What’s hers isn’t mine: Gender-differentiated tenure security, agricultural investments, and productivity in sub-Saharan Africa
Mwale
The present study estimates how land tenure security, measured through gender-differentiated inheritance patterns, affects maize productivity, the price of agricultural land, soil fertility investments, and annual input use in sub-Saharan Africa. We test the relationship between gender-differentiated inheritance patterns and the outcomes of interest, using nationally representative data from Malawi that was collected in 2019. Inheritance patterns in the data are either matrilineal where land inheritance and ownership flows through women, or patrilineal where they flow through men. Malawi has a mixture of matrilineal and patrilineal settlement patterns across the country and we employed an exogenous instrumental variable (IV), distance from the plot to the Livingstonia Mission established in the 19th century, to identify the inheritance pattern of a particular plot. Under Malawi’s settlement history, communities closer to the mission had a higher propensity to practice patrilineal inheritance in 2019. Our results indicate that male plot managers in matrilineal inheritance systems had significantly lower yields than matrilineal female plot managers and both male and female plot managers in patrilineal inheritance systems. Matrilineal male plot managers were significantly less likely to use soil fertility enhancing practices like soil erosion and water control methods, organic manure, and intercropping maize with legumes, compared to matrilineal females and patrilineal male plot managers on average. However, matrilineal male plot managers were more likely to use these practices than were patrilineal female plot managers who were the other disadvantaged group in the analysis. These results raise a new dimension in the gender parity debate. Matrilineal plot managers can have the land they farm reclaimed by their wife's clan so invest less in the land than their wives do on their plots. This disincentive translates directly into lower maize yields and has implications for sustainable agricultural intensification policies and programming in the region.
Event: World Bank Land Conference 2024 - Washington
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