1. Women’s Empowerment and
Agricultural Productivity in
Bangladesh
Greg Seymour
PhD student
American University
Washington, DC

2. Linkages Between Empowerment
and Agricultural Productivity
• Greater access to human capital
– Improved work capacity
– Knowledge of modern agricultural science and technology
• Greater access to physical capital
– Increased control over productive resources
– Stronger incentives to invest in land

3. 0 Input, X
Output, Y
Production
frontier, Y=f(X)
C
A
Male-
managed
farms
Female-
managed
farms
B
Measuring
Agricultural
Productivity
Technical efficiency
Ratio of actual output to
maximum
technologically feasible
output

4. Existing Evidence
• Gender productivity gaps do exist
– Africa
• Holden et al. (2001);Tiruneh andVerkuijl (2001); Bezabih and Holden (2006); Goldstein and
Udry (2008)
– Bangladesh
• Asadullah and Rahman (2009)
• Gender productivity gaps do not exist
– Africa
• Horrell and Krishnan (2007); Githinji et al. (2011);,Alene et al. (2008); Peterman et al. (2011);
Oladeebo and Fajuyigbe (2007); Kinkingninhoun-Medagbe et al. (2010); Ndlovu et al. (2014)
– Bangladesh
• Rahman (2010)
• Lack of consensus may stem from methodological challenges

5. How to
identify
women’s role
in farm
management?
• Most existing studies
distinguish between
male- and female-
managed farms based on
the sex of the
household head.
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
Women’s plot ownership and
participation in decision-
making in Bangladesh
Source: 2011-2012 BIHS, Author’s calculations

6. Primary Objective
• Can differences in
technical efficiency be
explained by women’s
empowerment?
– Does this
relationship
depend on
women’s role in
farm management?
0 Input, X
Output, Y
Production
frontier, Y=f(X)
C
A
Male-
managed
farms
Female-
managed
farms
B

7. Data
• 2011-2012 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey
(BIHS)
– Conducted by IFPRI and DATA
• Only households engaged in crop agriculture
– 3,369 (51.8%) of 6,503 households
– 4,797 plots of land
– 3 crop seasons
• Total sample size: 7,387 plot-level, season-specific
observations

8. PrimaryVariables of Interest
• Indicators of women’s empowerment
– Empowerment score
– Empowerment gap
– Group membership
– Speaking in public
• Indicators of women’s role in farm management
– Socially recognized ownership
– Legally recognized ownership
– Participation in decision-making

9. Results
Is technical efficiency associated with women’s
empowerment?
• Associated with higher levels of technical efficiency
– Group membership
• No statistically significant association
– Empowerment score
– Speaking in public
– Empowerment gap

10. Results
Is technical efficiency associated with women’s
role in farm management?
• Associated with lower levels of technical efficiency
– Legally recognized ownership
• No statistically significant association
– Socially recognized ownership
– Participation in decision-making
• No interaction between group membership and women’s role
in farm management

11. Conclusions and Policy
Implications
• Pattern of gender gaps speaks to the presence of
unobservable factors that affect women only when they hold
the title to a plot of land
– Linkages between credit and land markets?
• Women’s empowerment is predicted to increase technical
efficiency of all plots operated by the household
– May indicate positive spillover effects to other household
members from investment in groups and social
relationships

12. Thank you!