Analyzing the women’s empowerment and food security nexus in rural areas of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan: By giving consideration to sense of land entitlement and infrastructural facilities

Noshaba Aziz, Qasim Ali Nisar, Mansoor Ahmed Koondhar, Muhammad Meo () and Kong Rong

Land Use Policy, 2020, vol. 94, issue C

Abstract: A rich body of literature exists for explaining the role women play in ensuring their household’s food security; however, as far as their own food security is concerned, little attention has been given. Therefore, this research collects evidence on the relationship between women’s empowerment and their own food security (access) in the rural areas of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK). Data were collected from the households of 600 rural women. The results provide insights that the domains of legal rights, information and communication technologies (ICTs), social support and familial rights, can be a significant pathway for enhancing the food security of women as more bargaining power of women over the utilization of resources could result in a good quality of food choices and more expense on food items due to these rights. Besides, understanding food insecurity also requires considering gender norms as in this study, the infrastructural facilities and sense of land entitlement provide unexpected non-significant results. Though women help in the mounting necessities of their families, they are unable to enhance the food requirements for themselves due to restricted mobility and less economic opportunities. This is mainly due to the poor infrastructure, and more importantly, the lack of access to resources, especially land, because of lack of knowledge and self-confidence. Notably, the fear of conflict and domestic violence may also impede women from fighting for their rights, which results in poor access to food. Hence, by understanding the household makeup from women’s perspectives and customs, the findings from this study can help and guide policymakers in developing more appropriate strategies to improve the food security of women.

Keywords: Women’s empowerment; Women’s food access; Patriarchal society; Sense of land entitlement; Pakistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719321106
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:94:y:2020:i:c:s0264837719321106

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104529

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().