Undergraduate Research Projects Collection

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://10.10.97.169:4000/handle/123456789/217

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    Women participation in decision making on food consumption and financial expenditure among farming households: central, eastern and southern-highlands zones, Tanzania
    (Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2019) Sanga, B. D
    The burden of malnutrition among children and pregnant women in Tanzania may partly be contributed by inadequate and inequitable participation of women and men in resources utilization. Despite efforts to empower women to enable them to participate in resource utilization, little has been achieved so far especially on aspects related to household decisions on resource utilization. This study aimed at assessing women participation in household decision making on income expenditure and food consumption pattern among smallholder farmers. A cross-sectional study involved 340 females and 247 males from 587 households enrolled in ATONU project from ten districts and 20 villages in Eastern, Central and Southern highlands zones were interviewed through a structured questionnaire. Twenty focus group discussions were held to complement the quantitative information. Descriptive analysis was done for quantitative data. Voice records were transcribed and translated to English then summarized and analysed using content analysis. The mean age of all respondents was 40 years; females (38 years) and males (42 years), 80% had attained primary school education. Agriculture was the primary livelihood activity. There was a seasonal variation of activities on dry and wet season. Women spent more time per day (about 8 hours) in farming than men who spent about 7 hours. Decision on the household income expenditure was jointly done (49.1%) as well as in food expenditure (50.3%). Women participated many times on household decisions regards food purchase (73%) and income expenditure (60.8%), but had low decision power on food (29.9%) and income expenditure (18.8%). Although results showed joint spending in most of households, but men had much influence on it due to cultural practices and their high income earned. Therefore, women economic empowerment should be strengthened through ownership and control of household resources to rise up their decision power.