Empowering women through Family Visioning: a randomized experiment in Uganda
This study examines the impacts of a couples' workshop on gender norms, decision making, and women's economic participation
Abstract
In this study, the authors examine the impacts of a couples’ workshop that encouraged individual and joint planning for the future and discussions of gender balance in terms of responsibilities and access to resources. They examine the impacts of this workshop on gender norms, decision making, and women’s economic participation in rural Uganda. In some households, this intervention was combined with an economic intervention. However, due to our cross-randomized design we are able to identify the impacts of the workshop separately from those accruing to the economic intervention. The context of our study is an area where sugarcane farming represents the majority of household income. As such, economic empowerment is closely linked with the extent and nature of one’s participation in sugar production and marketing. This is common in agrarian economies, where increasing women’s participation in high-value agriculture is often seen as a promising pathway to economic empowerment. However, participation in production may not improve empowerment without increases in decision-making and control over income. For example, in Cote d’Ivoire, a couples training was found to increase the wife’s salience in the action plan for cultivation of rubber. However, her control over income only improved if she was assigned to high-level management tasks (Donald and Rouanet, 2018). In addition to the outcomes of interest noted above, we examine not only the extent but also the nature Of women’s involvement in this industry.
This work is part of the Closing the Gender Gap in Africa: evaluating new policies and programmes for women’s economic empowerment programme
Citation
O’Sullivan, Michael B.; Jones, Kelly; Ambler, Kate.2019. Empowering Women Through Family Visioning : a Randomized Experiment in Uganda (English). Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.
Link
Empowering women through Family Visioning: a randomized experiment in Uganda