Intra-household decision making on production and income generation options among women in Mara Region, Tanzania
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Date
2022
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture.
Abstract
Women’s ability to make decisions on production matters and income generation in the
household is crucial to reduce gender based violence, improve women’s production ability, improve
livelihood of household members and reduce poverty among women and a country in general. The
study examined the contribution of Cassava Adding Value for Africa II project towards empowering
women cassava producers to make decisions on production matters and income generated from
cassava crops. The study was conducted in Rorya, Bunda and Serengeti Districts in Mara Region
where the project was implemented. The study employed census method whereby data were
collected from all the three project Districts and wards. A total of 246 women participants and
those who did not participate were randomly selected. The proportion of 50% was applied to select
the participants from the sampling frames of women who participated in the project and those who
did not. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data and Focus Group Discussion and
Semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. Quantitative data collected using
questionnaires were used to compute levels of women empowerment. Furthermore, chi-square tests
were run to reveal if there were any associations between socio-economic characteristics and level
of women empowerment. The results showed that women who participated in the cassava value
chain intervention project were categorized into high level of women empowerment compared
to women who did not, and who were categorized into low level of women empowerment. These
findings suggest that agricultural training provided by CAVA II project exposed women to new,
updated and improved methods of cultivating cassava. The findings show further that women with
five or more acres of cultivating cassava were categorized into high level because they possessed
more acres, plus the training received from the project which resulted into high cassava yields. The
findings also show that age had an association with the level of women empowerments whereby
women between the ages of 35 and 55 were classified as having a high level of women empowerment,
which was linked to their age. This shows that in patriarchal society, women of this age, whether
married or not, were considered mature enough to make judgments. In comparison, women and
girls between the ages of 15 and 34 were not allowed to make decisions in the home that affected
productivity and income. The other significant association revealed by the study was between farm
and wage labor activities and level of women empowerment. The findings show that women who
were farmers and employed were categorized into high level of women empowerment as compared
to women who were only livestock keepers. It is therefore can be concluded that interventions which
target women in agricultural production can increase their empowerment status hence influence
their decision making in production and use of resources required from production activities. It is
therefore recommend that Government and Development partners programmes should design and
implement project which will enhance women empowerment and which in turn will increase their
participation in decision making at the household levels. This will lead to improved livelihood and
reduction of poverty in farming communities in Tanzania.
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Women empowerment, intra-household decisions, production, income, options