Northeastern Family Forest Owner Gender Differences in Land-Based Estate Planning and the Role of Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Understanding family forest owner (FFO) estate planning decisionmaking is fundamental to ensuring the survival of landscapes that provide many public goods, but little is known about how land-based estate planning differs by gender. Analyses of a survey of FFOs in northeastern United States indicated that female FFOs rate themselves with lower levels of land-based estate planning self-efficacy—being less prepared, confident, and financially able to move forward with planning the future of their land than males. Of the FFOs who had positive levels of land-based estate planning self-efficacy, females were more likely to want to keep their land undeveloped than males. Our research suggests that increasing land-based estate planning self-efficacy of female FFOs may lead to higher rates of keeping land undeveloped for regions with FFOs similar to those of the northeast. We recommend ways in which foresters and programs could play an important role in increasing land-based estate planning self-efficacy.

Towards gender equality in family forestry: building self-efficacy together with other female forest owners

“…Nevertheless, gender has an influence on it (Pajares, 2002). In general, women have lower self-efficacy, for example, in mathematics (Pajares, 2002), and furthermore in life in occupations that are male dominated (Hackett and Betz, 1981), including forest ownership (Markowski-Lindsay et al, 2020) and among forest professionals (Johansson et al, 2019).…”

“…These aspects are probably products of earlier social experiences within the familiar group, but most likely, the spirit of the group also originated from the fact that its participants were all women (Redmore and Tynon, 2010;Huff, 2017;Markowski-Lindsay et al, 2020). The meetings increased the women's knowledge, which led to a virtuous circle; by learning, the women also became more encouraged to participate in discussions outside the group.…”

“…Several studies have supported the idea that peer forest owners can play a role in the decision making of family forest owners (West et al, 1988;Knoot and Rickenbach, 2011;Ma et al, 2011;Schubert and Mayer, 2012). Based on recent empirical research on peer-to-peer learning among family forest owners (Kueper et al, 2013;Hamunen et al, 2015;Markowski-Lindsay et al, 2020), we suggest that the interaction of female forest owners with their local female peers could contribute to their self-efficacy and activeness as forest owners, encourage them to participate in forest related issues and give them a stimulus to make decisions regarding their forest property, thus also promoting societal gains in the form of diverse and active use of forests for multiple benefits.…”

“…Moreover, in Sweden, the values and interests of female forest owners have been found to differ from those of male forest owners (Umaerus et al, 2019). According to a recent US study, gender has an influence on forest owners' internal belief in his or her ability to accomplish tasks (Markowski-Lindsay et al, 2020). In that study, compared to men, female forest owners rated themselves as being less prepared, less confident and financially not as less capable of moving forward with planning the future of their land.…”

Conservation Intentions and Place Attachment among Male and Female Forest Landowners*

“…The second objective determines the role of place attachment along with demographic and forestland characteristic variables in predicting conservation intentions among family forest landowners by gender. Based on the existing studies showing lower levels of female involvement in forest management, but higher importance of continuing a family legacy Crim et al 2003;Majumdar et al 2009;Markowski-Lindsay et al 2020), we hypothesized that the place attachment and conservation intent in forestry would likely vary by gender in the Southern US.…”