There is an increasingly popular argument that policy/technological interventions aimed at women's empowerment could lead to improved nutritional outcomes. I am wondering whether empowering women in agriculture or non-farm sector will be more effective.
1. You may find some studies on institutional interventions on women empowerment (like Self Help Groups and group based enterprises) and its impact on various aspects. There would be a number of such studies available. Institutional interventions are sector independent - thus it does not matter whether they are involved in farm based on non-farm based activities. Generally such studies look into economic and social impact - that include indicators like change in income, participation in decision making, etc. A few studies have looked into the nutritional aspects too. If you search specifically on impact of SHG on nutrition you may find some relevant papers.
2. 'whether empowering women in agriculture or non-farm sector will be more effective': I think the conceptualisation is not correct. Empowerment cannot be sector specific. Otherwise it would not be empowerment. Yes, interventions can be sector specific. But that depends on the context, which one would be context specific.
Empowering women, in the context of nutritional outcome has not been studied adequately. It is cultural specific to some extent even within south Asia. Women empowerment status and needs will differ form Kerala to Bihar and then from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka. Recent studies show that educating women on health, immunization, child care and sanitation could result in higher rate of reduction in malnutrition,as has been the case in Bangladesh -- in recent decade. Of course general education of women and empowerment is also needed to make progress in other spheres of the economy. Hope this is useful.
Thanks Pradeep and Suresh for the very helpful response. Yes, I agree with you Pradeep that empowerment is sector independent while interventions can be sector dependent. As pointed out by Suresh, empirical evidence of women empowerment on nutritional outcomes is lacking.
I think so that there is very rare evidence of impact of women empowerment on nutritional outcomes in children. The basic factors may be the measurement issue particularly by DHS and secondly the theory of centrality exists in South Asia. In these economies the the household members are tied to each other with such type of bonds that even adult women depend upon the elder males. In case the women are married they depend upon their husbands. The evidence of lacking the impact of women empowerment on maternal health is attached here
to further Rana's line of thought, there is some research (see papers by the poverty action lab) in africa which shows that when women are privately allowed (a form of empowerment) to take their decisions (e.g. limit the number of children) compared to the control group, (where the husbands and family were aware of their decisions). women chose to have fewer children thus indirectly allocating more resources to their (fewer) children.
Sorry for writing so late, but I just saw the question and maybe it is still relevant for someone.
I think that Kerala (as mentioned by earlier responses) is a very good example that women's empowerment lead to positive nutritional outcomes (and other positive indicators of well-being as well). Some literature that point into this direction is:
Nutrition Security and Women Empowerment
J Krishnankutty, KV Peter
Shankar, B., Agrawal, S., Beaudreault, A. R., Avula, L., Martorell, R., Osendarp, S., Prabhakaran, D. and Mclean, M. S. (2017), Dietary and nutritional change in India: implications for strategies, policies, and interventions. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1395: 49–59. doi:10.1111/nyas.13324
Social safety nets for food and nutrition security in India
S Narayanan, N Gerber - Global Food Security, 2017
Richard W Franke, Barbara H Chasin
Kerala: Radical Reform as Development in an Indian State
Robin Jeffrey (auth.)
Politics, Women and Well-Being: How Kerala became ‘a Model’
Human development achievements in an Indian state: A case study of Kerala
VK Ramachandran - Social Development and Public Policy, 2000 - Springer
Gender mainstreaming and women empowerment–reflections and upshots from fishing industry of Kerala
SS Shyam - Discovery Agriculture, 2013
Women Empowerment Strategies in Kerala: A Critical Analysis
MG Mallika - Millennium Development Goals and India: Cases …, 2011
Shyam, S Salim and Athira, N R and Fernandez, Reeja (2017) Attrition in fisherwomen activity groups-A case study on Theeramythri, Kerala. International Journal of Research in Business Management, 5 (3). pp. 21-32. ISSN 2321-886X
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