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• Women in urban contexts make frequent, shorter trips with more stops along the way to combine multiple tasks while men follow direct and linear routes. • The cost and frequency of public transport affect women more than men. • Coverage issues like the absence of a well-connected public transport system and last-mile problems limit women's use of public transport. • Transport infrastructure design does not prioritize women's comfort. • Women's perceptions about violence and their actual safety in public spaces affect both their physical mobility and economic choices. Women and men travel differently in low- and middle-income countries. This paper provides an overview of the evidence on key features of women's travel behavior and the barriers they face in accessing public transport in developing countries, including affordability, frequency, coverage, comfort, and safety. Women make more frequent, shorter trips with more stops along the way to combine multiple tasks. In contrast, men follow direct and linear routes. As this paper shows, the cost and frequency of public transport affect women more than men, and given women's income constraints, create trade-offs between travel and other economic opportunities. This paper also highlights how the current design of public transport does not accommodate the unique needs of women. Notably, coverage issues such as a poorly connected network, including last-mile problems, limit women's use of public transport and increase their reliance on private and informal modes of transport. Infrastructure design does not prioritize women's comfort. Women's perceptions about violence and their actual safety in public spaces affects their physical mobility and economic choices. Understanding the evidence on the challenges faced by women is a first step in identifying policies and interventions that could improve women's mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper re-focuses attention on the big picture question of the persistently low level of female labour force participation in India. • We show how attention on a binary indicator (in the labour force or out of it) misses a crucial aspect of women's economic/productive work. • We suggest that women's work in developing countries should be viewed in terms of at least three categories. • We find that the social norm that places the responsibility of domestic chores exclusively on women is primarily responsible for women's inability to participate in paid work. • We demonstrate the existence of 'virtuous cycles' within families: a history of working women in the family increases the probability of the woman being in paid work. Based on primary data from a large household survey in seven districts in West Bengal in India, this paper analyses the reasons underlying low labor force participation of women. In developing countries, women who are engaged in unpaid economic work in family enterprises are often not counted as workers, whereas the men are. We show that for women, not being in paid work is not synonymous with not being in the labour force. Women are often involved in expenditure saving activities i.e. productive work within the family, over and above domestic chores and care work. We document the fuzziness of the boundary between domestic work and unpaid (and therefore invisible) productive work that leads to mismeasurement of women's work and suggest methods to improve measurement. Counting women's expenditure-saving activities yields a substantially higher estimate of women's participation in economic work. On social norms, we show that religion and visible markers such as veiling are not significant determinants of the probability of being in paid work. We find that being primarily responsible for domestic chores lowers the probability of "working", after accounting for all the conventional factors. Our data shows substantial unmet demand for paid work. Given that women are primarily responsible for domestic chores, we find that women express a demand for work that would be compatible with household chores. We demonstrate the existence of 'virtuous cycles' within families: a history of working women in the family (mother or mother-in-law ever worked) increases the probability of being in paid work between 18 and 21 percentage points. This suggests that the positive effects of increasing women's labour force participation today are likely to have positive multiplier effects on the prospects for work in future generations of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We compare three urban informal settlements in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda using an urban societal metabolism approach. • We argue that different informal settlements raise different challenges of understanding and of governance. • Gender is important to understand urban poverty and informality: in all case studies, slums are inhabited mainly by women. • Energy policies for informal urban settlements impact both energy access and energy related health problems. • The focus on differences produces modest and localized policy recommendations that consider complexity. Urban development in Africa is a very diverse and ambivalent phenomenon with aspects that do not fall neatly into global standards. Informal settlements therefore challenge governance by standards. We argue that quantifying and interrogating differences offers a better basis for governance. By drawing on a comparative analysis of three different informal settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper explores what differences reveal about the governance of informal settlements. The paper uses an urban societal metabolism approach, focussed on gender, energy and health, based on questionnaires and focus group discussions in Enkanini (Stellenbosch, South Africa), Mathare (Nairobi, Kenya), and Kasubi-Kawaala (Kampala, Uganda). The contribution of the paper is both empirical and theoretical. Empirically, we provide new evidence about the metabolism of urban informality at multiple levels of analysis: the individual, the household and the settlement. Findings show the gender asymmetries in urban poverty and the intricate links between energy choices, health and economic status. Theoretically, we argue that different levels of analysis produce different understandings of urban informality, and that analyzing informal settlements only by population aggregates means missing information. We conclude by arguing that understanding differences leads to the formulation of modest and localised goals, which are better able to take into account the complexity of urban informality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Extends energy imaginaries ideas on gender equity and Global South transitions. • Integrates socio-technical and feminist approaches to energy and development. • Identifies Gender-Neutral Grid and Gender-Aware Decentralised Development Imaginaries. • Unpacks practices, key actors and outcomes of these imaginaries. • More needed on how professionals transform gendered inequities in energy access. The importance of gender is increasingly recognised in energy research, with growing awareness of the intersections of energy access and gender equity. Yet, a major knowledge gap exists regarding the role of professional intermediaries and institutions in reproducing and/or challenging gendered forms of energy exclusion, especially in the Global South. This paper addresses this gap by considering the gendered energy imaginaries of energy professionals in Global South contexts. Integrating literature on socio-technical imaginaries – which to date has been developed in predominantly Global North contexts – with feminist accounts of gender, energy and development, this paper investigates gendered imaginaries of energy access among energy professionals across four Global South contexts (India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana). The case-study approach involved thematic analysis of interviews with 86 energy professionals, and revealed a spectrum of gendered energy imaginaries with two archetypes at the extremes of the spectrum: (1) The Gender-Neutral Grid Imaginary (GNGI); and, (2) The Gender-Aware Decentralised Development Imaginary (GADDI). These two imaginaries are unpacked in terms of their underlying actors, practices, and outcomes. Special attention is paid to how different constructions of the 'end-user' within professional imaginaries work to perpetuate or alleviate forms of gendered exclusion. These visions propagate energy access outcomes by shaping women's access to and use of technologies, decision-making, and employment in the energy sector. Findings reveal that whilst the GADDI imaginary shows better considerations for gendered energy access, existing gendered imaginaries among professionals fall short across the spectrum in generating equitable outcomes. The paper concludes by providing specific recommendations for energy practice and policy dominating the energy transition landscape in the Global South and reiterates the need to move beyond 'gender-mainstreaming' towards intersectional conceptions of social equity and energy justice. This is vital to address the gaps in existing professional and institutional imaginaries that shape energy access outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present evidence on short and long-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis on India's rural youth. • A third of those in salaried job lost their jobs, and half of those who worked out of state returned home after the lockdown. • While many male workers took up informal employment, most female workers dropped out of the labor force. • Using RCT, we find that a government-supported digital platform had no effect on job search intensity or employment. This paper presents evidence on the short and long-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis on India's rural youth. We interviewed about 2,000 vocational trainees from Bihar and Jharkhand three times after the first national lockdown in 2020, between June 2020 and December 2021. We find that a third of respondents who were in salaried jobs pre-lockdown lost their jobs, and half of those who worked out of state returned home shortly after the lockdown. We report a stark difference between men and women: while many male workers took up informal employment, most female workers dropped out of the labour force. In the second part of the paper, we use a randomised experiment to document the effects of a government-supported digital platform designed to provide jobs to low-skilled workers. The platform turned out to be difficult to use and publicised only few job ads. We find no effect on job search intensity or employment. Our findings suggest that bridging the gap between rural young workers and urban formal labour markets requires more active and targeted policy interventions, especially for female workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at patterns of growth faltering and catch up of around 1000 children as they moved from 8 to 19 years of age, from middle childhood through adolescence to young adulthood, using Height for Age Difference (HAD) and the more conventional Height for age z-scores (HAZ). It also looks at what individual and household characteristics may have moved these children into or out of situations of nutritional deprivation and how their stunting profile in later childhood correlates with psychosocial outcomes at age 19 and how it may have intergenerational consequences. The paper uses 4 rounds of longitudinal data collected in 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2013 from Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, India when the children were aged 8, 12, 15 and 19. The paper finds that there are significant gender based biases in growth faltering later in childhood disfavouring girls and that becoming newly stunted as an adolescent is strongly correlated with a child reporting to have poorer relationships with peers compared to the group that were never stunted. We also find that a girl experiencing stunting in middle childhood or adolescence (even if they were not stunted at age 8 or eventually moved out of being stunted by age 19) correlates significantly with offspring being shorter and thinner than the offspring of girls never stunted. This is one of few, if any, studies that look at growth patterns in middle childhood and adolescence and outcomes as a young adult and the results are important for their implications for further research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The political empowerment of women is a societal process crucial to development and progress. The V-Dem women’s political empowerment index (WPEI) provides information about women’s civil liberties, civil society participation, and political participation globally. Spanning from 1900 to 2012, three dimensions of empowerment, and over 170 countries, it is among the most comprehensive measures of women’s empowerment available. This paper presents a conceptualization of women’s political empowerment and provides an overview of the construction of the index and operationalization of its three sub-dimensions: Women’s civil liberties, civil society participation, and political participation. Compared to other indices measuring women’s empowerment, such as the GDI, the GEM, the GII, and the CIRI data on human rights, the V-Dem index allows more precise measurement and is superior in temporal scope and coverage of countries of the Global South. The paper demonstrates the benefits of this new index and its sub-dimensions through several empirical illustrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Gender-based violence movements are "tangential" to drug violence, protesting its root causes without targeting perpetrators. • Feminist movements work to reduce interpersonal violence, protest impunity, strengthen democracy, and resist inequality. • In Juárez, Caracas and Medellín, vibrant feminist anti-violence movements are indirectly mobilizing against drug violence. • Policymakers should support feminist anti-violence activism as a long-term approach for reducing drug violence. • Social movement scholars should consider the impact of tangential movements on high-risk social issues. In the last fifty years, Latin America witnessed both a stark rise in violence between drug trafficking organizations and militarized police forces, as well as a significant expansion of social movements. Few movements, however, have explicitly mobilized against drug violence due to the extreme dangers of speaking out against armed and corrupt actors. In this paper, we extend our understanding of social movements and drug violence by analyzing the relationship between feminist movements against gender-based violence—or feminist anti-violence (FAV)—and drug violence. We conceive FAV as a "tangential movement" to drug-related violence, mobilizing around its root causes and consequences without directly targeting its perpetrators. The paper examines case studies of feminist anti-violence movements in three cities: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; Caracas, Venezuela; and Medellín, Colombia. We show that as feminist movements mobilize against gender-based violence, they provide an alternative, and safer, avenue for citizens to mobilize against drug-related violence by working to (a) curb intimate forms of abuse and trauma that create intergenerational cycles of violence; (b) decrease impunity by demanding the state hold perpetrators of violence accountable; (c) strengthen government institutions and their relations with civic organizations, thereby helping enforce democracy and human rights; (d) challenge patriarchal notions of violent masculinity; and (e) organize against structural inequality that bolsters participation in the drug trade. By considering how feminist anti-violence movements help address the underlying causes of drug violence, we can identify new pathways for organizing around human security in contexts where direct channels of confrontation are too risky. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We examine impacts of Malawi's flagship cash transfer on youth multi-dimensional wellbeing across six domains. • Transfers improve education, physical health, emotional wellbeing and mental health, and sexual and reproductive health. • Limited or no impacts are found for two domains: HIV risk and time use. • Results highlight the potential of social protection to promote investments and wellbeing among at-risk youth. • More intentional gender- and youth-sensitive designs may facilitate further impacts on safe transitions to adulthood. As national social safety nets are expanding in Africa and globally, evidence on the impact of programs on youth transitions can help guide future investment and program design decisions. This paper examines the effects of Malawi's flagship cash transfer program on safe transitions to adulthood among youth living in households experiencing ultra-poverty. The evaluation was a cluster-randomized control trial implemented over three years using panel data on youth aged 13 to 19 at baseline. Household receipt of bi-monthly transfers led to improvements in four out of six outcome domains: 1) education, 2) physical health, 3) emotional wellbeing and mental health, and 4) sexual and reproductive health. There were limited or no impacts on outcomes related to HIV risk and time use. Results imply that similar programs in the region may also facilitate safe youth transitions. Nonetheless, more intentional gender- and youth-specific designs may have promise for more holistic impacts, and further evidence is needed on longer-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The milking unit (MU) is a key methodological and conceptual tool to illuminate the gendered nature of pastoralist resource access and food security. • Household-level factors like household size and herd size did not guarantee greater access to milk resources or food security for women within households. • Gendered, intra-household relations are just as (and sometimes more) important than grazing patterns and herd size in determining milk resources available to individuals within households. • Gender-disaggregated data is critical to understanding development challenges and opportunities for communities in the global South. This paper offers a methodological and conceptual framework for empirically demonstrating the importance of gendered, intra-household units in shaping pastoral livestock management and food security. While the focal point for understanding livestock management and pastoral production systems traditionally has been rangelands where livestock graze with male herders, this study demonstrates that as much livestock management happens within the home under the care of women. This project draws from long-term mixed methods research as well as an in-depth focal household study conducted over 10 months with Maasai pastoralists in Kenya to examine the highly gendered activities of herding and milking. In considering multiple spaces of livestock management inside and outside the pastoral home, this project introduces and utilizes the concept of the milking unit (a group of cows allotted to, and managed by, women for milking activities) alongside the more well-studied category of the grazing unit (a group of cattle pooled together by household members for grazing activities). Findings about the micro-decisions of livestock management, and the gendered politics shaping them, illustrate that gendered, intra-household relations are just as, if not more, important than grazing patterns or household assets such as herd size in determining milk resources for individuals within households, with significant outcomes for livestock productivity, food security, and wellbeing. These conclusions suggest that examining gendered, intra-household variation can be key for understanding livelihoods and human-environment interactions for pastoralists and other communities in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I study a women's group-based health social and behavior change intervention implemented by CHWs in three unique sites. • I create a typology of volunteer CHW management 'styles' and use them to understand CHW empowerment and equity in each site. • Giving volunteers more responsibility leads to greater empowerment, yet demands more time, and excludes marginalized women from being CHWs. • Though payments are seen as 'solution' in volunteer sites and 'problem' in paying ones, I find they have little impact on CHW efficacy or motivation. • However, I find payments may allow more marginalized women to be CHWs and thereby make the program more effective and equitable. Community health workers (CHW) are individuals with no formal health training who perform various roles to address health disparities. There are long-sustained debates over how different forms of incentives shape CHW programs, which are often staffed with volunteer or minimally remunerated women. These debates are complicated by the diversity of CHW roles and contexts in which they work. Evidence is particularly scant around "change-agent" style CHWs, who shape health knowledge and norms within their community. This paper addresses this gap through an analysis of a change agent-staffed program that provided nutrition participatory education through women's groups in three eastern Indian sites. We examine how contextual factors across sites shaped change-agent management, and analyze the implications of each approach for efficacy, empowerment, and equity. Analyzing 68 interviews and 10 focus groups this study advances a typology of 'varieties' of voluntarism that we name laissez faire, active-cultivation, and honorarium-accountability, and uses comparative analysis to examine the equity and empowerment effects within selection, management, and payment. First, we find tensions in the community-based selection of volunteers because rather than selecting highly motivated women, groups selected women in the most favorable socioeconomic position to volunteer. Second, there is a tension around responsibility and expectations in that greater training and responsibility leads women to see more psychosocial empowerment (e.g., knowledge, confidence), but also may create more 'costs' to participation and leads to wider economic inequities in change-agent ranks. Third, we observe a misplaced focus on payments as central to change-agent motivation. While the two volunteer-only sites see payment as 'the answer' to motivation problems, the honorarium site sees payments as 'the problem' because they attract less intrinsically motivated individuals. We conclude that while payments may not make an unmotivated volunteer into a motivated one, this analysis suggests payments would potentially allow more marginalized women to participate, which may be key to making more equitable and efficacious impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We evaluate determinants of participation in conservancy land leases in the Maasai Mara and how they impact household wealth. • Land ownership primarily determines who can participate and benefit from conservancies and by how much. • Conservancy land leases reinforce unequal historical land distribution systems, limiting participation of women and the poor. • After matching households on their observed characteristics, conservancy participation has little impact on household wealth. Understanding the impact of conservation interventions on local communities is important in determining their effects on livelihoods and wellbeing. However, impacts are often not uniform and there are important equity dimensions when evaluating interventions. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate determinants of participation in conservation land leases in the Mara Conservancies in southern Kenya and its impact on household wealth. We find that land ownership determines who can participate in and benefit from conservancy land lease payments, and by how much. The design of the land lease payment scheme therefore has the potential to reinforce and, in cases, amplify existing inequities as it is built upon a legacy of unequal historical land distribution processes that limit the participation of women and poor landless households. We observed significantly higher incomes amongst participant households compared to non-participants, but these differences disappeared after propensity score matching. These results suggest that the differences were not caused by participation in conservancies. Our findings suggest that the design and outcomes of land-based conservation or payment for ecosystem services schemes should consider historic and existing land tenure systems if they are to reduce inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• It is critical to theorize equity in the context of equitable resilience. • Predefined visions of equity and transformative change hide contextual and intersectional agencies and experiences of risk. • In Jumla, Nepal, state-led interventions define equity as "equal distribution" that do not acknowledge social differences such as caste and gender. • Yet, focusing on caste and gender as indicators of marginalization also overlook contextual and dynamic influences on risk. • Equitable resilience requires recognizing intersectional inequalities and local agency, not predefined indicators of risk and vulnerability. Equitable resilience is an increasing focus of development policy, but there is still insufficient attention to how the framings of equity itself shape what, and who, is targeted through development efforts. Universalistic assumptions about climate risk or social marginalization can define equity in ways that hide dynamic and intersectional influences on what constitutes risk to whom under different circumstances. This paper investigates the implications of two different equity framings for resilience in Jumla District, western Nepal. Drawing on more than one hundred household surveys plus in-depth qualitative interviews in six villages, we find that state-led efforts to present post-civil war development as the "equal distribution" of roads and infrastructure, agricultural commercialization, and protection against systemic climate risk fail to reflect local experiences of risk, which are often expressed in terms of social exclusion rather than vulnerability to climate change. Yet, simultaneously, other efforts at building resilience that use caste and gender as indicators of social marginalization overlook how transitions in livelihoods and individual agency have changed vulnerability contexts for many people, or the increasing vulnerability to climate change of more landed farmers. The paper urges more critical attention to how normative framings of equity shape what, and for whom is considered equitable resilience, including assumptions about transformative change from analysts themselves. Representing risks and vulnerability in terms of socially marginalized groups alone might deny the dynamic, intersectional, and contextual interconnection of risks and social agency; and might impose unhelpful subjectivities of their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper analyzes the effects of 164 land deals on rural transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods in 282 villages in Lao PDR. • Instead of contributing to the transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods, land deals push peasants into precarious conditions. • Land deals affected rural employment through dispossession without, with limited, or with adverse semi-proletarianization with investments. • Restrictions on hire of foreign labor and compliance with minimum wages, are essential to minimizing precarization and increase benefits for local people. • Protecting peasants' rights to resources is imperative to minimize the concurrence of precarization and increasing traditional vulnerability. Labor is central to the debates on global land-based investment. Proponents purport that these investments are an avenue for rural transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods through the generation of employment and contribution to poverty reduction. Drawing on a recent, unique national dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR, this paper uses an agrarian political economy lens to investigate how land-based investments live up to this expectation. The paper analyzes potential determinants of the degree to which different social groups engage in wage-labor within land-based investments. Results show that while land-based investments create a significant absolute number of jobs, former land users were offered predominantly low-skilled and seasonal jobs. The effects of these investments on rural employment are uneven depending on degrees of land and resource dispossession, the extent of job creation, and the availability of alternative opportunities in the region. In the majority of cases, former land users, especially women were pushed into precarious conditions through three processes: dispossession without proletarianization; limited proletarianization; and adverse proletarianization. We argue that the promotion of land-based investments as an approach for rural development, particularly along the gradient of transforming resource- to wage-labor based livelihoods, is ineffective without concurrent opportunities within and beyond the agricultural sector to absorb the labor reallocated from traditional livelihoods. Enforcing labor regulations, including restrictions on hiring of foreign labor, compliance with minimum wages, and relevant skills transfer are essential to minimize precarization and increase benefits for local people. Further, protecting peasants' individual and common land-use rights is imperative to minimize the concurrence of precarization and increasing traditional vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper investigates changes in the gender wage gap in Bangladesh over the period 1999–2009. The gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31% over this period. This paper shows that a key driver of this change was an improvement in female educational qualifications. It also demonstrates that the gender wage gap across the wage distribution narrowed much more at the lower end of the wage distribution than at the upper end. It attributes this mainly to a decline in discrimination against women. Implications for policies aimed at more equal access to education and enforcement of equal pay legislation in Bangladesh are also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper studies the impact of gender and ethnicity on educational outcomes in Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-International (IPUMS-I) database. Using an estimation method analogous to difference-in-differences, the paper finds that gender-based differences in literacy, primary school completion, and secondary school completion are larger for minority ethnic groups compared to others, or ethnicity-based differences are larger for women compared to men. The findings suggest that the intersection of gender and ethnicity confers cumulative disadvantage for minority groups, especially in Latin American countries, with implications on the design of development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • National panel survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, representing 40 percent of the total population in SSA. • 44 percent of the rural and urban working-age population participates in off-farm employment. • Population weighted cross-country gender gap in off-farm employment is 9 percentage points, but this has declined over time in most countries. • About 39 million individuals across the five countries, is estimated to have entered and exited employment between 2010 and 2016. • Drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment are country- and gender-specific. Abstract Off-farm income constitutes a substantial share of the household livelihood portfolios across Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the determinants and dynamics of individuals' participation in off-farm employment activities have not received adequate attention due to the weaknesses in individual-level data collection and the lack of longitudinal studies. This paper uses national panel household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda; provides empirical evidence on individual-level off-farm (wage and self) employment participation rates; analyzes the extent and drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment; and conducts the analysis by gender and rural/urban location. A non-negligible share of the rural and urban working-age individual population is found to participate in off-farm employment, ranging at the national-level from 34 percent in Ethiopia to 58 percent in Malawi. Men participate in wage and self-employment to a significantly greater extent compared to women across time as well as within and across countries, apart from women's participation in non-farm enterprises being more common in Nigeria and Tanzania. The population weighted cross-country gender difference in off-farm employment stands at 9 percentage points, but this has declined over time in most countries. A substantial share of the population, amounting to about 39 million individuals across the five countries, is estimated to have entered and exited employment between 2010 and 2016, pointing to the dynamic nature of off-farm employment. Drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment are country- and gender-specific, with demographic factors, occurrence of shocks and job characteristics emerging as the most important determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Text-as-data methods to test if policy can reduce gendered equality in deliberation. • Women's groups can boost civic engagement via access to social and economic capital. • Induced speech by women is likely to focus on project activities, not organic needs. • Induced speech has the potential to crowd out organic issues relevant to women. Abstract Deliberative institutions have gained popularity in the developing world as a means by which to make governance more inclusive and responsive to local needs. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that persistent gender inequality may limit women's ability to participate actively and influence outcomes in these forums. In response, policy makers have tried to induce women's participation by leveraging the group-based format of self-help groups, which can build women's social capital and develop their sense of political efficacy and identity. This paper evaluates the impact of one such intervention, known as the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project, on women's civic participation in rural Tamil Nadu. Using text-as-data methods on a matched sample of transcripts from village assembly meetings, the analysis finds that the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project significantly increases women's participation in the gram sabha along several dimensions—meeting attendance, propensity to speak, and the length of floor time they enjoy. Although women in the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project villages enjoy greater voice, the findings suggest that this intervention may shift discourse away from the organic topics raised by citizens and towards project-specific activities. Given the finite amount of time to conduct local assemblies, this may have the perverse effect of crowding out discussion of issues that are broadly relevant to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The Constitution in South Africa ensures poverty is a central concern in public policy. • In a contested policy environment, cash transfers are likely to thrive. • Gender is a good lens to establish whether social and economic policy are integrated and coherent. • Social compacts between the state, labour and capital are struggling, and new models are emerging. • The role of the South African mining sector in social development is changing, but still disputed. Abstract This paper reflects on the trajectory of social policy in South Africa (1994–2017) and on which policy levers present opportunities for cross-country policy transfer, in order to address current social development challenges. The current direction of social policy is described as the result of a compromise between two distinct alternative paradigms whereby the statist transformative and market-oriented residual paradigms are held in tension. On the one hand, a transformative policy perspective draws on human rights and views redistribution as a necessary premise for and means of economic growth. On the other hand in the residual framework, redistribution is envisaged as a secondary function that is dependent on economic growth. Several instances are outlined in which this tension is evident, together with the implications for social policy across the policy cycle: in legislation; in social compact formation; in the selection of social programmes and in their implementation; in gender-mainstreaming and in the engagement of the private sector in social policy. Overall we highlight areas of hybrid policy overlap between these bifurcated ideological, political and institutional frameworks, for example around social transfers and corporate social investment. We also describe instances of conflicting and at times unexpected outcomes, such as the National Health Insurance. Several factors are concluded to be of relevance to the Global South more generally: the importance of constitutionally-legislated rights as a basis for advancing socio-economic claims; the emergence of new social compacts in contexts where there are significant levels of informal employment and unemployment and lastly, the influence of fiscal and institutional capability factors in shaping the direction of social policy and its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper discusses a survey research agenda to improve measurement of rural women's employment in national surveys. • Stylized facts are presented from country surveys that are addressing recent guidance on measuring work and employment. • Follow-up questions in agriculture and contributing work improve accuracy in measuring of rural women's employment. • Improved data on time use and desire to work, and earnings, can improve targeting and design of rural employment programs. • Data related to rural economic transitions, including migration, skills, and barriers to economic mobility, are also needed. This paper sets out a survey research agenda on the collection of data on rural women's employment, to inform gender-sensitive design and targeting of rural employment policies and programs. Stylized facts are presented from nationally representative surveys across countries, including labor force surveys and multi-topic household surveys with a focus on employment. The first set of recommendations in the paper cover topics that can currently be incorporated in national surveys, based on recent international guidance and survey data initiatives. This includes improving the counting of rural women's work and employment in agriculture and contributing work, comparing self-reporting as opposed to proxy response; adding questions related to labor underutilization; and modifying and adding questions on constraints to seeking better economic opportunities. The second set of recommendations cover survey methods that still need to be explored through research and testing. This includes how to better elicit unpaid work burdens in surveys and the links with time in employment; how community survey data can complement individual data on complex topics like wages and access to childcare; and developing a survey research agenda around measuring work amid rural economic transitions, including individual-level data on work-related migration across surveys, skills development and access to technology. Contextual factors associated with work and employment also need to be considered in survey design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper presents a case study of the introduction of a more gender equitable payment scheme for oil palm smallholders in Papua New Guinea. Women are now paid separately from their husbands for their work on family oil palm plots thereby increasing the economic incentives for women to commit labor to oil palm production. The study incorporates broader local cultural and economic processes in the analysis of intra-household gender and labor relations to explain how the new payment systems successfully resolved intra-household disputes over labor and income. The paper highlights the critical role export firms can play in enhancing women’s access to commodity crop income. Further, the paper demonstrates that by widening the framework of household analysis, insights can be gained into two key questions that have received only limited attention in the literature: the question of why men do not share a greater proportion of cash crop income with other family members; and, the apparent inability of families to resolve intra-household conflicts over income. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper examines a number of methodological and ethical issues around research with children, arising from a recent study of the abuse of adolescent girls in schools in three African countries. The research used open-ended interviews and participatory workshops exploring visual representations of school life to uncover incidents of sexual, physical, verbal, and psychological abuse. It found that abuse was perpetrated mainly, but not exclusively, against female pupils by male pupils, teachers, and other adults in the community. The paper examines some methodological issues in doing such research and also some of the ethical dilemmas faced by the researchers when girls revealed sexual abuse by teachers and other adults. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Based on a new data set, this paper develops two innovative indicators to measure gender inequalities in developing countries. The indicators measure different aspects of constraints imposed on women by social institutions, that is, laws, norms, traditions, and codes of conduct that exist in societies for centuries. The paper finds that social institutions are the most important single factor determining women’s participation in economic activities outside the household. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We evaluate the impact of a value chain development project on agricultural productivity focusing on differences by gender and ethnicity. • We decompose the impact by ethnicity and by gender. • The project impact is higher for non-minority and male-headed households than for ethnic minority and female-headed households. • Results suggest that the agricultural productivity gap by ethnicity and by gender is mainly driven by endowment effects, primarily land and labor endowments. • Findings highlight the need for targeted support to minority and female producers in value chain development projects. This paper estimates the impact of an inclusive agricultural value chain development project on agricultural productivity and decomposes the impact by gender and ethnicity of producers. The intervention sought to alleviate poverty among small-scale producers by increasing agricultural productivity and lowering transaction costs. It also specifically targeted minority and female producers to ensure inclusivity. We use primary survey data from over 2,500 households in rural Nepal. We estimate the impact on agricultural productivity by employing a treatment effect estimator, and decompose it by gender and ethnicity using the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder (KOB) decomposition method. We find that the project has a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but the impact is higher for non-minority and male-headed households than for minority and female-headed households, respectively. The ethnicity productivity gap is smaller in the treatment group than in comparison group. Even though male-headed households have consistently higher productivity, the gender gap in agricultural productivity is smaller in the treatment group compared to the comparison group. KOB decomposition shows that the ethnicity- and gender- specific differential impacts are mainly driven by differential endowment effects, primarily land and labor endowments. Results suggest that the project reduced the ethnicity- and gender-specific productivity gaps, although it did not eliminate them entirely. These findings highlight the need for targeted support to vulnerable producers including ethnic minority and female producers. Specifically targeted land tenure security programs can ensure that vulnerable producers can harness benefits in a manner which could help narrow productivity differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Examined women's involvement in prioritizing public goods investments to support climate adaptation at community level. • Findings reveal variations in women's participation ranging from nominal to active and substantial participation. • Conditions motivating active participation were social networks, and recognition of women's role in income generation. • Differential participation occurred across intersecting identities, and was influenced by intrahousehold power dynamics. • Future CBA initiatives should engage with and build capacity for women to ensure their voices and needs are being heard. Efforts to promote inclusive participation in community-based adaptation projects highlight the importance of giving those most vulnerable to climate change a voice. This paper explores the involvement and inclusion of women in participatory spaces in the Decentralized Climate Funds pilot project in Senegal to evaluate whether only the voices and demands of the powerful and vocal few were raised and heard. Using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the paper explores and analyzes the factors motivating and constraining women's active and empowered meaningful participation. The findings reveal that women in the Kaffrine region of Senegal experienced different levels of participation in community decision-making, ranging from nominal and passive participation to active and substantive participation. Results highlight that women's social capital and networks, community-level recognition of women's role in income generation, and favorable intrahousehold power dynamics were instrumental in encouraging active and empowered participation. The paper finds that the community-based adaptation approach of devolving decision-making to the community level is by itself not sufficient to ensure that women can meaningfully access the participatory process. Future community-based adaptation initiatives can improve their approach and ensure that women are able to voice their needs by understanding the local gender dynamics and designing projects to acknowledge and work within those dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Attainment in school and enrollment in post-compulsory education are lower for males compared to females in Sri Lanka. • Implicit biases favour girls with parental aspirations and teacher attitudes higher for girls than boys. • Gaps in maths scores at age 12 are explained by differences in returns to endowments rather than differences in endowments. • Earnings foregone are more significant in males' decision to enroll compared to females', even when controlled for wealth. • Positive discrimination of males in the labour market may explain poor attainment at the school level. An increasingly common trend in developed countries and middle income countries such as Thailand, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka is that females outperform males in terms of attainment at school and enrollment in higher education, on average. Surprisingly, in countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand, households also seem to allocate significantly higher resources towards girls' education rather than boys' (Himaz, 2010; Wongmonta & Glewwe, 2017). This paper looks at attainment in mathematics among a sample of 12 year olds in Sri Lanka and uses decomposition analysis to see to what extent parental aspirations and teacher attitudes, inter alia , can explain gender differentials disfavoring boys. The paper finds that although teacher attitudes and parental aspirations are significantly lower for boys, these factors -as we measure them- do not sufficiently explain the attainment gap. Much of the gap remains 'unexplained' and is due to differences in returns to endowments. The paper argues that positive discrimination of men in the labor market and bottle necks in higher-education may be important in understanding the unexplained component. This emphasizes the need to look beyond school level interventions to address the issue of gender imbalances in attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to many prominent theorists of democracy, citizens must be able to “formulate and signify preferences” to participate as ‘political equals’ for democracy to work ( Dahl, 1971 ). However, a gender gap in political knowledge and opinions exists across the Global South, especially in rural areas. In this paper, we study the relationship between rural women’s socioeconomic empowerment (household agency and mobility outside the village) and political knowledge and opinions in Mali, a West African country with patriarchal gender norms. To reduce well-known difficulties of gaining access to rural women and reducing bystander effects, we use simultaneous co-gender interviews of one man and one woman per extended family household and a modified Audio-Self-Administered Questionnaire for illiterate populations. Further to reduce “satisficed” opinions, we elicit opinion justifications and measure “justified opinions.” Consistent with predictions, we find that women’s empowerment is positively associated with rural women’s political knowledge and opinions. We close by examining opinions towards one controversial policy area with redistributive consequences for men and women—the Family Code, which regulates rights of men and women in marriage, inheritance, and the family. More empowered women are more likely to support pro-woman changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines the existence of social learning in agriculture in Ethiopia. To be specific, we use a “random matching within sample” technique to collect data on social networks and to elicit details of the relationships and information exchange between network members. We find that shared kinship or membership in certain groups, informal forms of mutual insurance, and having frequent meetings with network members are all associated with a higher probability of forming an information link with a network member. Furthermore, we find evidence for a statistically significant and positive relationship between networks and the adoption of row-planting as well as yields for both male and female networks. However, the evidence for an inverse U-shaped relationship of social learning, that is, between the number of adopters in the network and the adoption of row-planting, is strongest for female networks. Our results, thus, suggest that extension services and other programs that promote agricultural innovations and seek yield improvement can benefit from social networks but that their success depends on identifying the “right” networks, such as those of female household members in the case of row-planting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines the relationship among gender, social capital, and access to finance of micro, small, and medium enterprises in the manufacturing sector in Viet Nam. Our dataset is from the 2011, 2013, and 2015 results of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Survey in Viet Nam. Using the Heckman technique to control for sample selection bias, the estimates do not provide evidence for discrimination against female-owned enterprises in the formal lending market. Specifically, female entrepreneurs have a higher probability of getting a loan and they pay lower interest rates in comparison with male entrepreneurs. No discrimination in formal credit markets may arise from the preference for informal loans over formal loans as entrepreneurs tend to borrow informal loans before applying for formal ones. Further analysis shows that social capital could facilitate loan applications: firms that have a closer relationship with government officials and other business people can get loans of longer duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Land markets can potentially improve land access for female-headed households if markets exhibit less restrictive gender norms around land ownership, as compared with non-market-based systems of allocation. At the same time, land markets may not operate in a gender-neutral manner, with restrictions beyond the market continuing to influence the options of female-headed households. Using both qualitative data and household survey data collected in 2014 and 2015, this paper explores the extent and manner in which female heads participate in the sales and rental markets in northwestern Tanzania. A qualitative analysis reveals that female heads do engage with the market, although they find it most difficult to mobilize the necessary capital to participate as buyers or renters. Women also seem to face unique restrictions on selling land. Regression results show that female heads use the market to augment a small land endowment left from their marriage, and this is particularly true for divorced or separated women. However, female-headed households remain somewhat marginalized in terms of market participation. Our study shows that female heads in Tanzania are far from sidelined in the land market, though the “rules” of market engagement are decidedly nuanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Advocates for attention to gendered, local political economies to understand women's political participation. • Draws on in-depth, relational interviews with 160 women and men in a cross-border zone of Mali and Burkina Faso. • Experiences of seasonal livelihood security shape women's responses to local opportunities for political participation. • Women who experience more livelihood security across the seasons aspire to being elected to the local government council. • Women who experience less livelihood security across the seasons engage in claims making and local meeting attendance. When women participate in local politics, politics becomes more inclusive and local governments can be more responsive to a wide range of citizen concerns. Extensive research on gender quotas has generated knowledge about how these institutional reforms can advance women's representation and political participation. However, we know less about the local-level variables that affect women's incentives to participate in politics. Drawing on interview data with 160 women and men in two village research sites located in a rural cross-border zone in Mali and Burkina Faso, this paper asks how women's livelihood pursuits affect their political participation. The paper argues that women's experiences of livelihood security shape how they respond to the opportunities for political participation that exist in their local communities. Women in a village in Mali who experience more livelihood security across the seasons aspire to future political participation as elected members of the local government council. By contrast, women in a neighboring village in Burkina Faso who experience less livelihood security across the seasons focus on attending local government meetings and making claims on the local government to support them as women and as farmers who experience livelihood insecurity. Meeting attendance and claims-making happen through women's savings and credit associations. Women in both research sites participate in these similarly structured associations, but more political participation happens through associations for the Burkinabe women who experience livelihood insecurity. These findings highlight how objective differences in gendered, local political economies create divergent opportunities for women's livelihoods, which contribute to differences in how they respond to opportunities for political participation. These dynamics call for further attention to the relationship between livelihood security and political participation and more attention to how women participate in politics through associations. In these rural villages, women are making important contributions to public life through political participation, economic production, and civic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In this paper, we consider whether it is the gender of the decision maker or the extent of agency that they wield that is crucial to increasing household welfare. This is an important question as development policy is often formed on the basis that placing resources in the hands of women results in greater household welfare. Indonesia provides the ideal opportunity to study this issue because it is home to ethnic groups with very different gender norms from male dominance (the patrilineal Batak) to female dominance (the matrilineal Minangkabau). Using IFLS data for three rounds, we consider the impact of decision-making by the dominant spouse on household expenditure on education. We find that, in Indonesia, when the dominant spouse (male or female) has sole control of decision-making, there is an overall negative impact on education expenditure. This leads us to argue that it is more important to consider the issue of spousal dominance, than to wholly focus on gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In the context of climate change and its effect on poverty, previous studies have shown that productivity shocks in agriculture, such as rainfall variability, affect wages adversely. None of the studies, however, consider the heterogeneity in the impact of these shocks on agricultural wages by gender, a feature which has been studied for demand shocks in urban labor markets for developed countries. Using National Sample Survey data for India from 1993 to 2007, a district-level panel dataset is created to examine how a rainfall shock affects the gender wage gap. The study shows that both female and male wages are positively related to rainfall shocks. Hence, future studies must study the impact of labor market shocks in rural areas on both female and male wages separately. It also finds that the female-to-male wage ratio is significantly positively associated with a rainfall shock in regions where rainfed rice is cultivated, i.e., low (high) rainfall reduces (increases) the female-to-male ratio. The study demonstrates that this result is due to a positive association of demand for female labor with rainfall in these rainfed rice-growing regions. This finding is consistent with the greater marginal value of female labor in rice cultivation, which is also a crop highly sensitive to rainfall variability under rainfed conditions. The paper concludes that the effect of a rainfall shock on the gender wage gap depends upon the gender roles underlying the technology of production, which varies across cropping systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Many African governments, faced with low rural incomes and food security challenges, have developed input subsidy programs in order to enhance agricultural productivity. This paper adds to recent literature analyzing the effects of input subsidy programs and gender on crop diversification in Sub-Saharan Africa. We investigate the effect of Zambia’s input subsidy program on crop allocation patterns by gender. In relatively land abundant Zambia, we test both single-equation crop diversification index models and multivariate regression models of cropland allocation. Our study finds that input subsidies reduce crop diversification more in male-headed households than in female-headed households. Further, multivariate regression results confirm that this occurs because female-headed households expand maize acreage less in response to the input subsidy. These findings suggest that greater cropland diversification will be maintained if input subsidy programs are accompanied by loan programs and other assistance which support leadership roles for women in farm households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Improving women’s access to land is high on the agricultural policy agenda of both governmental and non-governmental agencies. Yet, the determinants and rationale of gendered access to land are not well understood. This paper argues that gender relations are more than the outcomes of negotiations within households. It explains the importance of social norms, perceptions, and formal and informal rules shaping access to land for male and female farmers at four levels: (1) the household/family, (2) the community, (3) the state, and (4) the market. The framework is applied to Ghana, using the results from qualitative field work. Norms on household and family organization and on men’s and women’s responsibilities and capabilities play a key role in gendered allocation of resources. However, these norms and perceptions are dynamic and evolve jointly with the development of markets and changes in values of inputs such as labor and land. Theoretical models that represent the gendered distribution of assets as the result of intrahousehold bargaining should be revised, and extrahousehold factors should be included. From a policy perspective, laws that ensure gender equality in terms of inheritance and a more gender-equitable distribution of property upon divorce can play a key role in improving women’s property rights. Yet, their impact may be limited where customary rights dominate and social norms and rules continue to discriminate according to gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper provides evidence about gender differences in the productive use of energy. • The research focuses on fishing communities in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. • Men and women use different types and quantities of fuel in their enterprises. • Electricity is consistently associated with better business performance. • A multi-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative research is used to gather evidence. The productive use of electricity is essential for poverty reduction in newly electrified rural communities as well as for the financial sustainability of electricity suppliers. Because men and women assume different roles in the rural economy, the inclusion of gender concerns in interventions to promote productive uses of energy could improve development outcomes. Using a multi-methods approach, this study provides new evidence about how men and women use energy in rural micro-enterprises in Tanzania, and which benefits they obtain from it. In our research region, most businesses are owned by men and men-owned enterprises use electricity more frequently and intensely than women owned enterprises. The latter dominate the productive use of cooking fuels like charcoal and firewood. Electricity use is consistently associated with better business performance, but women entrepreneurs do not use it as much as men. There are multiple reasons for this gender imbalance. First, women enjoy less favourable starting conditions for enterprise creation due to poor access to finance, education, and other resources. Furthermore, women are required to balance care responsibilities with paid work and are subject to social norms that determine the acceptability of certain productive activities. Typically, female activities are less profitable and less mechanised than men's. Consequently, in the absence of gender interventions, male entrepreneurs are more likely to benefit from the promotion of productive uses of electricity. The paper discusses several approaches to improve the gender equity of PUE interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• West African trade networks allow numerous actors to coordinate activities over considerable distances. • Prosperous actors in the rice network have established numerous ties within and beyond their community. • Business relations within the rice network impose an unequal division of labour based on gender. • Women are less central in the rice trade network than men. • Women earn less than men even after controlling for age, experience, education, religion, and matrimonial status. The objective of this article is to measure the effects of income and gender on informal social networks in the rice value chain. Using primary data collected on 490 entrepreneurs in Benin, Niger and Nigeria, the paper first demonstrates that the monthly profit of entrepreneurs is determined by their structural position within the rice value chain. The most prosperous actors are simultaneously deeply embedded in their community through numerous ties and capable of building connections with other communities outside their own ethnic groups and countries. The paper then analyses to what extent gender is a strong predictor of social ties. An econometric analysis shows that women are less central than men and that their income is much lower after controlling for age, experience, education, religion and matrimonial status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper looks at productivity differentials across women and men managed farms in India. • We find that productivity on women managed farms is on an average 11% lower than male managed farms. • This gap reduces to 7% once crop choice, input usage, location and farmer characteristics are controlled for. • Semi-parametric decomposition shows that productivity differential remains largest in lower part of the value distribution. • Heterogeneity analyses shows inadequate experience among women managers as a contributor to the residual productivity gap. In India, role of women as farm managers has been veiled behind image of men as primary decision makers on farms. Data shows that approximately 8% farm households had women farm managers in India in 2004, and this number increased to 11% in 2011. This rising phenomenon of farm management by women begets an in depth understanding about these farms, including, differentials in productivity levels across men and women managers. This paper uses three measures to capture productivity – production value, profit value and crop specific yields. Results show that total farm production and profits are lower by approximately 11% in households where women manage farms. This falls to 7% when controls for crop choice, input usage, location and farmer characteristics are included. The main mediating factors in explaining the productivity gap are crop choice and input usage, explaining almost 45% of the productivity gap. Further, the paper provides suggestive evidence on mechanisms contributing to the remaining productivity difference that cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics. It shows that inadequate experience of women farm managers in agricultural production processes can be an important factor behind the remaining gap. The study makes two contributions to the literature – one, it is the first quantitative study in the Indian context on gender differentials in farm productivity and second, it applies semi-parametric decomposition techniques to look at the productivity differentials along the entire distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate the demand supply side constraints of credit facing smallholders in developing countries using survey data and econometric models. • Against several past studies and policy discourse linking rural credit to suppl-side factors, we found that demand-side factors such as risk-aversion behavior are equally important. • Our results suggest that women are more likely to be credit constrained (from both the supply and demand sides) than men in both study countries. • We suggest on addressing both supply- and demand-side credit constraints, and gender-sensitive policies to improve women's access to credit. Credit constraint is often considered as one of the key barriers to the adoption of modern agricultural technologies and low agricultural productivity in low- and middle-income countries. Past research and much of the policy discourse associate agricultural credit constraints with supply-side factors, such as limited access to credit sources or high costs of borrowing. However, demand-side factors, such as risk-aversion and financial illiteracy among borrowers could also affect credit-rationing of smallholder agricultural households. This study investigates the nature of credit constraints, factors affecting credit constraint status, and the effects of credit constraints on adoption and intensity of use of three modern agricultural technologies – small-scale irrigation, chemical fertilizer, and improved seeds. The paper also assesses whether credit constraints are gender-differentiated. Primary survey data were collected from sample farmers in Ethiopia and Tanzania, and Tobit and two-step hurdle econometric models were used to analyze these data. Results show that demand-side credit constraints are as important as supply-side factors in conditioning smallholders' access to credit in both countries. We also find that credit is a binding constraint for the decision to adopt technologies and input use intensity in Tanzania but not statistically significant in Ethiopia. Results suggest that women are more likely to be credit constrained (from both the supply and demand sides) than men in both study countries. Based on these findings, we suggest that policies should focus on addressing both supply- and demand-side credit constraints to credit access, including through targeted interventions to reduce risk, such as crop insurance, and to strengthen the gender sensitivity of credit policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Conditional on individual and household characteristics, women are 7 percentage points more likely to be in vulnerable employment than men. • Across developing countries, the gender gap is smaller in richer countries, with lower fertility rates, and more gender-egalitarian laws. • At the micro-level, the experiences of marriage and parenthood are important drivers of the gender gap. • Current levels of the gender gap in vulnerable employment are almost entirely unexplained by standard labour supply factors. This paper investigates gender inequality in vulnerable employment: forms of employment typically featuring high precariousness, inadequate earnings, and lack of decent working conditions. Using a large collection of harmonized household surveys from developing countries, we measure long-term trends, describe geographical patterns, and estimate correlates of gender inequalities in vulnerable employment. Conditional on individual and household characteristics, women are 7 percentage points more likely to be in vulnerable employment than men. The experiences of marriage and parenthood are important drivers of this gender gap. Across countries, the gender gap is smaller in richer countries, with lower fertility rates, and more gender-egalitarian laws, particularly those laws regulating marriage, parenthood, access to assets, and access to entrepreneurship. Since the 1990s, rising levels of female education and rapidly falling fertility have pulled women away from vulnerable employment at a faster rate than men. However, that process is largely exhausted, with current levels of the gender gap in vulnerable employment being almost entirely unexplained by standard labour supply factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Marital ruptures are common in Africa yet the institutions relevant to women's protection are largely found within marriage. • The implications of a husband's loss on well-being, as measured by nutritional status, are studied, controlling for numerous confounders. • Overall, the results indicate significantly lower nutritional status for Africa's widowed and divorced women between ages 15 and 49. • A few countries stand out as places where women are especially vulnerable to marital shocks, notably Ethiopia, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zambia. Marriage can provide protection (in various forms) to women but also comes with vulnerabilities. How much so will depend on the context. Marriage and marital shocks are both common in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the institutions relevant to women's security vary within the region. The paper investigates whether women who have never married or have suffered a marital rupture have worse nutritional status relative to married women in their first union. Conditional means for women's nutritional status are compared by marital status across 20 countries. Overall, the results indicate significantly lower nutritional status for Africa's widowed and divorced women between ages 15 and 49. This is generally found to be the case with country and household fixed effects and controls for HIV status. However, looking at country-specific results underlines that disadvantage is by no means universal. Once one controls for likely confounders, a few countries stand out as places where women are especially vulnerable to marital shocks, notably Ethiopia, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zambia. This is the first study to systematically investigate the individual welfare consequences of marital dissolution for women in Africa, and to assess how widespread and generalizable the events and outcomes noted in the existing literature are within and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Ownership of assets is important for poverty reduction, and women’s control of assets is associated with positive development outcomes at the household and individual levels. This research was undertaken to provide guidance for agricultural development programs on how to incorporate gender and assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions. This paper synthesizes the findings of eight mixed-method evaluations of the impacts of agricultural development projects on individual and household assets in seven countries in Africa and South Asia. The results show that assets both affect and are affected by projects, indicating that it is both feasible and important to consider assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects. All projects were associated with increases in asset levels and other benefits at the household level; however, only four projects documented significant, positive impacts on women’s ownership or control of some types of assets relative to a control group, and of those only one project provided evidence of a reduction in the gender asset gap. The quantitative and qualitative findings suggest ways that greater attention to gender and assets by researchers and development implementers could improve outcomes for women in future projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Genetically modified (GM) crop technologies have made great strides since its first introduction in 1996. Although there is an extensive and growing body of literature on the economic impact of the adoption of GM crops in both developing and developed economies, there is only scant evidence that the technology has had any specific and distinguishable impact among female and male farmers. In economies where female farmers and female household members have a significant and often differentiated role in agriculture production, it is crucial to be able to answer this question. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative results from a study of the gender-specific adoption and performance effects of insect resistant (Bt) and herbicide-tolerant (HT) maize produced by smallholder farmers in the Kwa Zulu Natal province in South Africa. The findings indicate that women farmers value the labor-saving benefit of HT maize alongside the stacked varieties which offer both insect control and labor saving. Higher yields are the main reason behind male adoption, while female farmers tend to favor other aspects like taste, quality, and the ease of farming herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops. Women farmers (and also children) saved significant time because less weeding is required, an activity that has traditionally been the responsibility of female farmers. The newer stacked varieties were preferred by both male and female farmers and seemed to be in high demand by both groups. However, lack of GM seed availability in the region and poor market access were possible limitations to the adoption and spread of the technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Land rights equity is seen as an important tool for increasing empowerment and economic welfare for women in developing countries. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to empirically examine the role of women’s land ownership, either alone or jointly, as a means of improving their intra-household bargaining power in the areas of own healthcare, major household purchases, and visiting family or relatives. Using the 2001 and 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys and relevant econometric techniques, we find that land ownership has a positive and significant impact on women’s empowerment. In particular, we find two important patterns of results. First, accounting for the endogeneity of land ownership with inverse probability weighting, coarsened exact matching and instrumental variable methods makes its impact on empowerment higher. Previous research in this area had largely ignored the potential endogeneity of land ownership. Second, the impact is generally stronger in 2011 than in 2001. As evidenced in a number of empirical studies, the increase in women’s bargaining power can in turn translate into a redirection of resources toward women’s preferences, including higher investment in human capital of the household such as education, health, and nutrition. Therefore, our study indicates that in places where agriculture is the main source of economy for women, policies enhancing land rights equity have the potential to increase women’s empowerment and associated beneficial welfare effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Despite significant structural and social change, the share of women working or seeking jobs in Turkey has declined. This paper focuses on the role of social conservatism as a constraint for women’s labor force participation using 2008 Demographic and Health Survey data. In analyzing labor supply model, I incorporate cultural constraints, specifically the sexual division of labor in the household and broader gender ideology into the analysis. I find that both patriarchal norms and religiosity are negatively associated with female labor force participation, and that the impact of patriarchal norms is statistically significant after controlling for endogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary How do women leaders such as board members and top managers influence the social performance of organizations? This paper addresses the question by exploiting a unique database from a Senegalese network of 36 financial cooperatives. We scrutinize the loan-granting decisions, made jointly by the locally elected board and the top manager assigned by the central union of the network. Our findings are threefold. First, female-dominated boards favor social orientation. Second, female managers tend to align their strategy with local boards’ preferences. Third, the central union tends to assign male managers to female-dominated boards, probably to curb the boards’ social orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Households face many collective action situations, with members working together to produce livelihoods and allocate goods. But neither unitary nor bargaining models of the household provide frameworks to analyze the conditions under which households work collectively and when they fail to do so. Drawing on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework based in the natural resource management literature, this paper explores the factors that encourage and inhibit collective action and provides insights into how to understand collective action problems within the household as dynamic, multi-actor situations with outcomes that can be evaluated by multiple criteria, not just efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between agency and Indonesian women’s well-being. The existing debate on empowerment mostly focuses on agency’s instrumental value, how agency benefits development and household/women’s welfare. We depart from this debate by considering the intrinsic value of agency for women using the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We measure agency based on the decisions women make within their households. We find the effects of agency are not unambiguously positive. Agency has intrinsic value, seen in its strong relationship to well-being in certain spheres, which is moderated by the ‘burden of responsibility’ that seems to be felt by decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Efforts by international development agencies to design gender-sensitive projects have sharpened their focus on women’s participation in community-level water governance. In some cases, such goals have enhanced women’s self-confidence and developed their skills despite having negligible impact on project outcomes. In others, they have simply been reduced to tokenism. This paper analyzes community-managed water supply projects for the urban poor in Madhya Pradesh, India, to provide a better understanding of the gap between women’s motivation to participate and their ability or agency to do so. It highlights how bridging this gap could be pivotal in strengthening women’s role in water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We develop simplified indicator of nutritional empowerment the Abridged Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (A-WENI). • We use machine learning techniques (LASSO) to reduce the number of indicators in the index from 33 to 20. • A-WENI is developed for a five-state survey in India and validated with new data from the Indian state of Maharashtra. • A-WENI reproduces well the empowerment status based on WENI and like WENI is a good predictor of nutritional outcomes. • A-WENI can be more easily incorporated into general purpose rural surveys to capture women's empowerment and nutrition. Measuring empowerment is both complicated and time consuming. A number of recent efforts have focused on how to better measure this complex multidimensional concept such that it is easy to implement. In this paper, we use machine learning techniques, specifically LASSO, using survey data from five Indian states to abbreviate a recently developed measure of nutritional empowerment, the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI) that has 33 distinct indicators. Our preferred Abridged Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (A-WENI) consists of 20 indicators. We validate the A-WENI via a field survey from a new context, the western Indian state of Maharashtra. We find that the 20-indicator A-WENI is both capable of reproducing well the empowerment scores and status generated by the 33-indicator WENI and predicting nutritional outcomes such as BMI and dietary diversity. Using this index, we find that in our Maharashtra sample, on average, only 35.9% of mothers of children under the age of 5 years are nutritionally empowered, whereas 77.2% of their spouses are nutritionally empowered. We also find that only 14.6% of the elderly women are nutritionally empowered. These estimates are broadly consistent with those based on the 33-indicator WENI. The A-WENI will reduce the time burden on respondents and can be incorporated in any general purpose survey conducted in rural contexts. Many of the indicators in A-WENI are often collected routinely in contemporary household surveys. Hence, capturing nutritional empowerment does not entail significant additional burden. Developing A-WENI can thus aid in an expansion of efforts to measure nutritional empowerment; this is key to understanding better the barriers and challenges women face and help identify ways in which women can improve their nutritional well-being in meaningful ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]