_Land._ A gender analysis requires individual-level data on land access, ownership, titling and management at the plot level and by sex. We need to know who owns the land and whose name is actually on the title. In addition, to understand the full impact of ownership, it is important to know who manages the plots of land as ownership and management may differ. None of the LSMS questionnaires reviewed here captures all of this information at the individual level.

Moreover, many do not distinguish access from ownership, although both are important. And, many questionnaires collect other details on the land that is farmed, rather than the land that is owned, thus providing useful information on agricultural practices but less on asset ownership.

Only 17 percent of the LSMS questionnaires that we reviewed asked questions regarding individual ownership of land (Table 4), while 82 percent did so at the household level (Table 3). The best practice is those questionnaires that solicit information at the individual level by plot, allowing for more than one owner (such as the 1993 Tanzania questionnaire). Several of the questionnaires that elicit data on individual and joint ownership limit this question to those who have a document or a land title, such as the LSMS employed in Nicaragua and Honduras (see Table A3). By phrasing the ownership question in terms of “in whose name is the title document,” these questionnaires are inefficient, not collecting land ownership data by sex for untitled land or for which there is no formal document.<sup>23</sup> Another problem is that some of these questionnaires, such as for Nicaragua (1998) only elicit information for one potential owner, thus obscuring the possibility of joint ownership by spouses.

Moreover, while in most of these cases data on titled land are collected at the plot level (and reported as individual or jointly owned), for Paraguay (2000-01) they are only available at the farm enterprise level. This means that in the Paraguayan case one cannot distinguish if the farm is owned jointly in its entirety, or consists of multiple parcels owned by different individuals.<sup>24</sup> Collecting data at the level of the farm enterprise rather than by plot also precludes the construction of a dependent variable for women’s ownership of land as a share of total household land owned.<sup>25</sup> Only seven of the LSMS questionnaires reviewed here investigate who manages the plot. Where asked, it is in terms of who is the most knowledgeable or manages the plot. Rarely are specific questions asked about decision-making (Table A2). One exception is Ghana (1991-92), which asks, “Who decides what crops to grow? Who decides what purchased inputs to use? And, who kept the revenue from sales of the produce?” The Afghanistan (2007) survey asks, “If any of the land is to be sold, who in your household makes the decision?” and contains response codes for the woman herself, the head of the household deciding alone, the head deciding in consultation with the spouse or woman concerned, and other combinations of decision-makers. The survey from Cote d’Ivoire (1988) asks one question about decision-making, whether individual household members can sell land, but does not ask any individual ownership or other questions to enable researchers to interpret the answers.

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