EPAR works to bring a gender lens to all our work. We regularly consider questions such as: How do differences in constraints and preferences among individuals in a given household affect the design, delivery, and success of development interventions? Do interventions directed at women improve their opportunities relative to men? EPAR is part of the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups, led by AIR and the Population Council, and below we list EPAR research focused specifically on gender.
- Women’s Groups, Covariate Shocks, and Resilience: An Evidence Synthesis of Past Shocks to Inform a Response to COVID-19 (EPAR Working Paper #404): In a broad effort led by the ECWG, we synthesized evidence from 90 documents to examine how women’s groups interacted with shocks and provided resilience to members and communities in the past to inform strategy for mitigating effects of covariate shocks like COVID-19.
- Self Help Groups Prevalence and Coverage (EPAR Technical Report #362): In a recent EPAR data analysis, we use three nationally-representative survey tools to examine various indicators related to the coverage and prevalence of self-help group usage across six Sub-Saharan African countries. This work served as the basis for the article Delivering Development? Evidence on Self-Help Groups as Development Intermediaries in South Asia and Africa published in Development Policy Review in 2019.
- Polygynous Households and Intrahousehold Decision-Making: Evidence and Policy Implications from Mali and Tanzania (EPAR Technical Report #330): This paper draws on the detailed Farmer First dataset in Tanzania and Mali to examine husband and wife reports of a wife’s share of decision-making authority in polygynous households, where multiple wives jointly contribute to household productivity, and where exit options for any single wife may be less credible.
- Digital Financial Services & Gender: An Analysis of Correlates of Awareness, Adoption, and Use (EPAR Technical Report #317): In this report we analyze three waves nationally-representative household survey data from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia to explore sociodemographic and economic factors associated with mobile money adoption, awareness, and use across countries and over time.
- Economic Benefits of Empowering Women in Agriculture: Assumptions and Evidence (EPAR Technical Report #347): Through a comprehensive review of literature, this report considers how prioritizing women’s empowerment in agriculture might lead to economic benefits. With an intentionally narrow focus on economic empowerment, we draw on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)’s indicators of women’s empowerment in agriculture to consider the potential economic rewards to increasing women’s control over agricultural productive resources (including their own time and labor), over agricultural production decisions, and over agricultural income.
- Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-making Authority and Evidence on Intra-household Accord in Rural Tanzania (EPAR Technical Report #180): We use OLS and logistic regression to investigate variation in husband and wife perspectives on the division of authority over agriculture-related decisions within households in rural Tanzania. The analysis examines differences in the wife’s authority over 13 household and farming decisions. This technical report was the basis for the paper Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-making Authority: Evidence on Intra-household Accord in Rural Tanzania published in World Development in 2017.
- Review of EPAR’s Research on Gender (EPAR Research Brief #344): This brief presents an overview of EPAR’s previous research related to gender. We first present our key takeaways related to labor and time use, technology adoption, agricultural production, control over income and assets, health and nutrition, and data collection. We then provide a brief overview of each previous research project related to gender along with gender-related findings, starting with the most recent project.
- Gender Issues in Digital Financial Services (EPAR Technical Report #311): This report provides a summary of findings from six Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) data analysis reports conducted by various agencies. These reports investigate barriers to financial inclusion and use of digital financial services (DFS) in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Uganda. We compile comparable gender-specific statistics, summarize the authors’ findings to determine commonalities and differences across countries, and highlight gender-specific conclusions and recommendations provided in the studies.
- LSMS-ISA Tanzania: Gender (EPAR Research Brief #190): This brief presents a comparative analysis of men and women and of male- and female-headed households in Tanzania using data from the 2008/2009 wave of the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS), part of the Living Standards Measurement Study Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). We compare farm activity, productivity, input use, and sales as well as labor allocations by gender of the respondent and of the household head.
- Gender & Agriculture in Tanzania(EPAR Technical Report #134): This brief reviews the academic and grey literature on gender and agriculture in Tanzania, providing an overview on the structure of households, the household structure of agricultural production, information on women’s crops, and gender and land rights in Tanzania. We conclude with a summary of challenges to women in agriculture, and describe potential implications for women of advancements in production technology and other economic opportunities for women.
- Gender & Contract Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa(EPAR Research Brief #67): This literature review builds on EPAR’s (review of smallholder contract farming in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (and South Asia (EPAR Technical Report #60) by specifically (examining the evidence on impacts and potential benefits of contract (farming for women in SSA.
- Gender & Cropping in Sub-Saharan Africa: Executive Summary (EPAR Research Brief #64): This brief serves as the executive summary for a series of literature reviews exploring gender implications of improved cropping technology in Sub-Saharan Africa. Each crop-specific paper explores the role of women in production, and provides a framework for analyzing technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle.