Crop marketing and the control over revenues from these sales are often gender differentiated and in some cases vary by crop type. Many female farmers bring vegetables and fruits that they produce to the market and may retain the income they earn to pay for household needs. In contrast, the marketing and income from cash crops grown by the household at a larger scale, such as coffee, teff, and khat, are controlled by the household head, who is nearly always male in households in which the head has a spouse in the household, although small quantities of these important crops may be sold by the head’s wife. Tending to livestock is usually performed by boys and young men. Women are frequently responsible for providing feed and water for livestock kept near their home and for dairy production. In some areas, they are also involved in collecting animal dung from grazing lands. Sole cattle ownership by women is not common in Ethiopia, although joint ownership by spouses is found in many regions. Control over the sale of and proceeds from livestock and livestock products is generally gender differentiated, with women tending to market small livestock and poultry, dairy products, and eggs. The sale of cattle and other large livestock is for the most part in the male domain. This gender division of agricultural activities has constrained women’s access to extension services. Until recently, horticultural production and the raising of poultry and small ruminants were considered “home economics,” excluding women from other agricultural extension advice, training, and credit. Recent extension packages tailored for women have emphasized sheep and goat husbandry. Both the federal constitution and all regional land proclamations stipulate that land rights are to be granted equally to men and women. Empirical evidence, however, reveals important gender asymmetries in access to and control over land. Upon forming a new household through marriage, women bring only a negligible amount of land into the household; nearly all land is brought in by the male spouse (Fafchamps and Quisumbing 2005), suggesting high intrahousehold land inequality upon the formation of a household. Traditionally, this inequality in land was perpetuated later in the household’s life cycle upon the death of the spouses’ parents, because men nearly always inherit land and women very rarely do so. Recently, however, in the northern regions of the country, women have regularly inherited their parents’ land. Even in regions where women formally receive individual rights to use land, land tenure security continues to be precarious for women (Crewett, Bogale, and Korf 2008). In the Oromia region, for example, tenure insecurity prevails for divorced women, arising from several exceptions to such land rights in the legal framework. Some articles in Oromia’s land proclamation link land rights to social status, which in effect constrains the rights of divorced women and widows. Fafchamps and Quisumbing (2005) find husbands generally keep the land upon the dissolution of a marriage. Although female household heads may have access to land, they frequently lack other productive resources, such as labor, oxen, and credit, making it difficult for them to obtain inputs. As a
GENDER AND GOVERNANCE IN INDIA, GHANA, AND ETHIOPIA
63