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A Study in Two Rural Communities in Northwest Ethiopia Yigremew Adal Institute of Development Research Addis Ababa University

Abstract

This paper is an assessment of access to and utilization of productive resources by rural female-headed households. The 1996/97 rural land redistribution carried out by the Amhara Regional Government is taken for comparative examination of access to land by female- and male-headed households. The study, which was conducted two years after the redistribution, looks at the different mechanisms of access to land, the resultant land possessions and the extent of land utilization and control by these households.

It was found that while female-headed households had been granted comparatively fair access to land during the redistribution, they did not benefit as much as male-headed households. First, despite the fact that in 1996/97 female-headed households had been given land amounting to 1.14 times that of male-headed households, in 1999 they had only 0.56 times that of the latter. The reasons are many. Female-headed households did not equal chance of using other mechanisms for to access to land, such as renting, sharecropping, gifts, inheritance, etc. A few of them have even lost the plots allocated by the government as they have been denied access to these plots.

Second, many female-headed households (87 percent) could not cultivate their plots and had to sharecrop them out, while only 17 percent of male-headed households had to do this. Many of the women also complained that those sharecroppers did not properly manage their plots.  Lack of other critical factors of production such as labor, oxen, and credit is the major reason why female-headed households rent out their plots. In the study area, it is a cultural norm that women do not do plowing, which makes them dependant on male labor for cultivating their plots.It was also found that 91 percent of female-headed households had no oxen at all while only 23 percent of male-headed households are in this category. Female-headed households had also a very low chance of getting any type of credit as such services are more often directed to resource-full households.  Women household heads were also found to have comparatively less social capital than men. Nearly 83 percent of women respondents were illiterate against that of 39 percent men. 
The paper concludes that land redistribution per se, without other supplementary measures, cannot be expected to bring about equitable and adequate access to land and significant improvements in the livelihoods of the rural poor in general and female-headed households in particular.  Legal, cultural and social constraints have to be addressed in order to secure women’s fair access to and control over resources.  Access to labor, oxen and credit are, among other things, critical elements in the effective utilization of land.

Table of Contents (TOC)

List of Acronyms..................................................................	iii
Abstract................................................................................	iv

1.	Introduction..................................................................	1

2.	Background of the Study.............................................	4

3.	Literature Review.........................................................	5

3.1	Access to Productive Resources.............................	5

3.2	Causes of Women’s Limited Access 
	to Resources............................................................	10

4.	Empirical Case From Two Rural Communities.......	16

4.1	The 1996/97 Land Redistribution and Access 
	to Land by   Female-Headed Households...............	16

4.2	Beyond Redistribution: Female-Headed 
		Households and the Dynamics of Access 
		to Land, its Utilization and Control........................	20

4.3	Access to Other Critical Resources........................	31

5.   Conclusions and Some Suggestions..............................	37

References