Women's empowerment in cotton growing: a case in Northern Benin

Faridath Aboudou and Michel Fok

Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), 2019, vol. 4, issue 01

Abstract: This article addresses the economic and social impacts for women growing cotton through the interrelated dimensions of resource, agency and achievements in women's empowerment. Women's growing cotton is explained by analyzing their characteristics and those of their husbands and of the other women, in the per- spective of intra household negotiations and in the specic context and recent history of cotton production. Our study found a noticeable share of 20 percent of farms where women and their husbands simultaneously earned cotton income and where women spent less time in the elds while enjoying better decision-making power. This new status of income generation and role sharing within households is a win-win situation, ben- etting from a change in social norms which required an extra-household chock, a period of cotton sector uncertainty in an exacerbated monetization context. As monetization keeps on prevailing in all African coun- tries, it should favor further women's empowerment.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Labor and Human Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:afgend:301199

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.301199

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