Joint Land Certification and Intra-

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Joint Land Certification and Intra- household Decision-making:

Towards Empowerment of Wives?

By

Stein Holden and Sosina Bezu

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ER FOR LAND TENURE

Background

 Oromia and SNNP Regions, Southern Ethiopia:

Joint Certification of Husbands and Wives 2005-

– Low cost approach

– Gave land certificates to households with names of both husband and wife (wives) – Land laws emphasize equal ownership

rights

 How has joint land certification

affected the land-related decision- power of women in Southern

Ethiopia?

int Land Certification and Intra-household Decision-making: Empowerment of Wives?

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Hypotheses

 H1. Women’s land rights and decision-making power over land has been significantly strengthened by the new land laws and issuing of joint land certificates;

 H2. A husband’s and wife’s attitudes towards women’s land rights (wives’ preferences for and husbands’

preferences for the traditional position of women) affect the degree of involvement of women in land-related

decisions;

 H3. Women’s position and attitudes are positively related to assets they brought into marriage and negatively

related to assets their husbands brought into marriage.

 H4. Women’s position and attitudes are positively related with degree of market integration and education of

family members (Henrich et al. 2001; 2010)

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Hypotheses, continued

 H5. Women’s empowerment and position is weaker in the plough-based farming systems than in the perennial zone (Boserup 1970; Alesina et al. 2013).

 H6. The positive impact of the reform on empowerment is larger the more generous men are towards their wives as generosity of men implies less resistance against

women’s land rights.

 H7. Husbands behave more like hawks and women more like doves in the hawk-dove games and the hawkishness of husbands is positively related to their resistance

towards women’s land rights and negatively affects

women’s empowerment while more hawkish wives also claim their land rights.

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Women have a particularly weak position in relation to land in Southern Ethiopia

 Holden and Tefera (2008). From Being Property of Men to Becoming Equal Owners? Early Impacts of Land Registration and Certification on Women in Southern Ethiopia. UN-Habitat-report

– Evidence of weak position of women:

• Patri-lineal system, women move to husband’s village/home upon marriage

• Arranged marriages where girls/brides had little influcence, with bride prizes

• Kidnapping marriages quite common in the past

• Widows are required to marry the brother (or other relative) of the late husband or they have to leave the land

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Correspondence of stated marriage type by spouses

Marriage type: females’

responses Marriage type:

males’ responses Parental arrange ment

Parental and bride agreement

Love marriage

Wife ex-

change

Kidnap- ping marriage

Total

Parental arrangement

60 7 11 1 4 83

Parental and bride

agreement 14 81 7 1 3 106

Love marriage 11 12 132 0 11 166

Wife exchange 0 1 2 5 0 8

Kidnapping marriage 1 1 2 0 18 22

Total 86 102 154 7 36 385

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Impacts of Joint Land Certification

 Indicator of women’s empowerment:

– Extent of participation in a set of land-

related decisions, including crop choice and land renting decisions, and whether wives’

participation in such decisions has led to a change in the decisions

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Effects of land certification on household decision-making

Husbands’

responses

Wives’

responses

Responses in 2012 Numb

er

% Numb

er

%

More discussion on land renting decision 115 21.6 103 20.5 More discussion on crop choice 212 39.8 236 47.0 More discussion on work division on each

plot

52 9.8 50 10.0

More discussion on investment decisions such as tree planting

69 12.9 51 10.2

More discussion on construction of houses on the land

55 10.3 49 9.8

More discussion on giving land to children 20 3.8 13 2.6

Total 533 100 502 100

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Wives’ stated preferences for

strengthened women’s land rights



Generated from the response to three questions:

– Wife can deny husband to rent out land = 1, = 0 otherwise;

– Wife expects joint land certificate = 1, = 0 otherwise;

– Wife expects equal sharing of land upon divorce = 1, = 0 otherwise;

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Aggregate index of wives' attitude is the sum of the above three variables

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Husbands' preference for traditional position of women: Index generated

 Widow should not be allowed to marry outside the family of the late husband = 1, = 0 otherwise;

 Widow should marry brother of late husband =1, = 0 otherwise

 Husband decides if disagreement between husband and wife =1, = 0 otherwise

The index was created by summing the responses to these three questions

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“Wives’ land rights attitudes”- index distribution by year

Index score ^Stats 2007 2012 Total

0 ^Freq. 38 24 62

Percent 11.3 7.5 9.4

1 ^Freq. 43 7 50

Percent 12.8 2.2 7.6

2 ^Freq. 117 58 175

Percent 34.7 18.1 26.6

3 ^Freq. 139 232 371

Percent 41.3 72.3 56.4

Total ^Freq. 337 321 658

Note: Pearson chi2(3) = 71.9 , Pr = 0.000 for difference

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“Husbands’ preference for

traditional position of women- index in 2012

Index score Freq. Percent Cum.

0 115 35.8 35.8

1 ₁₂₂ _38.0 _73.8

2 ₇₀ _21.8 _95.6

3 14 4.4 100

Total ₃₂₁ ₁₀₀

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www.umb.no

Factors affecting wives’ involvement in land-related decisons

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Results from ordered probit models OP1 OP2 OP3

Wives' land rights attitude index 0.292**** 0.333**** 0.332****

Husbands' land rights attitude index -0.231*** -0.235*** -0.234***

Age of household head -0.001 -0.001 -0.001

Household size 0.015 0.031 0.028

Average education level in hh. 0.006 0.024 0.034

Male work force 0.054 0.039 0.034

Female work force -0.082 -0.090 -0.085

Farm size, ha -0.203 -0.243** -0.261**

Tropical livestock units 0.054* 0.049* 0.052*

Wife's name on certificate, dummy 0.205 0.282 0.253 Religion dummies, baseline= Muslim

Protestant -0.673**

Orthodox -0.695**

District dummies, baseline= Sashemene

Arsi Negelle 0.125

Wondo Genet -0.478**

Wollaita -0.720****

Wondo Oromia 0.110

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Social experiments were used to tease out the relationship

between husbands and wives

 We found evidence of mutual generosity between spouses in dictator games

 We also found evidence that many wives were more ”hawkish” than their husbands when they played Hawk-Dove games with their spouses

– This indicates that many of them dear to stand up and demand their rights

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Husband and wife waiting for the outcome of the coin toss

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Explaining the Hawk-Dove game to a Respondent

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Dictator game outcomes for husbands and wives

0204060

0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40

Husbands Wives

Percent

How much money allocated, EB Graphs by Gender of player

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Hawk-Dove game outcomes for husbands and wives

.2.3.4.5

Probability of playing Hawk

1 2 3 4 5 6

Game number

95% CI Wives' average prob(Hawk)

95% CI Husbands' average prob(Hawk) Stata command: qfitci

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Hypotheses: Outcome of testing

 H1. Women’s land rights and decision-making power over land has been significantly strengthened by the new land laws and issuing of joint land certificates; Not rejected

 H2. A husband’s and wife’s attitudes towards women’s land rights (wives’ preferences for and husbands’

preferences for the traditional position of women) affect the degree of involvement of women in land-related

decisions; Not rejected

 H3. Women’s position and attitudes are positively related to assets they brought into marriage and negatively

related to assets their husbands brought into marriage;

Rejected

 H4. Women’s position and attitudes are positively related with degree of market integration and education of

family members; Not rejected

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Hypotheses, continued

 H5. Women’s empowerment and position is weaker in the plough-based farming systems than in the perennial zone; Rejected

 H6. The positive impact of the reform on empowerment is larger the more generous men are towards their wives as generosity of men implies less resistance against

women’s land rights; Not rejected

 H7. Husbands behave more like hawks and women more like doves in the hawk-dove games and the hawkishness of husbands is positively related to their resistance

towards women’s land rights and negatively affects

women’s empowerment while more hawkish wives also claim their land rights; Rejected

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Overall conclusion I

 We have found strong evidence that the Ethiopian land registration and certification reform has been very successful also in

improving the conditions of women:

– Strenthened tenure security, income and food security of Female-headed households in Northern Ethiopia

– Strenthened land rights and empowerment of wives in male-headed households where joint land certification has been implemented in

Southern Ethiopia

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Overall conclusion II

 The Ethiopian land registration and certification has been successful for several reasons:

– Low-cost approach

– Scalable with limited training – Strong local participation (local

ownership)

– High local demand

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Conclusions III

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We found substantial variation across

communities in the wives’ land rights attitude index pointing in direction of substantial local

variation in the social processes that are likely to influence women’s positions on these issues



This may imply that provision of women’s name on the certificates needs to be accompanied with further awareness raising about their right

according to the law in areas where women and men still have weak awareness of the law

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Joint Land Certification and Intra-