Doctoral Degrees (Economics)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Economics) by Subject "Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- Malawi"

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    The impact of farm input subsidies on women and children : evidence from Malawi
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Mwale, Martin Limbikani; von Fintel, Dieter; Smith, Anja; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Economics.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: Women and children remain the most vulnerable demographic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, Farm Input Subsidy Programs (FISP) that have been shown to improve household welfare in SSA, could be expected to change the situation of women and children, because they are part of poor households whose welfare is targeted. While evaluations of FISP focus on household-level effects, the well-being of the most vulnerable people inside these households - women and children, is not given adequate attention. Moreover, the traditional and household contexts in which the impacts of the subsidies manifest is not given much consideration. In this thesis, I attempt to address this gap using data from Malawi, a country that has one of the highest levels of gender inequality within SSA. In Malawi, a large-scale farm subsidy program registered gains in total maize production, and opposing kinship traditions that allow for different levels of women’s empowerment, co exist. I took advantage of a rich set of micro-level data that Malawi collects. These data are nationally representative and capture the situation of household members, including women and children. The main data set used were Malawi’s Living Standards Measurement Surveys-the Integrated Household Surveys (IHS). The IHS dis-aggregates data at community, household, and individual levels. I therefore used the IHS to capture the outcomes of women and children. Further, the IHS provides information on whether a household benefits from FISP or not, which is the main treatment of interest in this thesis. There are also other additional data that I used in specific chapters, to supplement the IHS, in answering my research questions. For instance, I linked the IHS with satellite data to verify the impact of FISP on crop yields. In addition, I used the Service Provision Assessment (SPA) survey, that captures information about health facilities in communities, to understand how FISP combines with maternal care, of good quality, to bolster child nutrition. I specifically used these data to understand whether women exert command over income from the FISP and whether children’s outcomes improve due to the FISP, in four broad objectives. In the first objective of the thesis, I re-examined the impact of FISP on maize productivity, to provide the context for the three other objectives that followed in the thesis. Unlike previous evidence which used survey-enumerated yields that are prone to Non-Classical Measurement Errors, I took a step further to eliminate strategic bias in reporting yields by using satellite-generated data. I found that FISP associated with increased maize yields only in the south of Malawi-a region characterised by highest poverty levels, less arable land, and high population density, but not in the north or centre-regions with opposite socioeconomic standing. I argue that the differences occurred, because in the south, the FISP targeted the poor-households that needed it the most to afford inputs. In the second chapter I examined whether long-term child nutrition, height-for-age, improved among children under the age of five in households that received the FISP. Building on previous evaluations which find that the FISP only improved short-term and medium-term nutrition, I extended the analysis to understand the heterogeneous impact of the FISP on a long-term nutritional outcome for children, height-for-age. The results revealed that the FISP improves height-for-age for children under the age of five, only when their mothers were exposed to Focused Antenatal Care (FANC) which provides advice on good diets for pregnant mothers and their children. It is likely that the FISP increased food availability, and provided liquidity that allowed the purchase of more nutritious food, leveraging advice from FANC. I further show that these, in utero nutrition investments sustained beyond the age of three only when the child was exposed to follow-up participation in a community nutrition program that caters for children under the age of five. In the third chapter of the thesis, I examined whether FISP allowed women to have agency over cash that is earned from maize sales. I added another contextual factor which is key to determining how women exercise their decision-making power in Malawi - post-marriage settlement practices within kinship traditions. My results revealed that the FISP does not improve women’s decision-making power over earnings from maize sales. In fact, the program shifts the decision-making power on earnings from women to their husbands in matrilocal communities. In matrilocal settings, married couples reside in the natal community of women, and the women own household land that is controlled by their maternal uncle. I showed that the gain in matrilocal husbands’ decision-making due to FISP is larger than the loss in women’s decision-making, which leads to the suspicion that the additional gain for men comes from the woman’s maternal uncle. Because men receive FISP on behalf of their households, the results suggest that husbands in matrilocal communities use the program to counterbalance their dis-advantage of not owning land. In the fourth chapter I examined the impacts of FISP on children’s school drop out. I find that FISP reduced matrilocal girls’ school drop out. The effects are largely driven by increased expenditure on girls’ education due to the program. Matrilocal parents likely invested some of the proceeds from FISP in girls, because after marriage, matrilocal women co reside with their parents, thus taking care of the parents when they age - a duty undertaken by boys in patrilocal communities. The investment in girls for future benefits of parents, is more relevant for matrilocal husbands because these husbands do not own land. Thus, even without controlling land, the husbands can at least receive care from their daughters. Further, I found that FISP does not affect school drop out in patrilocal communities. From a Malawian context of overall high female school drop out, this result is likely because boys, who are heirs in patrilocal communities, already have lower rates of drop out. I conclude that FISP associates with improved maize productivity when targeted at poor people, and FISP benefits younger children with increased nutrition. Further, the FISP reduces gender inequality only among school-going children in matrilocal communities, while it increases gender inequality by reducing decision-making among older women in the same communities. Alternative policies, that have proven key to improving women’s agency in other countries, such as direct cash transfers to women, should be promoted, because increasing agency through directly targeting the FISP at women is unlikely to assist. This is because de facto controllers of land, and its proceeds, are men-husbands in patrilocal communities, and maternal uncles and husbands in matrilocal communities. In addition, general welfare policy like FISP must account for traditional context for women and children, to avoid unintended negative consequences, such as worsening gender inequalities. Furthermore, even welfare strategies that are specific to improving the well-being of women and children, may need to be tailored to contextual factors such as kinship traditions, to yield wide-spread positive impacts on women’s and children’s well-being.