What empowerment indicators are important for food consumption for women? Evidence from 5 sub-Sahara African countries

This paper draws on data from five sub-Sahara African countries; Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique consisting of 10,041 married women who were cohabitating with a male spouse. The study aim was to investigate the relationship between women's empowerment and women's dietary diversity and consumption of different food items. Women's empowerment was measured using the indicators in the five domains of Women's Empowerment in Agriculture index (WEAI) and women's dietary diversity and food consumption was examined using the women's dietary diversity score (WDDS) measure. OLS and LPM regressions were used and analyses were confirmed using marginal effects from Poisson and logistic regressions. Results suggest that three out of the 10 WEAI indicators of empowerment showed different magnitude and direction in significant associations with improved WDDS and varied associations were found in three out of the five countries examined. In addition, the three significant empowerment indicators were associated with the consumption of different food groups in three out of the five countries examined suggesting that diverse food groups account for the association between the WEAI and WDDS. Improved autonomy, and input in production were associated with improved likelihoods of consumption of dairy products, and fruits and vegetables including vitamin A-rich produce. Empowerment in public speaking was associated with improved consumption of other fruits and vegetables including vitamin A-rich produce. The varied nature of empowerment indicators towards improving women's dietary diversity and food consumption suggests that different empowerment strategies might confer different benefits towards the consumption of different food groups. Further, findings imply that interventions that seek to empower women should tailor their strategies on existing contextual factors that impact on women.