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Across Sub-Saharan African countries with customary tenure systems and low levels of documented land ownership, there are limited nationally representative insights on men and women landowners’ rights over land. Variations in institutions and norms governing land ownership further complicate cross-country comparisons. Using machine learning techniques and nationally representative, intrahousehold survey data elicited in private from men and women on their ownership of assets, this paper creates unique profiles of landowners in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania, anchored in a range of constructs related to self-reported rights and control over land parcels. The analysis reveals a high degree of cross-country consistency in the new insights. Landowners, particularly women, often do not have full rights and decision-making power over land. Multiple correspondence analysis demonstrates that transfer rights (rights to bequeath, sell, rent out, and use as collateral) contribute the most to the variation in the composition of the constructs related to rights and control over land. Hierarchical clustering shows that landowners can effectively be clustered into three categories: (1) owners with mostly exclusive transfer rights, (2) owners with mostly joint transfer rights, and (3) owners with no/limited transfer rights. Owners with transfer rights tend to have all other rights and measures of control. Women are overrepresented in the cluster of landowners with no/limited transfer rights, and in moving from the cluster with mostly joint transfer rights to the one with mostly exclusive transfer rights, the increase in the share of individuals not needing permission to exercise any right is considerably greater among women than men.

A better understanding of how individual wealth and time use are linked—across paid, unpaid, and leisure activities —is important for targeting widespread gender inequalities in time allocation, as well as in accessing economic opportunities. The lack of reliable, individual-level data on asset ownership across different subpopulations, however, has limited discussions of these issues in the literature. Using a unique nationally representative survey from Cambodia, this paper shows that individual wealth, as measured through self-reported ownership of physical and financial assets, is significantly associated with time allocation to different activities. The role of asset ownership in time use is also stronger, particularly among women, vis-à-vis the competing proxies for socioeconomic status. Ownership of financial accounts, motorized vehicles, and mobile phones —all of which can improve access to networks, markets, and services—is associated with less time in unpaid work, and in some cases greater time in paid work, specifically among women in off-farm jobs. There are also distinct gender differences in how men and women shift their time away from leisure and childcare, highlighting the importance of social norms in choices over time use. The analysis highlights the utility of integrated, intra-household, individual-disaggregated data collection on asset ownership, time use, and employment in lower-income contexts.

Established in 2016, the World Bank living standards measurement study - plus (LSMS+) program works to enhance the availability and quality of intra-household, self-reported, individual-disaggregated survey data collected in low- and middle-income countries on key dimensions of men’s and women’s economic opportunities and welfare. This report presents an overview of the LSMS+ program and provides operational guidance regarding individual-disaggregated data collection in large-scale household surveys, based on the experience with and analysis of the national surveys that have been implemented by the respective national statistical offices (NSOs) in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania over the period 2016-2020, with support from the LSMS+ program.

Established in 2016, the World Bank living standards measurement study - plus (LSMS+) program works to enhance the availability and quality of intra-household, self-reported, individual-disaggregated survey data collected in low- and middle-income countries on key dimensions of men’s and women’s economic opportunities and welfare. This report presents findings on gender differences in labor market outcomes and ownership of physical and financial assets in Sub-Saharan Africa, based on the national surveys that have been implemented by the respective national statistical offices (NSOs) in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania over the period 2016-2020, with support from the LSMS+ program.

Established in 2016, the World Bank living standards measurement study - plus (LSMS+) program works to enhance the availability and quality of intra-household, self-reported, individual-disaggregated survey data collected in low- and middle-income countries on key dimensions of men’s and women’s economic opportunities and welfare. This report presents findings on gender differences in labor market outcomes and ownership of physical and financial assets in Cambodia, based on a national survey that was implemented by the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) in 2019, with support from the LSMS+ program.