Presented as part of the IFPRI Gender Methods Seminar Series, hosted by the IFPRI Gender Task Force. Presenter: Hazel Malapit.

1. Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index
Hazel Malapit
Gender Methods Seminar
November 19, 2013

2. Background
• New survey-based tool designed to
measure women’s empowerment and
inclusion in the agriculture sector
• Developed by USAID, IFPRI and OPHI as
a monitoring tool for the U.S.
government’s Feed the Future (FTF)
Initiative
• Rolled out to 19 FTF countries

3. What is empowerment?
• Similar to Kabeer (2001), we define
empowerment as the expansion of
people’s ability to make strategic life
choices, within their households and their
communities, particularly in contexts
where this ability has been limited

4. What is new about the WEAI?
• Index components designed to be applicable across
countries and cultures
• Men and women from the same household are
interviewed
• The index applies to women in households with male
adults--as well as those with only female adults
• The survey questionnaire modules focus on men’s
and women’s empowerment in agriculture

5. Scope of the WEAI
• Focus is strictly on empowerment in agriculture,
distinct from:
– Economic status
– Education
– Empowerment in other domains
This enables clear analysis of external determinates of
empowerment in agriculture.
• WEAI is international; Local adaptation possible.

6. How is the Index constructed?
WEAI is made up of two sub indices
Five domains
of
empowerment
(5DE)
A direct measure of
women’s
empowerment in 5
dimensions
Gender parity
Index (GPI)
Women’s
achievement’s
relative to the
primary male in hh
Women’s
Empowerment
in Agriculture
Index
(WEAI)
All range from zero to one;
higher values = greater empowerment

7. A woman’s empowerment score shows her own
achievements
Five domains of empowerment

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

9. 5DE Methodology
Alkire and Foster 2011. J of Public Economics.
• The 5DE is based on the Alkire Foster methodology and
reflects:
– Incidence of Empowerment - The percentage of women who are
empowered
– Adequacy among the Disempowered - The weighted share of
indicators in which disempowered women enjoy adequate
achievements
• Based on each woman’s empowerment profile
• Identifies who is empowered
• Shows how women are disempowered
• Rigorous properties

10. Gender Parity Index (GPI)
Reflects two things:
1. The percentage of women who enjoy gender parity. A
woman enjoys gender parity if
– she is empowered or
– if her empowerment score is equal to or greater than the
empowerment score of the primary male in her household.
2. The empowerment gap - the average percentage shortfall
that a woman without parity experiences relative to the
male in her household.
The GPI adapts the Foster Greer Thorbecke Poverty Gap measure to reflect
gender parity.

11. Formula
5DE = He + Hd × Ae
He is the percentage of empowered women
Hd is the percentage of disempowered women
Ae is the average absolute empowerment score among the
disempowered
GPI = I – (HGPI × IGPI)
HGPI is percentage of gender parity-inadequate households
IGPI is the average empowerment gap between women and
men living in households that lack gender parity

12. Lilian is Empowered

13. Lilian, Uganda
Empowerment Score = 83%
Has achieved parity with her
husband Wilson

14. Seema is Disempowered

15. Seema, Bangladesh
Empowerment Score
= 64%
She has not achieved parity with
her husband
On average, disempowered women
in the Bangladesh pilot have
empowerment scores of 61%

16. The Pilots
Conducted pilots in 3 FTF countries in different regions
and different socio-cultural contexts, focused on the
zone of influence:
• Bangladesh, Guatemala, Uganda
• Split roughly 20/80 between single female and dual
adult households
• ~350 households/625 individuals each
Collaborators:
• Data Analysis and Technical Assistance, Ltd.
(Bangladesh),
• Vox Latina (Guatemala),
• Associates Research Uganda Limited (Uganda).

17. Case studies
Case studies consisted of
interviews on five domains with
narratives to explain answers,
describe “life stories,” and get
concepts of empowerment from
men and women themselves
“Being empowered, it means
that the woman can do things
too, not just the man”
~ Woman, Guatemala aged 63

18. Bangladesh pilot results
• 39% of women are empowered
• Disempowered women have adequate
achievements in 58.4% of domains
• 59.8% of women enjoy gender
parity
• Households without gender parity
have a 25.2% empowerment gap
between the woman and man
Overall, the WEAI
score is 0.762

19. Bangladesh: How to increase empowerment?
Proportion of women not
empowered and who have
inadequate achievements by
indicator in Bangladesh
sample

20. Bangladesh: How to increase empowerment?
Policies need to
focus on
improving
women's control
over income

21. Limitations
• Women engaged in non-agriculture decisions
only may appear disempowered
• Female-only HHs more likely to appear
empowered because of focus on
decisionmaking questions
• Focus on agriculture may not capture other
domains of empowerment that may be more
relevant to specific desired outcomes
• Nuances behind domains not fully captured

22. How will the WEAI be used?
1. As a monitoring indicator for FTF to evaluate whether
programs are having intended effect on women's
empowerment
2. As a diagnostic tool to help identify areas in which
women and men are disempowered, so that programs
and policies can be targeted to those areas
3. Conducting more research: testing new
indicators/assessing validity in different contexts, etc.

23. For more information:
• Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A.,
Quisumbing, A. R., Seymour, G. and A. Vaz. 2012.
“The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index,”
World Development, Vol. 52, pp.71-91.
• WEAI Resource Center: http://www.ifpri.org/book-
9075/ourwork/program/weai-resource-center
• Email me! Hazel Malapit: h.malapit@cgiar.org

24. Preliminary
WEAI Scores
Country Region WEAI Score Ranking
Bangladesh Asia 0.66 Low
Cambodia Asia 0.98 High
Nepal Asia 0.80 Medium
Tajikistan Asia 0.69 Low
Haiti Latin America & Caribbean 0.85 High
Honduras Latin America & Caribbean 0.75 Medium
Kenya East Africa 0.72 Low
Rwanda East Africa 0.91 High
Uganda East Africa 0.86 High
Ghana West Africa 0.72 Low
Liberia West Africa 0.69 Low
Malawi Southern Africa 0.84 Medium
Zambia Southern Africa 0.80 Medium

25. Preliminary
Disempowerment scores
for women (1 – 5DE)
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
Disempowerment Index (1 - 5DE)