Research Results in 1998

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Bangladesh

There is considerable interest in "food-based" strategies to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition, interventions which can complement supplementation and fortification programs and seek directly to improve dietary quality. Promotion of polyculture fish and vegetable production, two foods relatively rich in micronutrients, holds potential for improving micronutrient status in Bangladesh (I) by increasing the supply of micronutrients to the general population and so lowering prices or maintaining constant prices in the face of rising demand due to population and income growth and (ii) by directly improving household incomes and intakes of fish and vegetables of producing households. The present study examined three NGO programs promoting the production of polyculture fish and commercial vegetables through provision of NGO credit and training programs directed at women: (1) commercial vegetable production in Saturia; (2) polyculture fish production in household-owned ponds in Mymensingh; and (3) polyculture fish production in group-managed ponds in Jessore. The evaluation methodology involved comparing groups of adopters to comparable nonadopters, as well as a random sample from the rest of the population. Selected findings are presented below. (For details see IFPRI-BIDS-INFS 1998b.)

• Profitability of the new agricultural technologies. Vegetable production is much more profitable than rice production. However, both adopting and nonadopting households devote much more land to rice production than to vegetable production. While rice can be grown year-round, vegetables do not grow well during periods of heavy rain and hot temperature. Vegetables cannot be grown on land which is subject to flooding. Unlike rice, vegetables must be marketed immediately and thus prices are more variable. This may make vegetable production more risky. Identifying the constraints to expanded vegetable production is an important question which merits further inquiry. Taking fallow time for rice production into consideration, polyculture fishpond production as practiced by adopting households in Mymensingh is clearly much more profitable than rice cultivation. In Jessore, only five of nine group ponds surveyed were operated as intended under the Banchte Shekha program. Inadequate excavation and intra-group disagreements led to nonoperation of ponds in the remaining four cases. Thus, while programs which make productive assets available to groups of poor women can in theory be an effective way to raise the incomes of the poor, such programs can be fraught with institutional constraints related both to ensuring actual control over the productive assets by the participants and to intra-group disagreements once access is secured. Such problems cannot be eliminated but can be minimized by the active participation in group activities of highly motivated extension officers who are employees of the NGO administering such programs.

• Women's assets and the distribution of household expenditures. To examine whether providing assets to poor women has an effect on intrahousehold distribution, the study also examined the effect of differences in the bargaining power of husband and wife on the distribution of consumption expenditures. Two alternative measures of bargaining power are used: current assets and the value of assets brought to marriage. Both assets at marriage and current assets are strongly determined by the human capital of husband and wife and the characteristics of their origin families. For both husband and wife, parent's landholdings are a consistent determinant of both assets at marriage and current assets. Contrary to the unitary model, husband's and wife's assets have different effects on the allocation of expenditures within the household. Wife's assets have a positive and significant effect on the share of expenditures on children's clothing and education. After endogeneity of assets is accounted for, husband's assets have a positive and significant effect on the food expenditure share. Neglecting the endogeneity of asset measures to individual and parental characteristics underestimates the impact of men's and women's assets on expenditure shares (see Quisumbing and de la Brière 1998).

• Intrahousehold food distribution. Preschoolers appear to be favored in the intrahousehold distribution of food, particularly preschool boys who receive a disproportionate share of animal and fish products, which are the most expensive sources of energy and account for a high percentage of foods purchased at the margin as income increases. Adult women tend to receive disproportionately lower shares of preferred foods. Although the energy intakes of adult women are, of course, substantially greater than those of preschool children (a multiple of about two), consumption of animal and fish products is about equal between adult women and preschool boys.

• Effects of Technology Adoption on Nutritional Outcomes. Adoption of the two technologies under study has not significantly improved the micronutrient status of members of adopting households through better dietary quality. Adopting households do not consume disproportionately high proportions of their production of fish and vegetables. Impacts on overall household income, although positive, are not strong. From a short- run perspective, such production strategies can only start to improve the nutritional situation at the margin. Producing sufficient quantities of non- staple foods for consumers to meet recommended daily allowances of minerals is very much a medium-to-long-run objective for the agricultural sector in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, demand estimates demonstrate that consumption of these foods will increase if prices decline. Developing and promoting adoption of more productive technologies for non-staple food crops and animal and fish products is essential for maintaining per capita supply and prices at present levels, else the micronutrient status of consumers will worsen even further. Because much of the potential for increased productivity in the rice sector has now been exploited over the last two decades in Bangladesh, the non-staple food crop sector may provide the best opportunity for productivity gains in the agricultural sector in the future.

• Iron-deficiency anemia. Rates of anemia among adult women and preschool children in all three sites were high. Prevalence rates were 50- 60% for adult women and 40-50% for preschoolers, depending on the site. For preschoolers and for adult women, animal and fish intakes (but no other food groups) were found to be statistically significant determinants of hemoglobin status. The magnitude of the measured effect, however, was small. Average population hemoglobin is raised by 0.23 for every 10% increase in the percent of total energy derived from animal and fish products. To achieve this 10% increase, and a reduction of anemia prevalence by 12-13%, total energy intakes would have to increase substantially: about 110 calories per capita per day for preschoolers and 220 calories per capita per day for adult women — from an observed base of 40-60 calories per capita per day. This suggests that substantial reductions in anemia can only be achieved in the short-to- medium term through supplementation and fortification.

• Effectiveness of iron supplementation for women. Since 1978, iron and folic acid pills have been distributed, along with other family-planning and health services, to women in Matlab subdistrict, Bangladesh, through fortnightly visits of community health workers. In 1986 the iron dose was set at three pills daily (198 mg of iron) during pregnancy and two pills daily for 6 months post-partum. Hemoglobin concentrations were determined in a representative sample of 218 women who gave birth from June through August 1994 and who were followed prospectively from 0.5 to 9 months post-partum. At 0.5 months post-partum, 88% of women reported that they had taken iron pills on the previous day. The prevalence of anemia declined from 36% at 0.5 months to 9% at 9 months post-partum, with an overall average prevalence of 23% in this period. To estimate the impact of the program, these results were compared to anemia results from representative samples of non-pregnant women in Matlab in 1975 and 1976 and in the three communities surveyed in the IFPRI study in 1996. The estimated reduction in the prevalence of anemia resulting from the program ranged from 48% to 70%, and the estimated increase in hemoglobin concentration ranged from 0.9 to 2.1 g/dl. This evidence suggests that the Matlab program has been highly effective in controlling anemia (see Stoltzfus et al. 1998).

South Africa

A qualitative study of social capital and economic shocks was completed by Catherine Cross and her team at the University of Natal in late 1997. Three communities in Kwazulu-Natal were selected: 2 rural and one urban. The research questions centered around networks of assistance, the nature of shocks faced, and associated coping strategies. Two types of networks emerged from the discussions: bound and achieved. Bound networks consist of close relatives with heavy obligations. Achieved networks are developed at the discretion of the individual. Achieved networks seem to be more important for gaining upward economic mobility and the bound networks are more important for avoiding or coping with downward economic mobility (see Cross 1998).

Ghana and Sumatra Property Rights and Gender Study

• Evolution of women's land rights in Ghana. A study on impact of evolutionary changes in customary land tenure institutions in Western Ghana found that customary land tenure institutions have evolved toward individualized systems to provide incentives to invest in tree planting. However, contrary to the common belief that individualization of land tenure weakens women's land rights, these have been strengthened through inter- vivos gifts. Investment in tree planting is affected not simply by the level of land tenure security, but also by its expected changes, as tree planting strengthens land tenure security. Cocoa yields are lower on allocated family land and rented land under share tenancy, due to distorted work incentives. While men and women are equally likely to plant trees, women obtain lower yields on their cocoa plots, suggesting the presence of gender-specific constraints (see Quisumbing et al. 1998).

• Land rights and production efficiency. Traditional land tenure institutions in Western Ghana are generally not inefficient with respect to the decision to plant trees. However, land is more often left fallow in parcels with weak land rights under temporarily allocated family land, which indicates the inefficiency of land use in shifting cultivation area under this customary land tenure institution. Land tenure institutions also do not significantly affect net revenue and labor use in food crop fields and young and mature cocoa fields. These results support the hypothesis that management intensity of cocoa fields tends to be equalized due to the establishment of secure land tenure after tree planting, regardless of the manner of land acquisition. Consistent with other evidence from Sub- Saharan Africa, when net revenues and input use are considered, women parcel managers are equally efficient as male cocoa farmers. Given the almost complete individualization of land rights under some land tenure categories, our results indicate that traditional land tenure institutions in customary areas of Western Ghana have been sufficiently individualized to achieve farm management efficiency comparable to private ownership (see Otsuka et al. 1998).

• Efficiency of cinnamon production in Sumatra. In two typical cinnamon- growing villages in Western Sumatra, the traditional matrilineal inheritance system in paddy rice has almost completely given way to inheritance by daughters and sons alike, in both joint-family and single-family ownership systems. In contrast, land tenure institutions of cinnamon fields were much more individualized. Consistent with findings that land tenure institutions do not affect crop yields in customary land areas of some Sub-Saharan African countries, prevailing land tenure institutions do not affect farm management efficiency in either paddy rice or cinnamon. Thus, we conclude that customary land tenure institutions have been sufficiently individualized to ensure tenure security and that factor markets work well in customary land areas (see Suyanto et al. 1998a).

• Efficiency of rubber production in Sumatra. In our study site, a typical rubber-growing region in Western Sumatra, the matrilineal system of inheritance, which is still followed in lowland paddy and upland food crop fields, has been replaced by a patrilineal system of inheritance for rubber fields. Sales of upland fields have also become common. Strong land rights are also conferred upon newly-cleared forestland, even though the land rights may decline if the cleared land is used for food production and then left fallow under traditional shifting cultivation. Because customary land tenure institutions have evolved from lineage and joint-family ownership to more individualized single-family ownership, there is no significant difference in management efficiency of rubber production in newly emerging private ownership and single-family ownership systems (see Suyanto et al. 1998b).

• Gender-differentiated inheritance in Sumatra. A retrospective survey on inheritance in the same sites as the rubber and cinnamon studies shows that the inheritance system is evolving from a strictly matrilineal system to a more egalitarian system in which sons and daughters inherit the type of land which is more intensive in their own work effort. Different inheritance patterns of paddy land, agroforest, and bush-fallow land by gender are consistent with work differentiation between men and women in the cultivation of different fields, which suggests that land inheritance institutions have evolved so as to provide proper work incentives to men and women. That is, men inherit areas planted to crops which are intensive in male labor, such as rubber, while women continue inherit paddy land, which uses women's labor more intensively. Cinnamon, which uses approximately equal amounts of male and female labor, is inherited by both daughters and sons. The availability of uncultivated land reduces parents' investment in schooling, which implies that schooling substitutes for bequest of land. However, while gender bias is either non-existent or small in overall land inheritance, daughters are clearly disadvantaged with respect to schooling (see Quisumbing and Otsuka 1998).

Other Research Results

Gender and food security interventions. Women in developing countries play a crucial role in meeting the food and nutrition needs of their families through the "three pillars" of food security—food production, economic access to food, and nutrition security. A review of recent empirical evidence shows that income increases controlled by women have a greater impact on household food security, child health, and schooling. Despite women's importance, they are constrained by lower access to land, credit, and extension advice, as well as domestic responsibilities. These constraints have consequences for productivity, efficiency, and environmental sustainability. To address these, different approaches can be employed for the gender-sensitive design of agricultural projects (see Quisumbing et al. 1998).

Impacts of women's income on welfare outcomes. This paper provides an updated review of the empirical evidence on income pooling across household members. Income pooling is one of the main predictions of the unitary model of the household. Despite the wide range of estimation techniques used, the studies demonstrate a pattern of rejection of the hypothesis that male and female income (or credit or assets) have equal marginal effects on a range of household and individual welfare outcomes. The conclusion of the new studies—rejection of income pooling and the unitary model—is thus consistent with previous work. The paper then looks beyond the mere rejection of the unitary model and explores some of the issues that arise. First, what is the progress in testing the restrictions imposed by nonunitary models of the household? Second, what are the implications of rejection of the unitary model for policy and program design? Finally, what are some of the challenges faced by programs and policies that internalize the rejection of income pooling in terms of impact evaluation? (see Haddad, forthcoming)

Gender and water management. The widespread trend to decentralize natural resource management responsibility from the state to "communities" has too often ignored intra-community power differences, especially those based on gender. Despite the rhetoric on women's participation, a review of evidence from South Asia shows that female participation is minimal in water users' organizations. Formal and informal membership criteria exclude women, and women's costs of participation are often higher than for men. More formal participation of women can strengthen women's bargaining position as resource users and strengthen the effectiveness of the organization by improving women's compliance with rules and maintenance contributions (see Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteween, forthcoming).

Social roles and the division of labor in Pakistan. Using detailed data from rural Pakistan, this paper investigates whether human capital, learning by doing, gender, and one's status within the family (or family status) affect the division of labor within households. Results suggest the presence of returns to individual specialization in all farm, non-farm, and home based activities. The intrahousehold division of labor is influenced by comparative advantage based on human capital and by long-lasting returns to learning by doing, but we also find evidence of a separate effect of gender and family status. Households seem to operate as hierarchies with sexually segregated spheres of activity. The head of household and his or her spouse provide most of the labor within their respective spheres of influence; other members work less. When present in the household, daughters-in-law work systematically harder than daughters of comparable age, build, and education. Other findings of interest are that there are increasing returns to scale in most household chores, that larger households work more off farm, and that better educated individuals enjoy more leisure (see Fafchamps and Quisumbing 1998).