Household gender structure and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture and Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Indexes in Ghana

Project Summary

Principal investigator(s):

Aaron Christian University of Ghana

Doctorate:

Population Studies (University of Ghana, Legon)

Duration:

12 months (from June 2021)

Value:

£50,000

Countries of research:

Ghana

Home mentor: Dr. Grace Marquis, McGill University, School of Human Nutrition; Dr. Andrew Jones, University of Michigan School of Public Health

Host mentor: Dr. Esi Colecraft, University of Ghana, Nutrition and Food Science Department

Bio: Aaron K. Christian is a Research Fellow at the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. He holds a PhD in Population Studies. His research has been in examining how social, cultural, biological, environmental factors and women’s empowerment interact to affect population health and nutrition particularly of women and children.

Project summary: Extant literature suggests that there is an association between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security, although measures for the former are still evolving. The primary objective of this study is to test the validity of both the Project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Pro-WEAI) and Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI) within the context of different household headship typologies. The scholarship on the influence of household headship on women empowerment has often been oversimplified to the effect of having a male-headed versus female-headed household. This approach overlooks nuances that may result from having a) male head (MH) with adult females, b) MH with adult males, c) Female head (FH) with adult females, d) FH with adult males. Conversely, migration’s effect on food and nutrition has been overly explained by the effect of migrants’ remittances on household income, food production and food expenditure in the origin with little or no attention given to migration effect on household structure and women’s empowerment and how these affect households’ nutritional outcomes. This project will be using predominantly secondary data from the LINkINg Up projects and associated Queen Elizabeth Scholars (QES) program in Ghana.The LINkINg Up program and a current QES project are interested in examining the effect of women’s empowerment on household nutritional outcomes, thus have collected data on women using the Pro-WEAI. Validating the metrics and tools of the Pro-WEAI and WENI is essential in identifying challenges to program monitoring, effectiveness and guiding decisions in policy development and sustainability.

Briefing note:

Female decision making on food and health: Does household headship typology matter?