Farm size and gender distribution of land: Evidence from Ethiopian land registry data

Stein Holden () and Mesfin Tilahun

World Development, 2020, vol. 130, issue C

Abstract: Land is an essential asset for the livelihood and welfare of rural households in agriculture-based rural economies. This study utilizes land registry data from the First and Second Stage Land Registration (FSLR and SSLR) Reforms that took place in 1998 and 2016 in Tigray region of Ethiopia, the first region in Ethiopia to implement land registration and certification. Second Stage Land Registration and Certification (SSLR&C) provided households with parcel-based certificates with names of all holders. We assess the changes in farm sizes and gender distribution of land using mean and median sizes, Gini coefficients, and cumulative distribution graphs. The SSLR data facilitate detailed gender-disaggregated analysis after aggregating parcel data by gender to household level and categorizing households in male- and female-headed households. The data came from 11 municipalities in four districts, covering 78,700 parcels, a total area of about 30,000 ha, allocated to 31,150 households (SSLR). Average farm size declined from 1.15 to 0.90 ha and median farm size from 0.88 to 0.63 ha from 1998 to 2016. The Gini coefficient for land per capita increased from 0.42 in 1998 to 0.57 in 2016. The female landholding share for this land was as high as 48.8% in 2016. Compared to female-headed households, male-headed households had on average 27% and 35% more land per household in 1998 and 2016. The study demonstrates the relevance of land registry data for the monitoring of farm sizes and gender distribution of land and the findings are of relevance for the Sustainable Development Goal 1.4.

Keywords: Land registry data; Farm size distribution; Gender-disaggregated landholding; Cumulative distribution functions; Gini coefficients; Ethiopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20300528
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Farm size and gender distribution of land: Evidence from Ethiopian land registry data (2020)
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:wdevel:v:130:y:2020:i:c:s0305750x20300528

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104926

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().