Examining gender differences in asset accumulation in transition economies

1
Examining gender differences in asset
accumulation in transition economies

• Agnes Quisumbing
• International Food Policy Research Institute
• Workshop on
• "Sharing the Growth Dividend Women in the ECA
  Region
• The World Bank

2
Why study asset accumulation?

• Assets represent a resource that generates value
  or returns over time.
• Assets can be used to obtain access to other
  markets, e.g. credit markets
• Asset dynamics in response to shocks can help us
  understand the evolution of poverty over time
• Inequality in the distribution of assets may
  result in differences in well-being over time

3
Why study gender differences in asset
accumulation?

• If men and women have differential access or
  control over assets, time path of returns could
  be quite different for men and women
• If women do not have assets that are acceptable
  as collateral, they could be disadvantaged in
  terms of access to credit markets
• Asset dynamics of men and women could be quite
  different if womens assets are first to be
  disposed of in times of crises
• Different patterns of asset holdings of men and
  women, in addition to gender differences in
  levels of asset ownership, could result in gender
  gaps in well-being over time

4
Some interesting complications of studying asset
accumulation in the ECA region

• Ownership of productive assets such as land and
  machinery generally skewed towards men, while
  human capital is more equally divided
• Transition countries have implemented the
  greatest land redistribution program in recent
  history as well as the largest enterprise
  privatization program
• We know very little about whether
  redistribution/privatization was equitable from a
  gender perspective
• We probably do not have gender-disaggregated
  baseline information on asset ownership
  post-privatization, not to mention
  pre-privatization
• A combination of retrospective data, plus
  historical analysis of reform implementation, may
  help establish this baseline

5
Pre-transition property rights and production
organization (Swinnen 2001)

• Widespread collectivization of agriculture began
  in 1928 in the FSU and in 1948 in Central
  European countries and the Baltics
• Objective was to pool peasant farms into
  large-scale collective farms, and then to
  nationalize the land and convert collectives into
  even larger state farms or agro-industrial
  complexes.
• However collectivization was implemented
  differently in each country, reflecting different
  stages of state control, resulting in a mixture
  of property rights regimes
• We probably do not know anything about the gender
  distribution of land rights pre-collectivization.
  Is it feasible to get this data at the
  individual level? Maybe not, given the time that
  has elapsed.
• Historical records might give information on
  whether peasant farms were registered under the
  husbands name alone, or jointly
• Is this important to know? Judgment call.

6
Post-communist agricultural privatization and
land reform

• Not surprisingly, land reforms differed quite
  widely across countries, even if restitution of
  farmland to former owners is the most important
  process, in terms of TAL
• Typically, reform laws specify that former owners
  are restituted land in historical boundaries, if
  possible, or receive property rights to a plot of
  comparable size and quality
• In practice, there have been differences in the
  way collective and state farmland have been
  restituted (see next slide), but again, it is not
  clear whether restitution has been
  gender-equitable, or simply restored former
  ownership system

7
Selected land reform procedures in Central and
Eastern European countries
Collective farmland Collective farmland State farmland State farmland
Procedure of TAL Procedure of TAL
Albania Distribution (physical) 76 Distribution (physical) 24
Bulgaria Restitution 72 Miscellaneous 9
Czech Rep Restitution 61 Sale (leasing) 25
Hungary Restitution distribution (phys) sale for compensation bonds 70 Sale for compensation bonds sale (leasing) 12
Poland ___ 4 Sale (leasing) 19
Russia Distribution in shares 40 Distribution in shares 58
Source Swinnen 2001
8
Some possibilities at getting at this problem
through a household survey

• Ask households about what they received or owned
  post-privatization, and ask about individual
  ownership of each type of asset (as in
  individuals within the household)
• Ask households to complete an asset accumulation
  record for important types of assets (land,
  agricultural assets, business assets), with dates
  that each asset was acquired or disposed of
• Obtain information on mode of acquisition
• Obtain information on who within the household
  had control of the asset (use individual ID)
• Using this information, generate
  gender-disaggregated time paths of asset
  accumulation

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Caveats

• If you really want to get at intrahousehold asset
  control, this is NOT the same as classifying the
  household as male- or female-headed
• Nevertheless, looking at incidence of female
  headship in the ECA region might help identify
  vulnerable households, and if there are major
  differences in asset ownership in male vs.
  female-headed households, this could be policy
  relevant

10
There is a precedent for this type of work, from
a very different setting

• IFPRIs work on the evolution of customary land
  tenure systems towards individualized land rights
  in Ghana and Sumatra faced very similar
  questionshow to track evolution of land rights
  from customary (collective?) control to
  individual control
• Study methodology involved two types of surveys
  (1) extensive survey of communities, to find out
  local norms regarding land rights and (2)
  intensive survey of households to find out how
  these land rights varied across households, and
  within households
• For the intensive survey, information on various
  outcome indicators also collected and analyzed

11
Customary land tenure and tree resource
management in Ghana and Sumatra
(Quisumbing and Otsuka, with Payongayong, Aidoo,
and Suyanto, 2001)
12
Designing a module to look at land use Ghana
and Sumatra

• Ghana uterine matrilineal system men used to
  grow tree crops women grew food crops but food
  crops actually intercropped with cocoa, so women
  contributed labor to keeping cocoa fields clean
  while cocoa trees are young
• Plots have their own plot managers and even field
  managers (separate crop fields within plots)
• The way land is acquired and from whom determines
  property rights on land

• Sumatra Asian matrilineal system women
  inherit paddy land men cultivate tree crop area
  tree crops planted on land with very different
  land rightsagroforestry land (almost private
  property rights after trees planted) bush-fallow
  land (becoming converted to private property)
• The way land is used eventually determines
  property rights (clearing and tree-planting on
  formerly communal land, e.g. bush-fallow)

13
Ghana land use module

• Emphasis in Ghana modules for each plot
• Mode of land acquisition
• Who acquired the land
• From whom
• Rights on the land
• Who is the plot manager
• Note it is not enough to ask whether the
  household is male- or female-headed. Level of
  gender disaggregation goes down to the plot level.

14
Sumatra land use module

• Emphasis in Sumatra
• How land is used
• Mode of land acquisition
• Who acquired the land
• From whom
• Whether land can be inherited
• age to sons and daughters
• Again, it is not enough to ask whether the
  household is male- or female-headed. Level of
  gender disaggregation goes down to the plot
  level.

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• Surely, if these data could be collected in Ghana
  and Sumatra, they can be collected in ECA, which
  has more highly developed statistical systems!

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What are the consequences of gender inequality in
asset ownership, post-privatization?

• We do not know.
• We cannot immediately conclude that gender
  inequality in distribution of agricultural assets
  is bad for women, unless we also know how human
  capital assets are distributed (probably, more
  equally) and what are the gender differences in
  employment in agriculture, non-agriculture, and
  in self-employment

17
Examining the consequences of asset inequality
across different types of assets

• In the Philippines, sons inherit land and most
  agricultural assets, and daughters obtain an
  education.
• Daughters more likely to work in nonagricultural
  employment
• Lifetime incomes are higher under this
  distribution of physical and human capital, than
  if both land and education were to be equalized
  across sons and daughters
• (Estudillo, Quisumbing, and Otsuka 2001)

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• Thus, it is important to look at a range of
  assets, and the long-term incomes that can be
  generated from this portfolio of assets, rather
  than focus on one type of asset alone.
• As per capita incomes increase, returns from
  human capital may become more important than
  returns from physical capital