Examining the Gender Productivity Gap among Farm Households in Mali

Abstract

This paper decomposes the gender agricultural productivity gap and measures the factors that influence the gap between male and female agricultural plot managers in Mali. The Oaxaca–Blinder approach and the recentred influence function (RIF) decomposition methodology are applied to a nationally representative survey of Mali. The results show that the agricultural productivity of female plot managers is 20.18% lower than that of male plot managers. Additionally, while more than half (56%) of the agricultural productivity gap is influenced by female-specific structural disadvantages, 44% of the gap is due to an endowment effect. Socio-economic characteristics such as the educational level and age of the plot manager, environmental factors and agricultural production practices, i.e., the differential use of inputs (organic or inorganic fertiliser and improved seeds) and the use of hired female workers seem to affect the female-specific structural disadvantages. To reduce or close the gender productivity gap, the underlying causes of female-specific structural disadvantages must be addressed to enable female farmers to obtain the same returns as men. Traditional means of addressing the gender gap, such as providing education for women in rural areas and facilitating rural women’ access to extension services and improved seeds, can mitigate the endowment deficit. This paper highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the factors influencing the structural disadvantages faced by female farmers in Mali that could feed into the development of more effective policies to address the gender gap in agricultural productivity, improving productivity and gender equity and reducing poverty.

Gender gaps in sorghum productivity: evidence from male- and female-managed plots in Uganda

“…Likewise, the male structural advantage and female structural disadvantage significantly explain the mean gender productivity differentials of 57% and 33%, respectively. Similar findings were reported by Kilic et al (2015); Joe-Nkamuke et al ( 2019) and Singbo et al (2021).…”

“…Male plot managers had the highest productivity (850.6 kgs/ha) compared to the female managed plots (832.6 kgs/ha) and the pooled sample (841.6 kgs/ha). This finding is similar to Djurfeldt et al (2019); "Author" here) and Singbo et al (2021) who attributed it to male plot managers' superior access to productive resources and institutional support services. The productivity of the male-managed plots, female-managed plots and the pooled sample is presented through a kernel density plot in Figure 2.…”

“…In order to account for this, we adopt the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach (Oaxaca 1973;Djurdjevic and Radyakin 2007). The decomposition technique is increasingly being applied in gender and productivity studies (see for example, Kilic et al 2015;Bello et al 2021;Nchanji et al2021;Singbo et al 2021). The approach starts by estimating the expected yield value per ha for the male (𝑚)and female (𝑓) plot managers as presented in Equation 3.…”

“…However, our results differ from those of Joe-Nkamuke et al ( 2019) who found that a 76% gender gap in Malawi was due to the endowment effect. Singbo et al (2021) reported that the main driver of the gender gap remained unexplained (56%) by the structural disadvantage of women in Mali. Therefore, drivers of gender gaps in productivity vary from one context to the other.…”

Policy interventions and productive employment in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a gender-differentiated meta-analysis

“…For example, in the farm sector, tilling activities are male-dominated, while sowing and harvesting are female-dominated. The labor division, combined with differences in resource endowments, has led to a gender productivity and poverty gap that has been widely documented in the literature (Muricho et al ., 2020; Singbo et al ., 2021). This is also reflected in productive employment, which also exhibits a gender dimension as a direct consequence of social inequalities (norms, resource endowments, etc.)…”