1. Women’s Land Rights as a Pathway to Poverty Reduction:
A framework and review of available evidence
Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, Cheryl Doss, and Sophie Theis

2. Overview What Do We Mean by Women’s Land Rights? Conceptual Framework
Evidence on the Contributions of Women’s Land Rights to Poverty Reduction
Evidence Gaps—What Don’t We Know?
Conclusions/Implications

3. What Do We Mean by Women’s Land Rights?
Individual level—not just FHH
Tenure security:
Robustness/resilience (can withstand challenges, e.g. land grabs)
Duration (long horizon, not changed by change in marital status)
Assurance/enforceability (can present claim, be heard)
Cultural and legal legitimacy (recognized by law, custom, community, family)
Exercisability (informed of rights, understand meaning and how to document)
Beyond “ownership”—Bundles of rights (use, fructus, control)
Often depends on how acquired, social categories of land
Degree of individual vs joint rights
However, this data is rarely available in the literature
This draws on Land Tenure Center’s generic work on tenure security and Resource Equity’s work on women’s land rights
Individual level—not just comparing MHH vs FHH
Tenure security:
Robustness/resilience (can withstand challenges, e.g. land grabs)
Duration (long horizon, not changed by change in marital status)
Assurance/enforceability (can present claim, be heard)
Cultural and legal legitimacy (recognized by law, custom, community, family)
Exercisability (informed of rights, understand meaning and how to document)
Beyond “ownership”—actual bundles of rights (use, fructus, control)
But not just “access”
Often depends on how acquired, social categories of land
Ancestral vs Purchased, Dowry
Degree of individual vs joint rights
However, this data is rarely available in the literature

4. What Do “they” Mean by Women’s Land Rights?
Proxies used:
FHH/MHH
Access to land (land manager)
Self-reported ownership
Land registration
Knowledge of land law/land rights

5. Links from Women’s Land Rights to Poverty Reduction

6. Links from Women’s Land Rights to Poverty Reduction?

7. Search process: an overview
Focus: studies that documented impacts/associations between WLR and outcomes, NOT the effect of interventions on WLR
Systematic review search protocol
Peer-reviewed publications and working papers, in English, published January 1, April 10, 2017
Online search screening against eligibility criteria.
Additional titles added via “snowballing” sources, reviewing websites of leading land tenure institutions
Included World Bank 2017 Land and Poverty Conference in the pipeline but not yet published in peer-reviewed journals.
52 studies met the inclusion criteria for the review

8. Country coverage of studies reviewed

9. Distribution of studies reviewed by topic
Note: some papers examined multiple outcomes

10. Distribution of studies reviewed by method
Very few studies that use mixed methods, a missed opportunity especially for impact evaluations

11. Resilience
One observational study using panel data in Malawi (Asfaw and Maggio 2017)
High temperature shocks during agricultural season disrupt households’ consumption more when plots solely managed by women
Effects less severe for FHH in matrilineal districts, suggesting that tenure security is also important

12. Agricultural Technology Adoption
West Bengal (Santos et al. 2013): including women’s names on land titles associated with use of improved agricultural inputs
Rwanda land registration didn’t increase use of improved seed (Ali, Deininger, and Goldstein 2014)
Little theoretical reason that land rights affect short-term technology adoption

13. Natural resource management--1
15 studies of long-term investment
5 impact assessments using some type of formalization as indicator of tenure security, primarily comparing male and female headed households;
10 observational studies using some form of self-reported tenure security.
All from 7 countries in Africa
Overall evidence: tenure security associated with investment in land, but “tenure security” is complex
Both women’s and men’s tenure security matters

14. Natural resource management--2
Land registration programs (Rwanda, Benin, 1st stage Ethiopia) increased adoption of soil conservation;
2nd stage Ethiopia certification didn’t increase conservation, but also didn’t increase tenure security
Women’s knowledge of legal rights increases investment in soil conservation, trees (Uganda, Ethiopia)
Need to look at local definitions of tenure security
“people invest not only in trees but also in social relationships” (Quisumbing et al. 2004)

15. Credit
Despite claims that secure land rights improve access to credit, very little evidence (only 2 studies)
Ethiopia (Persha): 2nd tier land registration increased access to credit for both MHH and FHH, larger effect for MHH
West Bengal (Santos et al.): beneficiary hholds in land allocation and registration program more likely than nonbeneficiary hholds to have take bank loan and use credit for agriculture
For WLR to affect credit requires well-functioning credit markets, banking systems that accept land as collateral, and legal systems that adjudicate cases where land is used as collateral.

16. Agricultural productivity--1
Many recent studies on men and women farmers (plot managers, etc.) and agricultural productivity, but don’t identify owner of the land
6 studies directly examine link between WLR and agricultural productivity

17. Agricultural productivity--2
3 quasi-experimental studies; results differ across countries and programs
Ethiopia (Bezabih et al. 2016): value of agricultural output higher in the households with certificates, impact is greater for FHH
Malawi (Mendola and Simtowe 2015): agricultural productivity and income higher for land reform beneficiary households headed by men
Vietnam (Newman et al. 2015): plots with land use certificates have higher productivity; productivity not lower on jointly titled plots.

18. Agricultural productivity--3
Observational studies:
Ghana (Goldstein and Udry 2008): women’s lower productivity related to their lower tenure security and lack of fallowing
Malawi (Bhaumik et al. 2016): even if WLR are stronger in matrilineal areas, women may not have access to markets and complementary resources such as capital and hired labor.
Takeaway: tenure security matters, but so does access to markets and complementary resources

19. Government services
Government services usually provided to land owners, but most studies based in urban areas. Studies from rural Tanzania show:
Land ownership is positively correlated with participation in community meetings and household decisionmaking (Grabe 2015);
NGO work to educate women about their land rights strengthened women’s social relations, expanding access to customary authorities, and increasing knowledge of political processes (Goldman et al. 2016)

20. Livelihoods
Tanzania (Peterman 2011): women’s property and inheritance rights associated with increases in women’s employment outside the home, self employment and earnings.
Studies on women’s ability to rent out land (Ethiopia) (Holden, Akpalu et al.):
Women more likely to rent out land if they have a certificate, if risk of losing land is low, marginal cost of litigation is low
Takeaway: WLR positively associated with livelihood diversification

21. Empowerment and domestic violence
Land ownership can decrease HIV risk by reducing women’s need for survival sex (Machomba et al.)
Land and property ownership associated with reduced domestic violence in very different contexts
Kerala, India (Panda and Agarwal): women’s property ownership negatively associated with both long-term and current physical and psychological violence.
Nicaragua and Tanzania (Grabe, Grabe et al.): significant links between land ownership, relationship power, and reduced domestic violence.

22. Full income
No papers looking at full income per se, but two papers on food security
Ethiopia (Ghebru and Holden 2013): significant positive effects of holding a land certificate on food availability and BMI of children in Ethiopia; effects on calorie availability higher for female-headed households.
West Bengal (Santos et al. 2013): greater women’s decision-making over household food and agriculture among beneficiary households of a land allocation program, but no evidence of significant short-term improvements in food security ( over 2 years)

23. Bargaining power and decisionmaking over consumption
3 quasi-experimental studies (India, Peru, Nepal) found positive effects of WLR on women’s decisionmaking outcomes
6 observational studies (Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sumatra (Indonesia), South Africa, Ghana, India, Malawi, Mali, Tanzania, Karnataka (India): WLR have positive associations with women’s decisionmaking ability and empowerment, but associations are not consistently significant across outcomes and countries, owing to the context specificity of gender norms.

24. Human capital investment and inheritance
WLR has positive associations with education, nutrition, health of children (Nepal, Vietnam, Ethiopia)
WLR may affect transfers to next generation by increasing the stock of resources to be transferred, or by affecting women’s bargaining power, which would affect the allocation of transfers among sons and daughters. Results vary across contexts.

25. Summary of Findings Amount of evidence Limited Medium High
Amount of evidence
Limited
Medium
High
Level of agreement
Low
Suggested but unproven 
Other livelihoods 
Speculative
Alternate explanations
Tentatively agreed by most but unproven 
Credit
Technology adoption
Agricultural productivity
Provisionally agreed by most
Generally accepted
Agreed but unproven 
Poverty reduction
Agreed but incompletely documented 
Natural resource management
Government services and institutions
Empowerment and domestic violence
Resilience and HIV risk
Consumption and food security 
Well established 
Bargaining power and decision making over consumption
Bargaining power and decision making on human capital investment and intergenerational transfers

26. Evidence Gaps Most studies only compare MHH/FHH
Confounds household structure with gender; ignores women in dual adult HHs
Studies concentrated in few countries, mostly Africa
Short-term impacts of reforms, not long-term
Dynamic effects, e.g. with rapid male outmigration
Women’s tenure security in collective tenure; empowerment effects of land rights at community and higher levels
Quality of land
Life cycle effects: land rights for youth and old age security
 Nuance needed to understand women’s land rights, if interventions are to be effective in strengthening them

27. Evidence Gaps What works to strengthen women’s land rights?
Gender-sensitive registration programs may strengthen WLR, but:
Little quantitative data on effects of gender-blind programs.
Qualitative studies suggest negative effects of poorly designed formalization
Trade-offs between high speed/low cost vs inclusive processes
If technology-driven formalization, how do women participate?
How do women “actualize” their rights (in the face of social pressures, etc.)
Knowledge of land laws is important: by women, men, and land administrators
How to strengthen women’s tenure in collective tenure systems? Internal governance, not just external boundaries

28. Implications
Women’s land rights are important for empowerment and investment, but they are not a panacea
Framework helps think through downstream impacts (on women, households, communities)
Guidance for program design (e.g. what rights to be strengthened, need for complementary programs, etc.)
Formalization of tenure programs offer serious risks as well as opportunities
Urgent need to address women’s land rights in their design, implementation, and accompanying legal literacy campaigns
Land rights derive from more than state law—embedded in social relations
Strengthening women’s land rights is a process of long-term social change.