Gender and Economic Transformation in Africa

Cheryl Doss Yale University

Presented at the African Centre for Economic Transformation

July 18, 2012

To obtain long-term growth and transformation of economies, all of the available resources must be utilized.

These include the labor, skills, and resources of both men and women.

Gender influences access to assets, property rights, skills, information, etc.

Economic transformation requires secure property rights.

Focus today on assets and property rights.

Why consider gender?

How to define and obtain secure property rights?

Formalization, such as land titling, may or may not provide more secure tenure.

What is the level at which we consider secure property rights? State, community, household, individual?

Economic transformation requires secure property rights

Data on assets usually collected at the household level.

But assets are often owned individually. HH secure tenure individual secure

tenure. Women – and others – may access assets

through household To understand decisions about investments,

need to know household and individual level property rights information.

Household or Individual Level?

≠

To address the lack of data on individual asset ownership and property rights, the Gender Asset Gap Project collected individual level asset ownership and rights data from Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka, India.

The Gender Asset Gap Project

Interviewed two adults, usually principal male and female, in each householdQuestions on all physical & financial assets, including multiple means of valuation Household inventory: Asked detailed questions about all forms of physical/financial assets, including identification of ownersIndividual questionnaire: Asked about individual ownership and rights

Unique Features of Survey

Measuring the Gender Asset Gap

There are different ways to present the gender asset gap

• One approach is the distribution by form of property ownership

• This uses the asset as the unit of observation and asks how each asset is owned

Distribution by form of Property Ownership, Agricultural Parcels

Distribution by form of Property Ownership, Small Livestock

Distribution by form of Property Ownership, Formal Savings

Measuring the Gender Asset Gap

A second approach is the proportion of the population of adult women, or men, who own the particular asset (irrespective of form of ownership.)

We refer to this as the Gender Asset Gap or the incidence gap.

Incidence of Ownership of

Non- Agricultural Real Estate

Incidence of Ownership of

Agricultural Land

Incidence of Ownership ofAgricultural Equipment

Incidence of Ownership of

Consumer Durables

Which approach? The distribution of assets by form of ownership

indicates the proportion of assets that are owned individually by men or women or owned jointly.• It does not tell us how many different men

and women own these assets. It could be that many of the assets are owned by a few individuals or that they are widely distributed.

The incidence gaps indicate the proportion of men and women who are owners of a particular type of asset, but do not tell us anything about whether the quality and quantity owned varies among owners.

The Gender Wealth Gaps The value of assets owned by men and women

captures the quality and quantity dimensions The values used for the following indictors were

obtained by asking the primary respondents about the market value for each asset.

For assets jointly owned, the value is assumed to be shared equally among owners.

The gross values rather than net values are reported.

The gender wealth gaps are presented as the share of women’s wealth of that asset. These are presented next to the share of owners who are women.

Female Share of Business Owners and Business Wealth

Share of Savings Wealth, by sex

Share of Household Gross Physical Wealth, by sex

Gender Wealth Gaps

In Ecuador, when individual ownership is dominant, such as for savings and businesses, the gender wealth gap favors men.

Overall the gender wealth gap is more striking than the gender asset gap for each of the major assets in Karnataka and Ghana.• Women are less likely to own major assets than men.• Of those who do own the asset, women are more likely to own

fewer of them and ones that are of lesser value than men.

•

Survey in Uganda on access to and rights over land, based on household and individual surveys.

Similar format – asked one person household inventory, up to three others about their own property rights.

Incidence of Ownership, by sex and definition of ownership

(% of respondents in each category)

N=

Listed as

owner

Self-reported

owner

Own name on

document

Own name on

deed

Men 346 69% 77% 52% 1%

Women 424 58% 66% 20% 0%

Total 770 63% 71% 34% 1%

Incidence of Reported Ownership and Agricultural Decision-Making (% of

respondents in each category)

Makes decisions about: Keeps

Listed as

owner

Crops to

grow

Inputs to use

What to

sell

Rev.

Men 69% 44% 63% 47% 44%

Women 58% 41% 65% 45% 39%

Total 63% 42% 64% 45% 41%

Incidence of Self-Reported Ownership and Rights over Land

(% of respondents in each category)

 Self

reported ownership

Sell Bequeath Rent out

 

Any Any alone

Any Any alone

Any Any alone

Men 77% 41% 4% 49% 8% 45% 5% 

Women 66% 25% 4% 25% 5% 29% 5% 

Total 71% 32% 4% 36% 7% 36% 5% 

Asset ownership and property rights differ for men and women, in many dimensions.

Concern about relationships in both directions:

1) Ensure that economic transformation does not leave women out. 2) How do differences in property rights affect economic transformation?

Conclusions

Track and analyze men’s and women’s assets ownership and property rights through the process of economic transformation.

Research agenda