FW: Analytical and empirical linkages between poverty, employment, agricultural growth and gender

Analytical and empirical linkages between poverty, employment, agricultural growth and gender

 

Introduction:

·   Gender disparities in basic rights; in access to schooling, credit, and jobs  take their most direct toll on women and girls, the evidence shows that gender inequality ultimately hinders economic growth.

·   Gender differentials in other areas such as access to land and complementary agricultural inputs, labour force participation and labour productivity also matter for economic growth.

 

Who is the Poor?

·   Farmers and self-employed- small ‘substance farmers’, people living in rural areas ( Africa 60% to 80%a)-smallholders, substance and peasant categories, considered as homogenous , sharing  the characteristics of poverty, Female Headed Households

·   Poverty and gender: a) women as self-employed farmers, including women working on their own family’s farm, or b) Female headed Household in rural areas.

 

Facts (Sender and  Abhijit et al)

·   changes in women ‘s employment patterns  due access to non--agriculture employment, increased casualisation in the labour force, access to education, e.g. women aspire non-agriculture jobs or  non self-employment jobs.

·   Men continue to benefit priced inputs including access to credits and fertilisers.

·   Women lack of secure, sufficient and fertile lands. Solution: promote non-farm self-employment; e.g. retailing enterprises, food processing, hairdressing, etc.

·   Shift to non-agricultural employment  resulting from the inability of agriculture to generate the means  for adequate livelihood to those born in farming families

·   Increase share of agriculture is accompanied by decrease in rural employment rates ( particularly for daily status) along with casual labour contracts

 

Policy responses

·     Role of the state in creating the environment for particular patterns to emerge and moulding specific changes in employment behaviour (India )

·   The poor will benefit when policies are introduced to provide them with prices incentives.

·   Priced inputs into farming operations e.g.- seeds, planting materials, fertilisers and agro-chemicals, micro-credit programmes, new techniques, improved varieties , pests and diseases threats, etc.

·   constraints:  distorted , discriminatory rural credits  market

·   Promoting self-employment, market deregulation, decentralisation to ensure capital inflows.  But self-employment and price incentives to increase farm outputs in reducing in reducing female poverty is unsatisfactory.

·   State intervention in rural markets for poverty reduction (e.g. stabilising of price of grains has played a key role in reducing rural poverty since 1950s( India)

·   State investments to increase the stability of the rate of growth of agriculture production – water control and irrigation programmes.

 

Challenges:

·   Insufficient of country-level work that will help in assembling robust country-level evidence on the links between gender equality and economic growth and poverty reduction and on the efficacy of alternative public actions to address the key aspects of gender inequality.

·   Limitations of existing analytical tools and methods are still a constraint in building such an evidence base at the country level. Insufficient knowledge about the impacts of specific policies.

·   Lack of reliable sex-disaggregated data continues to be a serious problem, particularly in low-income countries. – Need to improve statistical systems at the country level and to adapt the design of household surveys. (World Bank)

·   Lack for reliable data of  those employed in small–scale farms and rural enterprises , especially on the wages of those who are irregularly, seasonably , or casually employed-More research to  trends in rural female wages ( J. Sender).

 

Discussion:

 

Promoting self-employment may not be a sustainable solution e.g. waste of time and resources to promote the sector.  Poverty reduction is possible when labour force become employed for wages ( e.g. OECD countries)