Adapting the WEAI to explore gender equity among Fishers, Processors, and sellers at Zambia’s Lake Bangweulu

•We used the novel WEFI (adapted from the WEAI) to investigate gender equity among men and women fishers, processors, and sellers at Zambia’s Lake Bangweulu.•We found significant differences across genders for education, household-level hunger, decision-making input into productive activities, asset...

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Veröffentlicht in:World development 2022-04, Vol.152, p.105821, Article 105821
Hauptverfasser: Ragsdale, Kathleen, Read-Wahidi, Mary, Marinda, Pamela, Pincus, Lauren, Torell, Elin, Kolbila, Robert
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:•We used the novel WEFI (adapted from the WEAI) to investigate gender equity among men and women fishers, processors, and sellers at Zambia’s Lake Bangweulu.•We found significant differences across genders for education, household-level hunger, decision-making input into productive activities, asset ownership, access to extension, and community leadership.•Men reported significantly higher decision-making input into four key productive activities (fishing, processing, transporting, and selling fish), including those that were not their primary occupation (e.g., selling fish).•In contrast, although 46.6% of women reported selling fish as their primary occupation, 20.1% reported little/no decision-making input into this activity. We implemented the novel Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries Index (WEFI) (adapted from the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index), among men and women fisheries value chain actors at Zambia’s Lake Bangweulu (N = 397). We found significant gender disparities favoring males across key indicators. Men were significantly more likely to report large decision-making input into fishing, processing, transporting, and selling fish, as well as sole ownership of important productive assets such as fishing and processing equipment, canoes, and mobile phones. Women were significantly more likely to report non-completion of any years of school and being “not at all comfortable” speaking in public on decisions affecting their fishing community, on decisions related to fishery governance, and to protest illegal/unsustainable fishing practices. Women were also significantly more likely to report that – in the past four weeks – there was no food to eat in their dwelling due to lack of resources to get food, they/another household member had gone to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food, and they/another household member had gone a whole day and night without eating because there was not enough food. For the gender attitude questions, a sizeable proportion of both men and women disagreed that men should retain control of fishery assets, income, and decision-making. However, these opinions were not reflected in the current distribution of fishery assets, income, and decision-making autonomy. The results indicate that the WEFI is a useful quantitative instrument, as it is relatively brief while also allowing for gender-disaggregated analysis of demographic characteristics, household-level hunger, livelihoods participation, asset owner
ISSN:0305-750X
1873-5991
DOI:10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105821