EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Gender and Policy Roles in Farm Household Diversification in Zambia

Mariana Saenz and Eric Thompson

World Development, 2017, vol. 89, issue C, 152-169

Abstract: Many African governments, faced with low rural incomes and food security challenges, have developed input subsidy programs in order to enhance agricultural productivity. This paper adds to recent literature analyzing the effects of input subsidy programs and gender on crop diversification in Sub-Saharan Africa. We investigate the effect of Zambia’s input subsidy program on crop allocation patterns by gender. In relatively land abundant Zambia, we test both single-equation crop diversification index models and multivariate regression models of cropland allocation. Our study finds that input subsidies reduce crop diversification more in male-headed households than in female-headed households. Further, multivariate regression results confirm that this occurs because female-headed households expand maize acreage less in response to the input subsidy. These findings suggest that greater cropland diversification will be maintained if input subsidy programs are accompanied by loan programs and other assistance which support leadership roles for women in farm households.

Keywords: Zambia; crop diversification; gender; land allocation; input subsidy program; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15303697
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:wdevel:v:89:y:2017:i:c:p:152-169

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.08.007

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 ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:89:y:2017:i:c:p:152-169