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2.3.2016
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN RURAL HONDURAS Insights from a baseline study in an HRNS project site in
Ocotepeque and Copan, Honduras
Paulino Font Gilabert, Thomas Dietz, Janina Grabs TRANS.SUSTAIN RESEARCH PROJECT
1
1. Setting the scene
1.1. Purpose
The Hanns R. Neumann Foundation (HRNS) and the University of Münster’s research
project TransSustain share the goal of identifying the most promising avenues to
improve the welfare of smallholder coffee producers. One aspect that is frequently
overlooked in development projects is the adequate inclusion of women in production
activities and household decisions. This baseline study, as a collaboration between the
HRNS and TransSustain researchers, aims to measure women’s empowerment in areas
of Honduras where the Foundation is launching a pilot gender program. On the one hand,
providing a reliable estimate of the situation of female beneficiaries before project
implementation is essential for an accurate estimation of the project’s impact; on the
other, understanding the project context and possible stumbling blocks allows for an
optimal implementation strategy and may improve final results.
1.2. Definition and importance of women’s empowerment
As with any social concept, there are varying definitions of women’s empowerment.
Kabeer (2001) defines empowerment as “the expansion of people’s ability to make
strategic life choices, within their households and their communities, particularly in
contexts where this ability has been limited.” For the purpose of this study, which
focuses on the livelihoods of smallholder agricultural producers, it is helpful to narrow
the focus to women’s economic empowerment. According to the International Center
for Research on Women (Golla, Malhotra, Nanda, & Mehra, 2011),
A woman is economically empowered when she has both the ability to succeed and advance economically and the power to make and act on economic decisions. To succeed and advance economically, women need the skills and resources to compete in markets, as well as fair and equal access to economic institutions. To have the power and agency to benefit from economic activities, women need to have the ability to make and act on decisions and control resources and profits.
Women’s empowerment, particularly in contexts where they have traditionally and
culturally been disadvantaged, is crucial for two reasons.
2
First, from a human rights perspective, gender equality is acknowledged as a goal with
intrinsic value that is worthwhile pursuing for its own merit. Gender equality has been
included as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals and was reconfirmed as a
global priority within the Sustainable Development Goals. It thus stands to argue that
the international community has recognized it as a fundamental human right not to be
discriminated based upon one’s gender.
Second, women’s empowerment and gender equality can also lead to powerful positive
spill-over effects in the realms of economic advancement, health and education. More
access to resources or decision-making power over household expenses has been
correlated with less child undernutrition and more household food security, better
decision-making on serious health questions, as well as better education for children
(FAO, 2011). More empowerment in the household could lead to less domestic violence,
better mental health, less depression, and has also been associated with better child-
care outcomes due to greater self-confidence of women. If women are already working
on coffee farms, but are not being included in trainings and have little access to
extension services, including them could lead to better yields and better-quality coffee
(FAO, 2011). Also, if they are already working on farms, owning the land gives them
access to full cooperative membership and more access to inputs and resources (IFPRI
& ILRI, 2013). This, as well as access to credit, is particularly important for quality
improvements. If they have not been working so far, empowering them to work outside
of the house can have positive household income impacts as family labour replaces hired
labour in the fields (Humphries & Classen, 2012). More agricultural skills and land tenure
rights give greater social security in the case of the husband’s death or the need for male
out-migration. Finally, more female involvement outside of the home can strengthen
social circles and structures and create strong role model examples for the next
generation, up until female involvement higher up the value chain (as agronomists,
sellers of coffee, etc.) which in turn gives them greater economic independence and
bargaining power in the marriage market (Humphries & Classen, 2012).
3
1.3. The project
The gender program implemented by the Hanns R. Neumann Foundation in Honduras is
modelled after and adapted from a previous successful intervention implemented in
Uganda (Lecoutere & Jassogne, 2016). It consists of two phases: in the first phase, group
workshops introduce communities to gender-related topics and open a first space for
discussion. In the second phase, community members participate in joint sensitization
sessions that seek to redefine the intra-household gender relations. Finally, interested
role model couples can take part in more intensive counselling. Subsequently, it is hoped
that these change agents will disseminate their insights among other couples of the
community.
The slight changes of the Uganda program include that gender issues are first addressed
separately with women (in Women Leadership workshops), and men (Masculinity
workshops). This strategy responds to the idea that couples will be more interested in
participating in the couples training sessions if gender topics are addressed separately
first.
The Masculinity workshops consist of four sessions: ‘How gender roles are shaped by
society’; ‘How do we learn to be men’; ‘Roles and relations of men’; and ‘Power relations
and prevention of gender-based violence’. The Women Leadership workshops consist of
four sessions distributed in two modules: The module ‘Gender and community
involvement’ discusses roles and opportunities to participate in the household and
community, how women can identify their abilities, and how to say what they think and
what they need. The module ‘Fostering women participation in the community’ focuses
on negotiating such participation in male-dominated spaces and subsequent
management of conflicts.
Following these workshops, the couples’ sensitization sessions begin for an interested
subgroup of couples. In 4 sessions, the following topics are discussed: Gender
fundamentals; gender division of labour: roles and stereotypes; access and control over
resources; power relations and decision-making.
4
At the end of the couples’ sensitization workshops, couples can express their desire of
deepening their knowledge on gender inequality. These couples then will be further
trained to promote both gender equality within their household and in their
communities. Therefore, all couples completing the intensive couples training will
graduate as change agents.
2. The baseline study
The baseline study aims to establish the current state of empowerment of women in the
communities of the HRNS gender empowerment project. This part will first explain the
study’s methodology, then the study setting, and will then discuss the results in depth.
2.1. Operationalization: The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index
The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a survey-based index that
seeks to measure women’s empowerment, agency, and participation in the agriculture
sector1. It was established by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in
collaboration with USAID and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
(OPHI). It is an aggregated index constructed from individual-level data from both
women and men living in the same household. Given that the WEAI also gathers
information from the primary male in the interviewed households, within-household
gender differences on empowerment levels are accounted for in the index construction.
The WEAI is composed of two subindexes (Alkire et al., 2012):
1) Five domains of empowerment (5DE). This index assesses whether women are
empowered in five domains: 1) Decision-making power over agricultural
production, 2) access to, and decision-making power about productive resources,
(3) control over use of income and expenditures, (4) leadership in the community,
and (5) time allocation.
2) The Gender Parity Index (GPI). This index compares differences in the five
domains of empowerment between men and women living in the same
household.
1 A more thorough assessment of the WEAI construction and its technical review can be found in Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., et al. (2013).
5
The 5DE is constructed from 10 weighted indicators, each of which measures whether
an individual has an adequate performance in a specific area of interest. Domains,
indicators, and their weights are presented in Table 1.
Decision-making power over agricultural production
This domain is constructed from two indicators. 1) Input in productive decisions
measures whether an individual had any input deciding over productive activities such
as food crop farming, cash crop farming, livestock raising, fishing or fish culture, non-
farm economic activities, or wage and salaried employment, and whether the individual
feels she could make her own decisions regarding agricultural production, purchasing
inputs for agricultural production, what types of crops to grow, and taking crops to the
market and livestock raising, among others. 2) Autonomy in production measures
whether an individual behaves and makes decisions in accordance to their own interests
and preferences, or whether in contrast the actions taken are influenced by others as to
avoid punishment or blame.
Access to, and decision-making power about productive resources
Three indicators are used to construct this domain. 1) Ownership of land and assets
measures whether individuals own – either solely or jointly – a diverse set of productive
resources: agricultural land, non-agricultural land, large and small livestock, fish ponds,
farm or other nonfarm equipment, house, household durables, cell phone, and means
Table 1: The WEAI domains, indicators, and weights
Domain Indicator Weight
Input in productive decisions 1/10
Autonomy in production 1/10
Ownership of assets 1/15
Purchase, sale, or transfer of assets 1/15
Access to and decisions about credit 1/15
Income Control over use of income 1/5
Group member 1/10
Speaking in public 1/10
Workload 1/10
Leisure 1/10
Source: OPHI
Production
Resources
Leadership
Time
6
of transportation. 2) Purchase, sale or transfer of assets focuses on the rights individuals
have regarding decision-making about the access and availability of productive assets,
regardless of individual ownership. 3) Access to and decisions on credit measures the
participation of an individual in the decision of obtaining credit from a diverse set of
sources (nongovernmental organizations, formal and informal lenders, friends or
relatives, rotating savings and credit associations) and using its proceeds.
Income
This domain is solely measured with the indicator of control over the use of income. It is
constructed from answers regarding the degree of input that individuals have over the
use of income generated from food crops, cash crops, livestock, fishing and fish culture,
nonfarm activities, and wage and salaried work, and the extent to which individuals feel
they can make their own personal decisions over their salaried work and minor
household expenditures.
Leadership
This domain is constructed using two indicators: 1) Group member, which records
whether an individual belongs to an economic or social group in their community, and
2) Speaking in public, which measures the degree to which an individual is comfortable
speaking in public about helping deciding on infrastructure in their community, ensuring
proper payment of wages for public work or programs, and protesting misbehaviour of
authorities or other elected officials.
Time
The last domain comprises two indicators: 1) Workload, measuring the amount of time
devoted to productive and domestic work (either as a primary or a secondary activity),
and 2) Leisure, measuring the level of satisfaction reported by individuals on their
available time for leisure activities.
In the 5DE, each indicator is associated to a threshold value; when the threshold is
surpassed, the indicator is coded as “1” – signifying adequate empowerment in that
dimension –, and will be “0” otherwise. A woman is considered empowered if she
7
achieves an 80 percent adequacy in the weighted sum of the ten indicators, or if she has
adequate achievements in four out of the five domains. In the GPI, a woman is
considered to achieve gender parity if she is empowered herself, or if she enjoys the
same level of empowerment as the primary male in her household.
The 5DE, the GPI and the WEAI are calculated then using the following formulas:
5𝐷𝐸 = 𝐻𝑒 + (1 − 𝐻𝑒) × 𝐴𝑎 (1)
Where 𝐻𝑒 is the percentage of women who are empowered (that is, have scored a “1”
in at least 80% of all dimensions) and 𝐴𝑎 is the percentage of dimensions in which
disempowered women have adequate achievements (or the adequacy score of
disempowered women).
𝐺𝑃𝐼 = 1 − (𝐻𝑤 × 𝑅𝑝) (2)
Where 𝐻𝑤 is the percentage of women without gender parity and 𝑅𝑝 is the average
empowerment gap between women and men in the same household.
𝑊𝐸𝐴𝐼 = (0.9 × 5𝐷𝐸) + (0.1 × 𝐺𝑃𝐼) (3)
From the equations above we can see that the 5DE is a measure of the percentage of
women who are empowered (disempowered), and their level of empowerment
(disempowerment). On the other hand, the GPI conveys the percentage of woman
without gender parity, and the distance or gap to achieve it. Therefore, women’s
empowerment as measured by the WEAI can be improved by increasing the percentage
of empowered women, by reducing the intensity of disempowerment among
disempowered women, or by reducing gender inequalities at the household level.
8
2.2. Data
The data for this study was gathered during the months of August and September of
2015. Fieldwork took place in the “Departamentos” of Ocotepeque and Copán, located
in western Honduras, an area that border the countries of Guatemala and El Salvador
(Fig 1).
The survey was solely administered to households where a couple cohabited, therefore
excluding mono-parental households2 . Furthermore, the study is restricted to rural
households, since the survey addresses women’s empowerment from an agricultural
perspective and the women’s empowerment program was addressed to rural families.
Selection of households was done in two steps. First, villages where an organized group
of farmers existed were identified3. Second, those households that were part of the
farmers’ group and in which a couple cohabited were interviewed.
2 This is the case since the women’s empowerment program is addressed to cohabiting couples. Moreover, information from both the man and the woman living in the same household is needed to provide a proper assessment of gender differences. 3 The women’s empowerment program will be targeting households that are already receiving training and support to manage their household farms and to get organized.
Figure 1: The study area
9
A total of 152 households were interviewed, although in five of them the household
male could not be located. For the rest of the households, information from both the
cohabiting woman and man allows us to provide insights into gender inequality at the
household level.
2.3. Social and economic context
Table 2 provides some descriptive statistics of the women in our sample. It is noteworthy
that most women only finished primary school, got married young and had their first
child almost instantaneously. Most have households with four to six members.
During the interviews, it was also possible to glean some information on the social
context these households were operating in. Prominently, the threat of violence and
safety concerns loomed with statements such as “one feels uncomfortable here, nobody
is safe in this country” and anecdotes like “I call the police when somebody is killed so
they come to the community, and they ask me how much it will cost them in gas.”
Furthermore, food insecurity is present, for instance in the household that commented
“We never run out of beans and tortillas, but meat and milk – yes, we do.” Finally,
religion plays a defining role in the community, and has a strong influence on intra-
gender relationships within households. At mass sermon, statements such as “today
they speak of gender equality but the man has to be the head of the household. The
man has to rule in the household, a household where the man isn’t in control is a
household that is going downhill. He is the head of the woman. But man still has to
respect the woman, since she is part of his body. Loving your wife is loving yourself”
showcase a complicated ideal relationship between genders. This confirms Lomot’s
(2013) characterization of Honduras as a male-dominated country shaped by machismo.
Table 2: Descriptive statistics of women in our sample
Mean Median Q1 Q3 IQR
Age 41.9 40 32.5 51 18.5
Education (completed years) 5.6 6 3 6 3
Age at marriage 20.1 19 17 22 5
Duration of union (cohabiting or marriage) 21.6 20 11 30 19
Age at first child 20.5 20 18 22 4
Dependant children <14 years 1.3 1 0 2 2
Household size 4.8 5 4 6 2
10
2.4. WEAI calculation results
Table 3 presents women’ empowerment results following the WEAI methodology.
According to the 5DE, 61.2% of women in our study region are disempowered. This is
the same as saying that 38.8% of women are empowered. On average, disempowered
women have inadequate achievements in 41.9% of the domains. The disempowerment
index is then 0.26 (61.2% x 41.9%), and the 5DE Index is 0.74 (1 - 0.26). In our sample,
60.3% of women do not achieve parity with their male counterpart, and the average
empowerment gap for these women is 0.27. Therefore, the GPI is 0.84 (1 – (60.3% x
0.27)), which combined with the 5DE gives a score for the WEAI of 0.75. This places
Honduras in the low middle range of possible WEIA outcomes; according to the
methodology, a high score is 0.85 or higher; a medium score ranges from 0.73–0.84; and
a low score is 0.72 or lower.
As we can see in Table 5, Figure 2 and Figure 3, the domains that contribute the most to
women disempowerment in Honduras are lack of control over use of income (28.5%)
and access to productive resources (23.1%). In the latter domain, low access to and
decisions on credit accounts for most of the contribution to total disempowerment
(12.82%), followed by the lack of rights women have over the productive resources
available in the household (9.51%). On the other hand, ownership of assets only
contributes with 0.78% to disempowerment, suggesting that ownership alone might not
be a good indicator to measure women access to productive resources. Furthermore,
women have little input in productive decisions, which has an absolute contribution of
5.1% to the level of disempowerment. According to the censored headcount, over 50%
Table 3: Women empowerment statistics
% of women disempowered (<80%) 61.2%
Average inadequacy score 41.9%
Disempowerment Index 0.26
5DE Index 0.74
Women with no gender parity 60.3%
Average empowerment gap 0.27
GPI 0.84
WEAI (0.9*5DE + 0.1*GPI) 0.75
11
of disempowered women have inadequate scores regarding their input in productive
decisions, while 49.3% did so regarding access to and decisions on credit and 36.6% did
regarding control over use of income. On the other hand, time allocation seems to be
the domain in which women present the highest degree of adequacy, although it reflects
two very different results for the two indicators that compose this domain. While self
reported levels of satisfaction with time available for leisure activities only contributes
with 1.46% to disempowerment, the workload agricultural women have accounts for
12.23%. Finally, group membership and speaking in public contribute with 9.03% and
5.53% respectively.
It is worth noting that these results closely mirror those of a previous study seeking to
apply the WEIA methodology to Western Honduras (Malapit et al., 2014). In 2012, IFPRI
on behalf of the USAID Feeding the Future program interviewed 3,326 women and men
in Copán, La Paz, Intibucá, Lempira, Ocotepeque, Santa Barbara, and also arrived at a
WEIA score of 0.75, with a 5DE score of 0.74 and a GPI score of 0.87. These results are
almost identical to this study’s, which speaks both to the robustness of the methodology
and to the representativeness of our sample. In the USAID sample, 31.5% of women
were empowered versus 38.8% in this group, and both samples identified control over
the use of income and access to productive resources as the top two contributors to
disempowerment, though in different orders.
Table 4: Women empowerment statistics HRNS USAID
% of women disempowered (<80%) 61.2% 68.5%
Average inadequacy score 41.9% 39.0%
Disempowerment Index 0.26 0.26
5DE Index 0.74 0.74
Women with no gender parity 60.3% 58.1%
Average empowerment gap 0.27 0.22
GPI 0.84 0.87
WEAI (0.9*5DE + 0.1*GPI) 0.75 0.75
12
Table 5: 5DE decomposition by dimension and indicator
Income
Statistics
Input in
productive
decisions
Autonomy in
production
Ownership of
assets
Purchase,
sale, or
transfer of
assets
Access to and
decisions on
credit
Control over
use of
income
Group
member
Speaking in
public Workload Leisure
Censored headcount 0.507 0.007 0.030 0.366 0.493 0.366 0.231 0.142 0.313 0.037
% Contribution 19.81% 0.29% 0.78% 9.51% 12.82% 28.54% 9.03% 5.53% 12.23% 1.46%
Absolute contribution 0.051 0.001 0.002 0.024 0.033 0.073 0.023 0.014 0.031 0.004
% Contribution by dimension 28.5%
Production Resources Leadership Time
20.1% 23.1% 14.6% 13.7%
13
Table 6 takes a closer look at women participation in productive activities and decisions
over income.
Although over 47% of women participate in cash crop farming, around 54% of these
women feel they cannot make decision in the productive process, and 37.5% of them
feel they cannot decide on how to spend the proceeds generated. On the other hand,
although participation in non-farm economic activities and in salaried employment is
lower for women in our study region, the extent to which women feel they can make
decisions over the tasks and over the income generated in these activities is much higher.
This result reflects the fact that although women in agricultural areas are likely to be
involved in the agricultural production process, it is men who are in charge of selling the
crops and therefore the ones receiving the cash. In fact, 82.3% of the women
interviewed responded that it is their husband (or the primary male in the household)
that is responsible for taking the crops to the market, while 15.7% of women responded
that it is a decision taken jointly4.
Figure 4 depicts households’ ownership of productive assets and the access and rights
women have over those assets. The majority of households in our sample own
agricultural land and non-mechanized farm equipment; yet, women report a low sense
of ownership over these two assets. This is especially concerning in the case of
agricultural land, which is likely to be the household´s most valuable asset and its
4 The remaining 2.1% is distributed between a decision taken solely by the wife (or the primary woman in the household), by someone else in the household, and by someone else outside of the household.
Table 6: Women participation in productive activities and decisions over income
Activities Participation (%)Feels can make
decisions (%)
Feels can decide over the
income generated (%)
Food crop farming 42.11 60.94 60
Cash crop farming 47.37 45.83 62.5
Livestock raising 15.13 26.09 33.33
Non-farm economic activities (small business,
self-employment, buy-and-sell)24.34 91.89 94.44
Wage and salaried employment 7.89 91.67 91.67
Fishing or fishpond culture 1.97 100 100
14
principal means of subsistence the household has. Nonetheless, women report a higher
sense of entitlement over agricultural land than that of ownership, which reflects the
aforementioned critical importance agricultural land has for rural households. On the
other hand, it can be observed that women have a higher access to less valuable
productive resources, like poultry.
2.5. Women’s empowerment and individual characteristics
The WEAI is an aggregated measure of women’s empowerment. In this section we are
going to explore the incidence of disempowerment across a diverse set of individual
characteristics. In particular, we are going to assess how the levels of disempowerment
differ by age, education, literacy, wealth, age at first children, and children composition.
Table 7 depicts the results.
In Honduras, age is a good predictor of disempowerment. More than 40% of women
aged 26 to 59 years old are empowered, compared to less than 30% of women in the
younger and older groups. This is probably reflecting the fact that younger women are
more likely to be living with their mothers-in-law, while older women may be depending
15
on their descendants. This two scenarios could limit the extent to which women in these
two groups can contribute in the management of the household.
Education is also a good predictor of empowerment. While 90.1% of women with no
education are disempowered, this percentage decreases to 74% for women with
incomplete primary education, and to 51% for women that completed primary
education. The percentage of disempowered women keeps decreasing as women get
more educated, being 45.5% for those with incomplete secondary education, and 42.9%
for the group of women who completed secondary or any other higher level. Similarly
to education, only 7.7% of illiterate women were empowered, compared to 42.1% of
literate women. This results suggest that, even for women in the rural world living in an
agricultural setting, education can have an impact on the opportunities and living
conditions women will experience throughout their lives.
On the other hand, wealth seems not to be associated with higher levels of women’s
empowerment5. Although there is a difference on the levels of disempowerment of
21.6% between women in the poorest and the richest quintile, the distribution of
empowerment across the rest of categories seems to not follow a clear pattern. This
result suggest that increasing levels of wealth alone might not necessarily translate into
higher levels of empowerment for women in agriculture, as household wealth poorly
captures intra-household allocation of resources.
With respect to fertility decisions, it can be observed that women that postponed the
age at which to have their first child are also more empowered in our sample. Almost
68% of the women that had their first child before the age of 18 are disempowered. This
percentage gradually decreases with age at first child, and it is only 16.7% for the women
5 The wealth index is a PCA-weighted index that includes household members per sleeping room,
rooftop material and floor material of dwelling, main source of household´s drinking water, main type of toilet used by the household, access to electricity, main source of cooking fuel in the household, agricultural land, large and small livestock, fishpond or fishing equipment, mechanized farm equipment, nonfarm business equipment, house and other constructions, large and small consumer durables, cell phone, other land not used for agricultural purposes, means of transportation, and whether the household employs a household servant.
16
that had their first child when they were 30 years of age or older. This result is capturing
both education and fertility decisions, as the level of education and age at first child are
highly correlated (Table 8).
If we look at household composition, it is interesting to note that in those household
where all children are female (only daughters), women are significantly more likely to
be empowered than in any other possible combination (only sons, children of both sexes,
and no children). The following testimony of a 38-year-old woman in rural Honduras
might provide some insights into the operating mechanisms behind this particular result.
“I don’t need to be a man to take the decisions that are normally reserved to men. Even
if I’m a woman, I still can do the work that men do. […] When I was a little girl I learned
[how] to work [in the field] with my dad, given that almost all of us were sisters. I used
to be asked, when seen with the hoe, if I thought I was a man. “
What this woman implies in her speaking is that, in the absence of male descendants,
daughters are more likely to be taught how to exploit the family farm, most likely
because they will be the ones taking over the farm management in the future. This
higher investment and attention for female descendants in only-daughters-households
might translate into a broader female-friendly environment from which the household’s
primary adult female benefits as well.
Table 7: Tabulations between empowerment and individual characteristics
Characteristics Disempowerment
headcount Empowerment
headcount
Age
16-25 72.7% 27.3%
26-45 58.0% 42.0%
46-59 56.7% 43.3%
>60 83.3% 16.7%
Education
No education 90.9% 9.1%
Incomplete primary education 74.0% 26.0%
17
Complete primary education 51.2% 48.8%
Incomplete secondary education 45.5% 54.5%
Complete secondary education or higher 42.9% 57.1%
Literacy
Knows how to read and write 57.9% 42.1%
Does not know how to read or write 92.3% 7.7%
Wealth Index
1st quintile 68.0% 32.0%
2nd quintile 65.4% 34.6%
3rd quintile 63.0% 37.0%
4th quintile 66.7% 33.3%
5th quintile 46.4% 53.6%
Age at first child
<18 67.9% 32.1%
18-23 64.0% 36.0%
24-29 55.6% 44.4%
>30 16.7% 83.3%
Children composition
No children 75.0% 25.0%
Only sons 60.5% 39.5%
Only daughters 37.5% 62.5%
Sons and daughters 68.3% 31.7%
Table 8: Correlations
Age Education Literacy Wealth Index
Age at first child
Age 1.0000
Education -0.3115 1.0000
Literacy -0.1935 0.4801 1.0000
Wealth Index -0.0771 0.4574 0.2323 1.0000
Age at first child
0.0004 0.4600 0.1629 0.1773 1.0000
18
2.6. Conclusions
The analysis has shown that the HRNS gender project is planned in a region where
women are still significantly disempowered. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index score of the sample of female coffee farmers in Ocotepeque and Copan is 0.75,
which places the region on the low end of “medium” empowerment according to the
Index. The areas where women are least empowered are lack of control over use of
income and low access to and decisions on credit. They also have little ownership of
agricultural land and non-mechanized farm equipment, and are often left out of the
decisions what happens with income generated from cash crop and livestock-raising
activities. Empowerment is higher in women between 26 and 59, in literate and
educated women and those that delayed their first pregnancy. Furthermore, women are
more empowered in households with only female children, and seem to gain a lot of
independence and skills when they fill traditional male roles out of necessity.
The study also showed that the gender project is taking place in a social context defined
by insecurity, poverty, and strong religious conservatism. To be successful, it will be
important to ensure high and continued attendance of the workshops by working with
community and possibly religious leaders to frame the issue of women’s empowerment
in a non-threatening way. Furthermore, supporting the establishment and long-term
functioning of skills-focused women’s groups could be an additional avenue toward
strengthening women’s self-confidence and providing alternative role models of typical
female behaviour for the next generation.
19
3. References
Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., Quisumbing, A. R., Seymour, G., & Vaz, A.
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