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Gender Equity and Land: Toward Secure and Effective Access for Rural Women

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Gender in Agriculture

Abstract

Land is one of the most fundamental assets in the agricultural sector because it is the gateway through which people gain access to many other assets and opportunities. This chapter examines gender and land issues, identifying the gender gap in land rights and examining ways to redress this gap. The first section frames the discussion in terms of the four major ways by which women acquire legal and customary rights to land, and the obstacles to women’s secure land tenure. The second section explores the nature and extent of the global gender land gap and the importance of going beyond common notions such as management, ownership, and headship, when discussing land tenure security. The third section looks at a number of strategies undertaken by a variety of actors—including governments, aid agencies, and civil society organizations—to lessen the gender land gap, organized broadly around three types of interventions: strengthening women’s land rights, redistribution of land rights, and improving the implementation of reforms. The chapter concludes that closing the gender land gap must go beyond reforms that affect only landownership, to include those that affect the multiple ways through which women and men acquire land, whether through legal or statutory means, the family, the market, or civil society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the context of marital regimes, community property refers to the joint property of husband and wife, not of the community where they live or to which they belong.

  2. 2.

    This discussion draws from World Bank et al. (2009).

  3. 3.

    In many matrilineal regimes, land is not necessarily vested in women; rather, land is transferred to men via the uterine (mother’s) line.

  4. 4.

    These systems are often referred to as “communal tenure,” but in this context, “community” or “communal” refers to the clan, lineage, or residential community, not the households, as in the context of property rights within marital regimes.

  5. 5.

    Federal Negarit Gazetta Extra Ordinary Issue No. 1/2000 The Revised Family Code Proclamation No. 213/2000.

  6. 6.

    The data come from the nationally representative Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (REDS) administered over 2006–2009. An analysis across all states (using the same REDS database) by Brulé (2011) of the 2005 amendment to the HAS shows that for the great majority of states, the impact has been mixed and insignificant. Brulé argues that an analysis of the 2005 amendment impact is more reliable because the passage of that amendment is more plausibly exogenous to local socio-political dynamics.

  7. 7.

    See Platteau (2008) for a critical review of this literature with regard to Africa.

  8. 8.

    Deere and León (2001, 96) state that by 1989, eight years after the start of the land reform, only 9.6 percent of the beneficiaries were women.

  9. 9.

    According to Article 189 of the Federal Constitution (1988), “The beneficiaries of distribution of rural land through agrarian reform shall receive title deeds or concessions of use. These shall be granted to the man or woman, or to both, irrespective of their marital status, according to the terms and conditions set forth by law.”

  10. 10.

    For example, until 2000, the agrarian reform registration form (cadastro) did not have space for writing in the names of two persons. INCRA also insisted on naming men as beneficiaries—if a woman applied, INCRA officials would ask the whereabouts of the spouse, and in the absence of a spouse, they would try to grant beneficiary status to a son.

  11. 11.

    For more information, see http://www.icrw.org/where-we-work/training-grassroots-paralegals-help-women-exercise-their-property-rights

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Acknowledgments

This chapter draws heavily from a working paper by Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel, Ambreena Manji, and Zoraida Garcia commissioned by the Gender, Equity, and Rural Employment Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). We acknowledge insightful comments from Eve Crowley, AnaPaola De La OCampo, Clara Park, and Martha Osorio.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emeritus, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Affiliate, Land Tenure Center and The Women’s Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 925 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel

  2. Department of Sociology, New York University, 295 Lafayette Street, 4th floor, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Julia A. Behrman

  3. Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, DC, 20006, USA

    Ruth Meinzen-Dick

  4. Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, DC, 20006, USA

    Agnes R. Quisumbing

Authors
  1. Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel
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  2. Julia A. Behrman
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  3. Ruth Meinzen-Dick
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  4. Agnes R. Quisumbing
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division, International Food Policy Research Inst., Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    Agnes R. Quisumbing

  2. Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    Ruth Meinzen-Dick

  3. The State of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural Development Economics Division, Economic and Social Development Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy

    Terri L. Raney

  4. Agricultural Development Economics Division, Economic and Social Development Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy

    André Croppenstedt

  5. Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, New York, USA

    Julia A. Behrman

  6. Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Amber Peterman

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Lastarria-Cornhiel, S., Behrman, J.A., Meinzen-Dick, R., Quisumbing, A.R. (2014). Gender Equity and Land: Toward Secure and Effective Access for Rural Women. In: Quisumbing, A., Meinzen-Dick, R., Raney, T., Croppenstedt, A., Behrman, J., Peterman, A. (eds) Gender in Agriculture. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8616-4_6

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