Farm & Family Balance 

The intra-household and gender dynamics of cash-cropping

Uganda

Collaborators: Kate Ambler and Mike O'Sullivan

2016-2018. American Economic Association RCT Registry # AEARCTR-0001647 

Despite much interest in increasing women’s access to markets and improving the returns to their efforts, little rigorous evidence exists about what works to achieve these objectives. In this study we use a randomized-controlled trial to test two approaches, one designed to be championed and scaled-up by private sector actors, and one that addresses the intrahousehold barriers to women’s participation and access to profits. 

We partnered with a large cash crop processor in Jinja, Uganda, and 2,300 smallholder farming households that sell to it. Households were randomly assigned in a 2x2 design to receive one, both, or neither of the two study interventions. Both interventions were designed to increase women's access to output markets and control over the returns to their labor. The first intervention was a Family Vision Workshop that encouraged spousal communication and cooperation, gender sensitivity, and women’s participation in cash cropping. The second intervention included encouragement to men to either transfer a cash crop contract to a wife or allow a wife to register a new contract in her own name.  Take-up of the interventions was 80% and 70%, respectively. 

We evaluated whether these interventions affected intra-household allocation of resources, decision-making power, consumption and investment, productivity of the cash crop at the household level, and success of contract fulfillment for the buyer. Baseline data collection prior to randomization included lab-in-the-field experiments to provide novel measurements of existing intra-marital dynamics and women’s bargaining power. Follow-up data collection included high-frequency measures of labor allocation and personal consumption, as well as detailed agricultural productivity, experimental measures of bargaining power, and standard measures of decision-making, food security, and other welfare indicators.