Understanding the link between nutritional status and women’s empowerment in agriculture: Evidence from Ghana Hazel Malapit, Agnes Quisumbing and Ruth Meinzen-Dick Research Question: Is women’s empowerment in agriculture positively correlated with good nutrition practices and outcomes? Data from the 2012 Feed the Future baseline population-based survey in Northern Ghana Link between nutrition practices (P), individual nutrition outcomes (O), and women’s empowerment estimated using OLS: Results Conclusion Uses an innovative survey-based measure of women’s empowerment in agriculture The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) directly measures women’s empowerment, inclusion and agency in the agriculture sector across 5 domains in agriculture, as measured by 10 indicators (Alkire et al. 2013): DomainIndicatorWeight ProductionInput in productive decisions1/10 Autonomy in production1/10 ResourcesOwnership of assets1/15 Purchase, sale, or transfer of assets1/15 Access to and decisions on credit1/15 IncomeControl over use of income1/5 LeadershipGroup member1/10 Speaking in public1/10 TimeWorkload1/10 Leisure1/10  Statistically representative sample of Feed the Future’s (FTF) Zone of Influence - Northern, Upper West, Upper East regions, and Brong Ahafo  Sample restricted to 2,228 households with complete WEAI data for the principal female decisionmakers Figure 2: Children’s nutrition outcomesFigure 1: Infant & young child feeding (IYCF) outcomes Figure 3: Women’s nutrition outcomes  Women’s empowerment more strongly associated with IYCF practices and women’s dietary diversity  diet quality does not necessarily translate to improved nutrition (UNICEF 1990; Gillespie 2013)  Domains of empowerment that are significant for women and children’s diet and nutrition outcomes may not always overlap, and different domains may have different impacts on nutrition, consistent with other findings in the empowerment literature (Kabeer 1999) Table 1: WEAI components N (P, O)= a 0 + a 1 empowerment + a 2 I + a 3 H + ε  where I = vector of individual characteristics, H = vector of household characteristics, a i = parameters estimated, and ε = error term  H 0 : a 1 > 0 O C = b 0 + b 1 empowerment + b 2 girl + b 3 (empowerment ×girl) + b 4 I + b 5 H + ν  where girl = 1 if girl child, b j = parameters estimated, and ν = error term  For boys, H 0 : b 1 > 0, and for girls, H 0 : b 2 + b 3 > 0  If no difference between boys and girls, b 3 = 0 Estimated differences between boys and girls for child-level outcomes (O C ) : Based on WEAI diagnostics, selected indicators that contributes most to disempowerment of women as regressors:: Model / IndicatorDefinition Model 1: Aggregate empowerment score weighted average of achievements in the ten indicators if the respondent is disempowered (=1 if empowered) Model 2: Average number of credit decisions (Resource domain) average number of credit decisions over which the female respondent has some input (=0 if did not borrow from any source) Model 3: Total number of agricultural decisions (Production domain) total number of agricultural activities where the female respondent has some input in decisions or feels she can make decisions. Model 1: Empowerment Score Model 2: Credit decisions Model 3: Agricultural decisions boys girls Model 1: Empowerment Score Model 2: Credit decisions Model 3: Agricultural decisions boys girls Model 1: Empowerment Score Model 2: Credit decisions Model 3: Agricultural decisions  Women’s empowerment strongly associated with IYCF behaviors for girls but not boys  Unexpected negative coefs for girls imply less diverse and therefore lower quality diets in empowered households  Dietary diversity score may be capturing poor appetite and illness among infants rather than diet quality because mothers only tended to offer different foods only when children have been ill or have rejected food (Davis et al. 2003)  Women’s empowerment weakly associated with children’s nutrition Women’s participation in credit decisions significantly correlated with dietary diversity, consistent with bargaining models Note: * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.