household also contributes to increasing
calorie availability and dietary diversity

14. Summary of results …continued
Empowerment and land ownership
– Our results also indicate that the positive effect of the
different dimensions of female empowerment on food
security outcomes is greater for smaller landowners, that
is, for less well-off households. The results point to the
potential positive redistributive effect of focusing on
women’s empowerment on poorer households

15. Summary of results…continued
 Rice price is not significantly associated with household
calorie availability, but is strongly and positively associated
with household dietary diversity
 Increasing crop production diversity also contributes to
household calorie availability and dietary diversity.

16. Policy implications
 Support policies to reduce gender gaps between men and women
 Increase opportunities for women to exercise leadership in the
community
– Group-based programs (NGOs), local government, etc.
 Strengthen women’s access to land and other resources
– Livestock, farm equipment, credit from banks and NGOs, etc.

17. Policy implications
Ensuring not only access to, but also active role of women in
decision making over these resources
– Evaluation of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor Program (TUP):
access doesn’t necessarily mean control
Additional analysis of determinants of empowerment show
that:
– Vulnerable Group Development Program (VGD) participants
more empowered.
• Expansion of VGD coverage
• Targeted assistance programs should go beyond just providing
assistance
Illiterate women less empowered
Importance of including men
Support agricultural policies to increase production diversity
in this predominantly rice-based economy

18. Thank You