Intra-household decision making on production and income generation options among women in Mara Region, Tanzania

Abstract

Women’s ability to make decisions on production matters and income generation in the household is crucial to reduce gender based violence, improve women’s production ability, improve livelihood of household members and reduce poverty among women and a country in general. The study examined the contribution of Cassava Adding Value for Africa II project towards empowering women cassava producers to make decisions on production matters and income generated from cassava crops. The study was conducted in Rorya, Bunda and Serengeti Districts in Mara Region where the project was implemented. The study employed census method whereby data were collected from all the three project Districts and wards. A total of 246 women participants and those who did not participate were randomly selected. The proportion of 50% was applied to select the participants from the sampling frames of women who participated in the project and those who did not. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data and Focus Group Discussion and Semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. Quantitative data collected using questionnaires were used to compute levels of women empowerment. Furthermore, chi-square tests were run to reveal if there were any associations between socio-economic characteristics and level of women empowerment. The results showed that women who participated in the cassava value chain intervention project were categorized into high level of women empowerment compared to women who did not, and who were categorized into low level of women empowerment. These findings suggest that agricultural training provided by CAVA II project exposed women to new, updated and improved methods of cultivating cassava. The findings show further that women with five or more acres of cultivating cassava were categorized into high level because they possessed more acres, plus the training received from the project which resulted into high cassava yields. The findings also show that age had an association with the level of women empowerments whereby women between the ages of 35 and 55 were classified as having a high level of women empowerment, which was linked to their age. This shows that in patriarchal society, women of this age, whether married or not, were considered mature enough to make judgments. In comparison, women and girls between the ages of 15 and 34 were not allowed to make decisions in the home that affected productivity and income. The other significant association revealed by the study was between farm and wage labor activities and level of women empowerment. The findings show that women who were farmers and employed were categorized into high level of women empowerment as compared to women who were only livestock keepers. It is therefore can be concluded that interventions which target women in agricultural production can increase their empowerment status hence influence their decision making in production and use of resources required from production activities. It is therefore recommend that Government and Development partners programmes should design and implement project which will enhance women empowerment and which in turn will increase their participation in decision making at the household levels. This will lead to improved livelihood and reduction of poverty in farming communities in Tanzania.