CAPITULO VI: RESULTADOS, CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES
PRUEBA CHI CUADRADO (X 2 )
The main dependent variable is intra-household labour allocation to the loan-funded livestock-fattening (household) enterprises. The variable shows a woman’s relative labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening (household) enterprises vis-à-vis her husband. Intra-household labour allocation in the LF off-farm enterprises is not used in the estimated models because of the limited number of respondents who used loans for such enterprises. The variable was constructed following the survey questionnaire, which asked the female survey respondent to indicate “the contribution of labour by household members, namely the man, the woman, the girls, the boys, and others (including hired labourers) to the LF livestock fattening67”. The female survey respondent was given four response choices to choose from, ranging from high to medium, little, and none. After comparing the degree of women’s and men’s labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises, the variable intra-household labour allocation to the loan-funded livestock-fattening (household) enterprises was constructed. If neither of the spouses in a household contributed any labour to the enterprise, they were excluded from the comparison. If the contribution of the wife was lower than that of the husband, a value 1 was assigned; if the contribution of husband and wife were equal, a value 2 was given; and finally, if the contribution of the wife was higher than that of the husband, a value 3 was assigned. Greater value was attached to a woman’s higher labour contribution to the LF enterprises compared to her husband, while small value was assigned to women’s lower labour contribution compared to her husband. In this way, we constructed a rank-ordered variable that captures the relative labour contribution of men and women to the LF livestock- fattening and off-farm economic enterprises.
As already indicated in Chapter 4, the ACSI’s and OMFI’s credit in the studied areas has contributed to the expansion of individual and/or household economic portfolios. This has direct implications for the organization and distribution of labour to loan-funded enterprises within the household. The conceptual framework displayed in Figure 7.1 depicts the intra- household labour allocation as an outcome of interrelated factors at individual, household, and societal levels. Women’s access to credit in their own name may contribute to the relative labour contribution of women to the loan-funded enterprises within the household, because loan-related activities may be considered women’s responsibility. The relative labour contributions of men and women to the LF enterprises may also vary, depending on the individual life cycle course (age), demography factors (family size), the forms of marriage, and the burden of disease and death (also caused by HIV/AIDS) within the household. Furthermore, membership duration in the credit programme may also have an effect on the relative labour contribution of women to the LF enterprises, compared to men. The description of the explanatory variables is presented in Chapter 5. The definition, the measurement and the hypothesized relationship between the independent and explanatory variables are discussed below.
A woman’s age (AGE) is used as a proxy indicator for life experiences and physical capability. The earlier stage of the household or the woman’s life cycle may require women to spend more time doing child care activities than participating in the household production. This is based on the assumption that fairly young households are comprised of young couples who have younger children than older households. The second assumption is that older women may have more work and life experiences compared to younger women,
Intra-household labour allocation to enterprises
and as a result, they may contribute more labour to the household production. Old age may also imply physical deterioration and a limited capacity to work. However, given the possibility of an age gap between husband and wife68, in old couple households, a woman may be relatively younger and more capable of carrying out physically demanding activities compared to her husband. In young couple households, on the other hand, both men and women are likely to be physically capable but because of the possibilities of young children in such a household, a woman may be occupied with child care responsibilities and may contribute less to the household production. Various studies have shown that the presence of young children within the household reduces women’s participation in farm activities (Tu, 2002) or in income-generating activities (Cain et al., 1982). This could be in part because taking care of young children may reduce young women’s labour availability for economic activities. Hence, we hypothesize that a woman’s labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises is expected to rise with her age within the household. The AGE data were collected in interval. A significant positive association was expected between a woman’s age and her labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises.
Membership duration (DUR) refers to the number of years since a woman became a member of a credit group and accessed credit. It is designed to capture women’s exposure to and experience in the credit programme. Studies have shown a positive association between women’s membership duration in credit programmes and women’s empowerment (Goetz and Gupta, 1996; Hashemi et al., 1996). However, the link between women’s membership duration in a credit programme and their relative labour contribution to loan- funded enterprises is still not clear. Nevertheless, we hypothesize a positive association, because a woman with more years in the credit programme may be empowered enough to control the overall loan-related production processes, including labour. In order to confirm the hypothesis, the outcome of this variable will be interpreted in relation to the previous chapter and the in-depth interviews. The variable DUR was collected in years. A positive and significant association was expected between a woman’s membership duration and her relative labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises.
The form of marriage (MAR) is hypothesized to affect couples’ relative labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises. Married women are not a homogenous group. They can be grouped into two broad categories on the basis of the form of marriage, i.e., monogamy and polygamy69. Married women in different conjugal relations may also have different rights and obligations within the household (Warner et al., 1997). Women in polygamous households are primarily responsible for their own and their children’s maintenance, with little support from their husbands (Kandiyoti, 1988, Mayoux, 2001a). Women in a polygamous relationship are often expected to assume more economic roles to maintain their household, partly because resources owned by husbands are more likely to be shared among co-wives (Rahemeto, 1990), or they may have been abandoned by their husbands (Mandel, 2004). Hence, we assume that women in polygamous households get less assistance from their husbands in the LF livestock-fattening enterprise compared to women in monogamous households. The variable MAR is measured in a dummy variable,
68 The Ethiopian demographic and health survey has shown that in married couple’s households a wife is more likely to be younger than her husband (CSA and ORC Macro, 2000).
69 Although a distinction can be made between senior and junior wives in polygamous households, this is not considered for the model because the proportion of women in polygamous households was small and cannot be further divided into two. However, in-depth interviews did take such variations into consideration.
in which 1 indicates polygamy and 0 indicates monogamy. A significant and positive coefficient was expected.
Household size (HSZ) refers to the total number of people living in a household, including men, women, children, and other individuals. In agrarian economies, household labour allocation patterns depend largely on the availability of farm labour within the household. Household members are an important source of labour in smallholding farming, and larger families are more likely to provide more of the labour necessary for agricultural activities than small families per unit of output (Tesema, 2006). The household size may determine the way in which women allocate labour between domestic and farm activities in two ways. Firstly, large families can mobilize more labour for agricultural activities (LF livestock fattening) than small families. Large families may be in a better position to mobilize labour for fattening a relatively large number of livestock intensively, compared to small families. Secondly, a large family size may imply more domestic activities (more cooking) for women than for men. Hence, a larger family means more hands to work and more mouths to feed. This may suggest that a woman contributes less labour to the LF livestock-fattening enterprise because she engages in more domestic activities. The variable household size is constructed in interval. A negative significant association was expected between a large family size and women’s relative labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprise within the household.
Chronic illness (ILL) refers to serious sickness experienced by a borrower’s household within a year at the time of the survey. We hypothesize that serious sickness in the household may affect the individual labour contribution to the LF livestock-fattening enterprise. Various studies in the developing countries have shown that adult illness in the rural areas affects the household labour allocation in economic activities (Ahmed, 2005; Barnett and Whiteside, 2002; Ilahi, 2001; Rugalema, 1999). In the context of HIV/AIDS, evidence suggests an inverse relationship between women’s participation in productive activities and domestic work (Barnett and Whiteside, 2002; FAO/IP, 2002; Rugalema, 1999). This means that the existence of an AIDS patient within the household is likely to oblige women to withdraw labour from productive activities, in order to take care of sick individuals within the household. Evidence has indicated that female microfinance clients are likely to give little attention to their loan-funded enterprises in order to take care of an AIDS patient within the household (Barnes et al., 2003; Barnes, 2002), and in some cases women give up their credit group membership due to illness within the household (Johnson, 2005; Parker et al., 2000). The variable illness is a dummy variable (the value 1 represents the household experiencing serious illness and 0 represents otherwise). Because the survey data on sickness were neither disaggregated by gender nor by age, two alternative scenarios are hypothesized. Firstly, the coefficient may be significant and negative if a woman could not work because she was either sick or spent more time taking care of a non-adult sick person within the household. Secondly, the coefficient may be significant and positive if a woman contributes more labour to the LF livestock enterprises because her husband was sick and unable to work.
In addition, as indicated in the figure, the wider institutional context, including the local gender divisions, socio-economic settings, and the MFIs’ strategies may play a significant role in determining intra-household labour allocation to the LF enterprises. For example, in many traditional societies, gender and age influence the way in which households allocate their members’ labour among various economic activities.
Intra-household labour allocation to enterprises
Figure 7. 1 The conceptual framework for labour allocation. The model
The Ordered Probit Regression Model was used to analyze the data, since the dependent variable is ordered and takes three discrete values. A model was designed to identify the possible factors affecting the relative labour contributions of couples to the LF livestock- fattening enterprises for the OMFI observation. It is important to note that couples’ relative labour contribution to the LF off-farm enterprises was excluded from such an analysis because of the limited number of observations. In addition, ACSI was excluded from this estimation because of the limited difference in labour allocation among the observations. Thus, the following model was designed for intra-household labour allocation in relation to the LF household enterprise for the OMFI observation only.
OLC = (AGE, MDR, MAR, HSZ, ILL) Where
OLC = represents the intra-household labour allocation to the LF livestock-fattening enterprises for the OMFI observation;
AGE = the age of the respondent;
DUR= the number of years that the respondent was a member of a credit group and accessed credit;
MAR= the form of marriage in which the respondent is involved;
HHS = the number of individuals who resided within a respondent’s household as a member of the household;
ILL= the presence or absence of any individual who was sick within a year until the time of the survey.