Gender, control, and crop choice in northern Mozambique

Abstract

This paper studies women’s empowerment in northern Mozambique as it relates to agriculture, considering in particular the factors that lead to women’s managing the plots that they nominally control. Women control about 30 percent of the plots in the data but manage only about 70 percent of those plots. Using a unique panel dataset, the study finds that women are more likely to manage plots when households have historically had access to off-farm labor, typically completed by men.