Intrahousehold Access to Land and Sources of Inefficiency: Theory and Concepts

This chapter examines the allocation of land and other productive resources within rural households of poor countries. Building upon the existing literature, it provides a consistent framework from which to study productive efficiency and intrahousehold equity. The topics discussed include: returns to scale and household centralization; specialization and gender casting; separate spheres and commitment failure; and labor market cartelization and discrimination. Implications for intrahousehold access to land are discussed in detail. We show that intrahousehold productive inefficiency should not arise unless household members are prevented from entering into enforceable contracts with each other. Our analysis predicts that intrahousehold inefficiency increases with factors that exacerbate commitment failure such as short time horizon, low assets, unequal stakes in the household, and poor external enforcement. Granting plots of land to dependents appears to be a response to commitment problems. Patrimonial laws and customs regarding inheritance and divorce can similarly be understood as efforts to mitigate commitment failure within the household although, possibly, at the expense of women and young adults. ________________ † Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6072. Tel. : (650) 723-3251. fafchamp@leland.stanford. edu. 1 I benefitted from comments on earlier drafts from Agnes Quisumbing, Lawrence Haddad, Chris Udry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and participants to WIDER conferences on access to land held in May 1997 in Helsinki and April 1998 in Santiago de Chile. Intrahousehold Access to Land and Sources of Inefficiency: Theory and Concepts The literature on women and development has documented women’s lack of access to land, credit, and farm inputs in many developing countries (e.g., Boserup (1970), Gladwin and McMillan (1989), von Braun and Webb (1989)). It also have provided evidence of gender casting and other restrictions on female labor (e.g., Brown and Haddad (1995), Fafchamps and Quisumbing (1998)). This situation has been identified as a source of inequality between men and women, and as encouraging abuse (e.g., Jones (1983, 1986)). In addition, it has been claimed to be inefficient (e.g., Jiggins (1989), Udry (1996b)). In response to these claims, aid agencies have set up targetted programs to deliver credit and inputs to women and, to a lesser extent, to open their access to land. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that integrates efficiency and equity issues and to identify conditions under which intrahousehold allocation of resources can be inefficient. Implicit in much of the lay literature is the assumption that women’s unequal access to land is a source not only of inequality but also of inefficiency. For instance, it is often claimed that poor countries cannot develop unless women are granted equal access to productive resources (e.g., Boserup (1970)). 2 The rationale behind these claims is not entirely clear, however. 3 The main objective of this paper is to clarify the debate by identifying conditions under which inequality is indeed a source of inefficiency. To do so, we must distinguish between access to land within households and across households. Although the two are often discussed interchangeably, ________________ 2 Calls for better female access to land have been strongest in Sub-Saharan Africa (Gladwin and McMillan (1989)). This is somewhat surprising because, relative to other regions of the world such as South Asia or Latin America, women in Sub-Saharan Africa have a comparatively easier -though by no means equal -access to land. 3 Some claim that women produce ’all the food’ and thus should be given more land (e.g., Gladwin and McMillan (1989), Jiggins (1989)). Jiggins (1989), for instance, claims that in Sub-Saharan Africa ’[women] produce approximatively 60% of the food that is consumed by rural households’. It is unclear how women could produce this much food if they do not have access to land. Others argue that women should be given better access to credit so that they can hire enough manpower to cultivate their fields. Egyir (1998), for instance, points out that Ghanaian women who farm independently ’[hire] male labor to take on strenuous activities’. But the fact that these women must hire outsiders to farm suggests that they have more land than they can cultivate -i.e., that they were given too much land for an efficient allocation of factors of production, not too little.