Whereas the above studies sought to quantify the gender gap in asset ownership for different countries and settings, Kilic and Moylan (2016) focus on methodological aspects of data collection. The study is based on a survey experiment in Uganda, with data collection spanning urban and rural strata of all four regions as well as the capital Kampala. Measured rates of male and female asset ownership are compared across five treatment arms, which differed in terms of respondent selection, interviewing modalities and questionnaire design. The study confirms the notion of significant gender gaps in reported ownership of land and housing property but also highlights the complexities in soliciting such information through household surveys. Among the findings are that female respondents are more likely to identify themselves as owners of housing property when subjected to a questionnaire with a sole focus on the respondents’ personal ownership (vis-à-vis questionnaires focusing both on respondents’ but also other household members’ ownership). Moreover, males and females who do not self-report as asset owners are often identified as such by other family members. This draws attention to proxy respondent biases and intrahousehold inconsistencies in the perception of which family members own land, housing and other types of assets (also highlighted in Jacobs and Kes 2015).

Turning to cross-country comparative work, Doss et al (2015) review the existing literature and data sources to summarize current knowledge and provide new empirical evidence on women’s ownership and management of land in Africa and gender inequalities. Consistent with the results in this paper, the authors document significant gender gaps in land ownership based on DHS data for eight countries. The study also highlights data deficiencies for assessing gender gaps in land ownership, particularly the lack of data for many African countries and insufficient standardization of concepts, indicators and methodologies. It shows further that even though the magnitude of the gender gap is sensitive to methodological choices and varies across countries in Africa, the pattern that women are less likely to own land than men is highly consistent.

This paper updates and extends the analysis in Doss et al (2015) by providing a comparative analysis of gender gaps in property ownership across Africa. The study improves on the existing literature in three ways. First, DHS data with individual-level information on ownership of land and housing are now available for many additional countries, covering 76 percent of the African population. The current data hence provide a much broader perspective for the continent at large. Second, the focus on data sets collected under one survey program (i.e. the DHS) allows using a consistent methodology, which is important to draw meaningful cross-country comparisons. Third, the paper explores macro- and micro-patterns of property ownership of men and women, thus analyzing a richer set of correlations than the existing literature. The next section starts with a description of the data sources we use.

# **3. Descriptive patterns of gender gaps in the ownership of land and housing**

# **3.1 Data sources and methodology**

Most household surveys gather data on asset ownership for the household as a whole (“does this household own any...”) from a single respondent, often the person deemed to be the ‘most knowledgeable household member’ or the ‘head of the household’. However, to assess gender gaps in asset ownership it is necessary to have data on which individuals within the household own the asset (Kilic and Moylan 2016; Doss et al 2008, 2017).

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