Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture and Child Nutritional Outcomes in Rural Burkina Faso
Date
2021-11-25
Authors
Nikiema, P. Rita
Kponou, M. Kenneth C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
Across developing countries, women play an important role both as producers of
major food crops and in improving household nutrition. This research paper aims to
assess the effect of improving women’s empowerment on the nutritional status of
children in rural Burkina Faso. Based on data from the 2014 Multisectoral Continuous
Survey (EMC), the paper uses variables such as income control, access to land,
autonomy in production decisions, access to credit and social group membership
to compute a composite index of women’s empowerment. Accounting for potential
endogeneity of empowerment, the study adopts a dual-estimation approach that,
first, uses average empowerment by stratum and, second, applies an instrumental
variable. Results show a low baseline level of women’s empowerment in rural areas,
but an improvement in empowerment has a relatively high and positive correlation
with children’s nutritional outcomes. The study suggests that improving women’s
empowerment components will translate into significant gains in children’s nutritional
outcomes in rural households.
Description
Keywords
women, , empowerment, , agriculture, , children’s nutrition