February 2020 REDUCING THE AGRICULTURAL GENDER GAP IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE: GENDER INNOVATION LAB HOW HAS IT CHANGED? The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of Authors: Aletheia Donald, Gabriel Lawin, Léa Rouanet development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking MAIN MESSAGES to generate evidence on how to close gender gaps in • Over the last decade, Côte d’Ivoire has witnessed a remarkable shrinking of its earnings, productivity, assets, gender gap in agricultural productivity. When comparing similar households, and agency. The GIL team is the gender gap has been reduced by 32%. currently working on over 70 impact evaluations in more than • In the most recent data from 2016, women’s lower adoption of export crops 25 countries with the aim of is the key driver of the remaining agricultural productivity gap. building an evidence base with • Poorer households have not seen as large of a closing in the gender gap in lessons for the region. agricultural productivity. Indeed, factors that have prevented the gap from The impact objective of GIL is closing, including a lower number of fields managed by the household, lower increasing take-up of effective adoption of export crops, and lower use of pesticides, more strongly increase policies by governments, the agricultural productivity gender gap among households that have lower development organizations, levels of income. Lowest-productivity households are also the most impacted and the private sector to address the underlying by low access to male household labor. causes of gender inequality • Women-headed households are using more pesticides and more female in Africa, particularly in terms household labor than they were in 2008. of women’s economic and social empowerment. The Lab • However, results indicate that part of the increase in agricultural productivity aims to do this by producing observed during the past decade is due to lower landholdings by female- and delivering a new body headed households. of evidence and developing a compelling narrative, geared • Strengthening women’s land rights – along with increasing their access to towards policymakers, on what labor and facilitating their adoption of export crops – should be key policy works and what does not work priorities in Côte d’Ivoire for improving women farmers’ livelihoods. in promoting gender equality. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab CONTEXT For example, researchers could control for characteristics Agriculture plays a critical role in economies across including levels of education, amounts of agricultural Africa: farming provides up to 65% of all jobs on the inputs like fertilizer and labor, the age of the household continent. Women account for half of the agricultural head, the total number of crops produced, and marriage workforce—but a gap between male and female farmers status of the household head, to more deeply examine in terms of both output and productivity has been largely what was truly causing the variation in agricultural documented across the region. Closing this gender gap productivity. can help to improve productivity overall on the continent. This method allowed researchers to identify the main This policy brief examines how the gender gap in drivers in each year that explain the gender differences agricultural productivity in Côte d’Ivoire and the factors in productivity. Researchers used this composition for which drive it have changed over time—providing critical each decile of the productivity distribution, which enabled insights on the successes and limitations of policies that the examination of drivers for everyone from the least to have sought to address this challenge, and pointing most productive households, to achieve a more in-depth out opportunities to design effective policy to close the understanding of what factors matter most for agricultural gender gap going forward. productivity along the income distribution. WHAT WE DID RESULTS To pinpoint changes in women’s agricultural productivity, Côte d’Ivoire has witnessed a remarkable shrinking of its researchers at the Gender Innovation Lab examined gender gap over the past decade in both export crop data from two nationally representative surveys in Côte and food crop productivity. Between 2008 and 2016, d’Ivoire—one from 2008, and the one from 2016. The the unconditional difference in productivity dropped from two surveys allowed the team to compare detailed 21% in 2008, to 18% in 2016—a reduction of 14%. When agricultural information, including production and input comparing only similar households, the reduction in the data at both the plot and the crop level, to determine gap is even larger: it is reduced by 32%. changes across the eight years. Data from 2008 came from a traditional household living THE GENDER GAP: HOW HAS IT standards survey, the Enquête Niveau de Vie des Ménages. CHANGED BETWEEN 2008 AND 2016? Data from 2016 was drawn from the latest employment survey, the Enquête Nationale sur la Situation de l’Emploi 35% 2008 et le Secteur Informel. Among other characteristics and 31% 2016 details, the surveys yielded information on productivity, 30% land area cultivated, household characteristics, labor 25% use, and fertilizer use. 21% 21% 20% 18% Using a traditional Oaxaca-Blinder technique that is commonly employed in the gender wage gap 15% literature, researchers estimated the proportion of the gender productivity gap that results from the different 10% characteristics of household heads, land inequities, and 5% unequal access to productive inputs—as well as the proportion of the gender gap stemming from unequal 0% returns to the productive components. Unconditional Conditional This reduction is driven by several factors. Notably, female- the productivity distribution, among poorer households. headed households are starting to catch up to male-headed households in their fertilizer and pesticide use. Women’s While the reduction in the gender gap is due to decreases use of pesticides, compared to men, more than doubled in both export crop and food crop production, the between 2008 and 2016—perhaps related to a substantive decrease of the export crop agricultural productivity gap government push to better address the needs of women bears much of the responsibility for the overall reduction. farmers in agriculture programs over the course of the decade, In food crops, the gap in agricultural productivity went such as the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program and from 40% in 2008 to 19% in 2016. Within export crops, the Côte d’Ivoire Agricultural Support Project. Compared to the gap went from 17% to no longer being significant. male-headed households, female-headed households also Together with a key finding that while labor inputs matter increased their use of female household labor. more for food crop productivity, non-labor inputs are key In 2008, the single largest driver of female-headed for export crop productivity, the demonstrated increase households’ lower agricultural productivity was their low in women’s use of non-labor inputs like pesticides number of male household workers, closely followed by helps to explain the disappearance of the export crop lower adoption of export crops, and lower use of other productivity gap. farming inputs, like pesticides and chemical fertilizer. The low number of household male laborers hurt poorer Some aspects of agricultural productivity stay consistent female-headed households more than those on the over the decade. In both 2008 and 2016, lower levels of upper levels of the productivity distribution. The poorest total land cultivated by female-headed households reduce female-headed households also faced the lowest returns the gender gap in every single decile. Female-headed on what they put into their farm. households’ lower use of pesticides increases the gender gap across the income distribution in both years. In 2016, the drivers have changed: lower adoption of export crops is the key driver of the gender gap in Digging deep into the data reveals some of the limitations of agricultural productivity. Other key drivers are lower use using head-of-household status as an identifying variable. of pesticides and of chemical fertilizer. A new factor that Gaps in productivity are larger for female household owners emerges in 2016 is the lower number of fields managed and managers. The granularity of the data from these by female-headed households, which matters in particular surveys has allowed for more detailed analysis and more for food crop productivity. Overall, a gender difference in specific policy recommendations; better gender integration productivity favoring men is still found for the lower half of into national surveys can yield even more helpful insights. THE GENDER GAP ACROSS THE PRODUCTIVITY DISTRIBUTION, 2008 & 2016 40% 2008 34% 2016 30% 29% 24% 25% 26% 23% 23% 21% 22% 20% 18% 19% 18% 18% 18% 16% 11% 10% 4% 2% 0% Q10 Q20 Q30 Q40 Q50 Q60 Q70 Q80 Q90 Productivity Quintile POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND NEXT STEPS Though the agricultural productivity gender gap has been significantly reduced, this data still masks heterogeneity and underlying issues for women-headed households that policymakers will need to address in the coming years. The lower use of male household labor for female-headed households remains a key driver for the gender gap in agricultural productivity. The lower levels of male labor keep female-headed households who are in the bottom half of the income distribution disadvantaged, as these households are in critical need of the additional labor. As drivers of the gender gap can vary depending on household income or other characteristics, close analysis of available data is critical as it can point to the specific issues that matter for female-headed households across the income distribution. It is additionally critical to note women’s land loss over this period. Women- headed households have become more efficient, but are given less land to work with. Women’s land loss is starting to impact food crop productivity—where the gender gap remains high. Strengthening women’s land rights, either through spousal co-titling, direct land transfers, or safeguarding of inheritance rights, should be a key policy priority for the country. In addition, policymakers in the agriculture sector should target gender integration within export crop cultivation. Occupational segregation across crop types is a key driver of the productivity gap in Côte d’Ivoire; by targeting export crop female producers—notably by increasing their use of inputs—agricultural policies have been successful at reducing gender inequality. Additional policies that can help to integrate women into the export crop sector include tailoring extension services to women farmers’ needs, facilitating women farmers’ access to markets, and engaging husbands as allies to encourage women to cross over into high-value export crop cultivation. For more information on this study, see the Policy Research Working Paper: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33227 FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Aletheia Donald adonald@worldbank.org Lea Rouanet lrouanet@worldbank.org Alison Decker adecker@worldbank.org Photo credit: Arne Hoel/World Bank, John Hogg/World Bank, Trevor Samson/World Bank, Scott Wallace/World Bank 1818 H St NW Washington, DC 20433 USA This work has been funded in part by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), which is a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through experimentation and www.worldbank.org/africa/gil knowledge creation to help governments and the private sector focus policy and programs on scalable solutions with sustainable outcomes. The UFGE is supported with generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.