Unpaid Care Work and Its Effect on Gender Differences in Climate‐Smart Agriculture Uptake: Insights From Northern Ghana

Albertina Kakora Jarawura, Isaac Gershon Kodwo Ansah, Samuel A. Donkoh and Osman Tahidu Damba

Review of Development Economics, 2026, vol. 30, issue 2, 730-746

Abstract: This study examined how unpaid care work mediates the relationship between gender and climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) practices uptake in northern Ghanaian households. A dataset from 810 male and female participants from married couples was analyzed using the mediation approach. The descriptive results show that on average, female participants spend 4 h and 30 min on unpaid care work such as cooking, childcare, and other domestic work compared to male participants who spend only 42 min performing these activities. This burden of unpaid care work reduces the time female participants have to learn and practice essential sustainable agricultural techniques like CSA to build their productive capacities. The findings from the mediation analysis show that unpaid care work significantly explains the differences in CSA uptake between male and female participants. Indirectly, unpaid care work accounts for about 38% and 25% of the total gendered effect on the uptake of intercropping and legume as previous crop in maize production. In groundnut production, the indirect mediation effect of unpaid care work time on intercropping uptake is 19%. Our findings imply that making labor‐saving technologies available to female participants can free up time and increase their uptake of CSA.

Date: 2026
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