2.3.2016

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN RURAL HONDURAS Insights from a baseline study in an HRNS project site in

Ocotepeque and Copan, Honduras

Paulino Font Gilabert, Thomas Dietz, Janina Grabs TRANS.SUSTAIN RESEARCH PROJECT

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1. Setting the scene

1.1. Purpose

The Hanns R. Neumann Foundation (HRNS) and the University of Münster’s research

project TransSustain share the goal of identifying the most promising avenues to

improve the welfare of smallholder coffee producers. One aspect that is frequently

overlooked in development projects is the adequate inclusion of women in production

activities and household decisions. This baseline study, as a collaboration between the

HRNS and TransSustain researchers, aims to measure women’s empowerment in areas

of Honduras where the Foundation is launching a pilot gender program. On the one hand,

providing a reliable estimate of the situation of female beneficiaries before project

implementation is essential for an accurate estimation of the project’s impact; on the

other, understanding the project context and possible stumbling blocks allows for an

optimal implementation strategy and may improve final results.

1.2. Definition and importance of women’s empowerment

As with any social concept, there are varying definitions of women’s empowerment.

Kabeer (2001) defines empowerment as “the expansion of people’s ability to make

strategic life choices, within their households and their communities, particularly in

contexts where this ability has been limited.” For the purpose of this study, which

focuses on the livelihoods of smallholder agricultural producers, it is helpful to narrow

the focus to women’s economic empowerment. According to the International Center

for Research on Women (Golla, Malhotra, Nanda, & Mehra, 2011),

A woman is economically empowered when she has both the ability to succeed and advance economically and the power to make and act on economic decisions. To succeed and advance economically, women need the skills and resources to compete in markets, as well as fair and equal access to economic institutions. To have the power and agency to benefit from economic activities, women need to have the ability to make and act on decisions and control resources and profits.

Women’s empowerment, particularly in contexts where they have traditionally and

culturally been disadvantaged, is crucial for two reasons.

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First, from a human rights perspective, gender equality is acknowledged as a goal with

intrinsic value that is worthwhile pursuing for its own merit. Gender equality has been

included as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals and was reconfirmed as a

global priority within the Sustainable Development Goals. It thus stands to argue that

the international community has recognized it as a fundamental human right not to be

discriminated based upon one’s gender.

Second, women’s empowerment and gender equality can also lead to powerful positive

spill-over effects in the realms of economic advancement, health and education. More

access to resources or decision-making power over household expenses has been

correlated with less child undernutrition and more household food security, better

decision-making on serious health questions, as well as better education for children

(FAO, 2011). More empowerment in the household could lead to less domestic violence,

better mental health, less depression, and has also been associated with better child-

care outcomes due to greater self-confidence of women. If women are already working

on coffee farms, but are not being included in trainings and have little access to

extension services, including them could lead to better yields and better-quality coffee

(FAO, 2011). Also, if they are already working on farms, owning the land gives them

access to full cooperative membership and more access to inputs and resources (IFPRI

& ILRI, 2013). This, as well as access to credit, is particularly important for quality

improvements. If they have not been working so far, empowering them to work outside

of the house can have positive household income impacts as family labour replaces hired

labour in the fields (Humphries & Classen, 2012). More agricultural skills and land tenure

rights give greater social security in the case of the husband’s death or the need for male

out-migration. Finally, more female involvement outside of the home can strengthen

social circles and structures and create strong role model examples for the next

generation, up until female involvement higher up the value chain (as agronomists,

sellers of coffee, etc.) which in turn gives them greater economic independence and

bargaining power in the marriage market (Humphries & Classen, 2012).

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1.3. The project

The gender program implemented by the Hanns R. Neumann Foundation in Honduras is

modelled after and adapted from a previous successful intervention implemented in

Uganda (Lecoutere & Jassogne, 2016). It consists of two phases: in the first phase, group

workshops introduce communities to gender-related topics and open a first space for

discussion. In the second phase, community members participate in joint sensitization

sessions that seek to redefine the intra-household gender relations. Finally, interested

role model couples can take part in more intensive counselling. Subsequently, it is hoped

that these change agents will disseminate their insights among other couples of the

community.

The slight changes of the Uganda program include that gender issues are first addressed

separately with women (in Women Leadership workshops), and men (Masculinity

workshops). This strategy responds to the idea that couples will be more interested in

participating in the couples training sessions if gender topics are addressed separately

first.

The Masculinity workshops consist of four sessions: ‘How gender roles are shaped by

society’; ‘How do we learn to be men’; ‘Roles and relations of men’; and ‘Power relations

and prevention of gender-based violence’. The Women Leadership workshops consist of

four sessions distributed in two modules: The module ‘Gender and community

involvement’ discusses roles and opportunities to participate in the household and

community, how women can identify their abilities, and how to say what they think and

what they need. The module ‘Fostering women participation in the community’ focuses

on negotiating such participation in male-dominated spaces and subsequent

management of conflicts.

Following these workshops, the couples’ sensitization sessions begin for an interested

subgroup of couples. In 4 sessions, the following topics are discussed: Gender

fundamentals; gender division of labour: roles and stereotypes; access and control over

resources; power relations and decision-making.

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At the end of the couples’ sensitization workshops, couples can express their desire of

deepening their knowledge on gender inequality. These couples then will be further

trained to promote both gender equality within their household and in their

communities. Therefore, all couples completing the intensive couples training will

graduate as change agents.

2. The baseline study

The baseline study aims to establish the current state of empowerment of women in the

communities of the HRNS gender empowerment project. This part will first explain the

study’s methodology, then the study setting, and will then discuss the results in depth.

2.1. Operationalization: The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a survey-based index that

seeks to measure women’s empowerment, agency, and participation in the agriculture

sector1. It was established by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in

collaboration with USAID and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

(OPHI). It is an aggregated index constructed from individual-level data from both

women and men living in the same household. Given that the WEAI also gathers

information from the primary male in the interviewed households, within-household

gender differences on empowerment levels are accounted for in the index construction.

The WEAI is composed of two subindexes (Alkire et al., 2012):

1) Five domains of empowerment (5DE). This index assesses whether women are

empowered in five domains: 1) Decision-making power over agricultural

production, 2) access to, and decision-making power about productive resources,

(3) control over use of income and expenditures, (4) leadership in the community,

and (5) time allocation.

2) The Gender Parity Index (GPI). This index compares differences in the five

domains of empowerment between men and women living in the same

household.

1 A more thorough assessment of the WEAI construction and its technical review can be found in Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., et al. (2013).

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The 5DE is constructed from 10 weighted indicators, each of which measures whether

an individual has an adequate performance in a specific area of interest. Domains,

indicators, and their weights are presented in Table 1.

Decision-making power over agricultural production

This domain is constructed from two indicators. 1) Input in productive decisions

measures whether an individual had any input deciding over productive activities such

as food crop farming, cash crop farming, livestock raising, fishing or fish culture, non-

farm economic activities, or wage and salaried employment, and whether the individual

feels she could make her own decisions regarding agricultural production, purchasing

inputs for agricultural production, what types of crops to grow, and taking crops to the

market and livestock raising, among others. 2) Autonomy in production measures

whether an individual behaves and makes decisions in accordance to their own interests

and preferences, or whether in contrast the actions taken are influenced by others as to

avoid punishment or blame.

Access to, and decision-making power about productive resources

Three indicators are used to construct this domain. 1) Ownership of land and assets

measures whether individuals own – either solely or jointly – a diverse set of productive

resources: agricultural land, non-agricultural land, large and small livestock, fish ponds,

farm or other nonfarm equipment, house, household durables, cell phone, and means

Table 1: The WEAI domains, indicators, and weights

Domain Indicator Weight

Input in productive decisions 1/10

Autonomy in production 1/10

Ownership of assets 1/15

Purchase, sale, or transfer of assets 1/15

Access to and decisions about credit 1/15

Income Control over use of income 1/5

Group member 1/10

Speaking in public 1/10

Workload 1/10

Leisure 1/10

Source: OPHI

Production

Resources

Leadership

Time

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of transportation. 2) Purchase, sale or transfer of assets focuses on the rights individuals

have regarding decision-making about the access and availability of productive assets,

regardless of individual ownership. 3) Access to and decisions on credit measures the

participation of an individual in the decision of obtaining credit from a diverse set of

sources (nongovernmental organizations, formal and informal lenders, friends or

relatives, rotating savings and credit associations) and using its proceeds.

Income

This domain is solely measured with the indicator of control over the use of income. It is

constructed from answers regarding the degree of input that individuals have over the

use of income generated from food crops, cash crops, livestock, fishing and fish culture,

nonfarm activities, and wage and salaried work, and the extent to which individuals feel

they can make their own personal decisions over their salaried work and minor

household expenditures.

Leadership

This domain is constructed using two indicators: 1) Group member, which records

whether an individual belongs to an economic or social group in their community, and

2) Speaking in public, which measures the degree to which an individual is comfortable

speaking in public about helping deciding on infrastructure in their community, ensuring

proper payment of wages for public work or programs, and protesting misbehaviour of

authorities or other elected officials.

Time

The last domain comprises two indicators: 1) Workload, measuring the amount of time

devoted to productive and domestic work (either as a primary or a secondary activity),

and 2) Leisure, measuring the level of satisfaction reported by individuals on their

available time for leisure activities.

In the 5DE, each indicator is associated to a threshold value; when the threshold is

surpassed, the indicator is coded as “1” – signifying adequate empowerment in that

dimension –, and will be “0” otherwise. A woman is considered empowered if she

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achieves an 80 percent adequacy in the weighted sum of the ten indicators, or if she has

adequate achievements in four out of the five domains. In the GPI, a woman is

considered to achieve gender parity if she is empowered herself, or if she enjoys the

same level of empowerment as the primary male in her household.

The 5DE, the GPI and the WEAI are calculated then using the following formulas:

5𝐷𝐸 = 𝐻𝑒 + (1 − 𝐻𝑒) × 𝐴𝑎 (1)

Where 𝐻𝑒 is the percentage of women who are empowered (that is, have scored a “1”

in at least 80% of all dimensions) and 𝐴𝑎 is the percentage of dimensions in which

disempowered women have adequate achievements (or the adequacy score of

disempowered women).

𝐺𝑃𝐼 = 1 − (𝐻𝑤 × 𝑅𝑝) (2)

Where 𝐻𝑤 is the percentage of women without gender parity and 𝑅𝑝 is the average

empowerment gap between women and men in the same household.

𝑊𝐸𝐴𝐼 = (0.9 × 5𝐷𝐸) + (0.1 × 𝐺𝑃𝐼) (3)

From the equations above we can see that the 5DE is a measure of the percentage of

women who are empowered (disempowered), and their level of empowerment

(disempowerment). On the other hand, the GPI conveys the percentage of woman

without gender parity, and the distance or gap to achieve it. Therefore, women’s

empowerment as measured by the WEAI can be improved by increasing the percentage

of empowered women, by reducing the intensity of disempowerment among

disempowered women, or by reducing gender inequalities at the household level.

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2.2. Data

The data for this study was gathered during the months of August and September of

2015. Fieldwork took place in the “Departamentos” of Ocotepeque and Copán, located

in western Honduras, an area that border the countries of Guatemala and El Salvador

(Fig 1).

The survey was solely administered to households where a couple cohabited, therefore

excluding mono-parental households2 . Furthermore, the study is restricted to rural

households, since the survey addresses women’s empowerment from an agricultural

perspective and the women’s empowerment program was addressed to rural families.

Selection of households was done in two steps. First, villages where an organized group

of farmers existed were identified3. Second, those households that were part of the

farmers’ group and in which a couple cohabited were interviewed.

2 This is the case since the women’s empowerment program is addressed to cohabiting couples. Moreover, information from both the man and the woman living in the same household is needed to provide a proper assessment of gender differences. 3 The women’s empowerment program will be targeting households that are already receiving training and support to manage their household farms and to get organized.

Figure 1: The study area

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A total of 152 households were interviewed, although in five of them the household

male could not be located. For the rest of the households, information from both the

cohabiting woman and man allows us to provide insights into gender inequality at the

household level.

2.3. Social and economic context

Table 2 provides some descriptive statistics of the women in our sample. It is noteworthy

that most women only finished primary school, got married young and had their first

child almost instantaneously. Most have households with four to six members.

During the interviews, it was also possible to glean some information on the social

context these households were operating in. Prominently, the threat of violence and

safety concerns loomed with statements such as “one feels uncomfortable here, nobody

is safe in this country” and anecdotes like “I call the police when somebody is killed so

they come to the community, and they ask me how much it will cost them in gas.”

Furthermore, food insecurity is present, for instance in the household that commented

“We never run out of beans and tortillas, but meat and milk – yes, we do.” Finally,

religion plays a defining role in the community, and has a strong influence on intra-

gender relationships within households. At mass sermon, statements such as “today

they speak of gender equality but the man has to be the head of the household. The

man has to rule in the household, a household where the man isn’t in control is a

household that is going downhill. He is the head of the woman. But man still has to

respect the woman, since she is part of his body. Loving your wife is loving yourself”

showcase a complicated ideal relationship between genders. This confirms Lomot’s

(2013) characterization of Honduras as a male-dominated country shaped by machismo.

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of women in our sample

Mean Median Q1 Q3 IQR

Age 41.9 40 32.5 51 18.5

Education (completed years) 5.6 6 3 6 3

Age at marriage 20.1 19 17 22 5

Duration of union (cohabiting or marriage) 21.6 20 11 30 19

Age at first child 20.5 20 18 22 4

Dependant children <14 years 1.3 1 0 2 2

Household size 4.8 5 4 6 2

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2.4. WEAI calculation results

Table 3 presents women’ empowerment results following the WEAI methodology.

According to the 5DE, 61.2% of women in our study region are disempowered. This is

the same as saying that 38.8% of women are empowered. On average, disempowered

women have inadequate achievements in 41.9% of the domains. The disempowerment

index is then 0.26 (61.2% x 41.9%), and the 5DE Index is 0.74 (1 - 0.26). In our sample,

60.3% of women do not achieve parity with their male counterpart, and the average

empowerment gap for these women is 0.27. Therefore, the GPI is 0.84 (1 – (60.3% x

0.27)), which combined with the 5DE gives a score for the WEAI of 0.75. This places

Honduras in the low middle range of possible WEIA outcomes; according to the

methodology, a high score is 0.85 or higher; a medium score ranges from 0.73–0.84; and

a low score is 0.72 or lower.

As we can see in Table 5, Figure 2 and Figure 3, the domains that contribute the most to

women disempowerment in Honduras are lack of control over use of income (28.5%)

and access to productive resources (23.1%). In the latter domain, low access to and

decisions on credit accounts for most of the contribution to total disempowerment

(12.82%), followed by the lack of rights women have over the productive resources

available in the household (9.51%). On the other hand, ownership of assets only

contributes with 0.78% to disempowerment, suggesting that ownership alone might not

be a good indicator to measure women access to productive resources. Furthermore,

women have little input in productive decisions, which has an absolute contribution of

5.1% to the level of disempowerment. According to the censored headcount, over 50%

Table 3: Women empowerment statistics

% of women disempowered (<80%) 61.2%

Average inadequacy score 41.9%

Disempowerment Index 0.26

5DE Index 0.74

Women with no gender parity 60.3%

Average empowerment gap 0.27

GPI 0.84

WEAI (0.9*5DE + 0.1*GPI) 0.75

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of disempowered women have inadequate scores regarding their input in productive

decisions, while 49.3% did so regarding access to and decisions on credit and 36.6% did

regarding control over use of income. On the other hand, time allocation seems to be

the domain in which women present the highest degree of adequacy, although it reflects

two very different results for the two indicators that compose this domain. While self

reported levels of satisfaction with time available for leisure activities only contributes

with 1.46% to disempowerment, the workload agricultural women have accounts for

12.23%. Finally, group membership and speaking in public contribute with 9.03% and

5.53% respectively.

It is worth noting that these results closely mirror those of a previous study seeking to

apply the WEIA methodology to Western Honduras (Malapit et al., 2014). In 2012, IFPRI

on behalf of the USAID Feeding the Future program interviewed 3,326 women and men

in Copán, La Paz, Intibucá, Lempira, Ocotepeque, Santa Barbara, and also arrived at a

WEIA score of 0.75, with a 5DE score of 0.74 and a GPI score of 0.87. These results are

almost identical to this study’s, which speaks both to the robustness of the methodology

and to the representativeness of our sample. In the USAID sample, 31.5% of women

were empowered versus 38.8% in this group, and both samples identified control over

the use of income and access to productive resources as the top two contributors to

disempowerment, though in different orders.

Table 4: Women empowerment statistics HRNS USAID

% of women disempowered (<80%) 61.2% 68.5%

Average inadequacy score 41.9% 39.0%

Disempowerment Index 0.26 0.26

5DE Index 0.74 0.74

Women with no gender parity 60.3% 58.1%

Average empowerment gap 0.27 0.22

GPI 0.84 0.87

WEAI (0.9*5DE + 0.1*GPI) 0.75 0.75

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Table 5: 5DE decomposition by dimension and indicator

Income

Statistics

Input in

productive

decisions

Autonomy in

production

Ownership of

assets

Purchase,

sale, or

transfer of

assets

Access to and

decisions on

credit

Control over

use of

income

Group

member

Speaking in

public Workload Leisure

Censored headcount 0.507 0.007 0.030 0.366 0.493 0.366 0.231 0.142 0.313 0.037

% Contribution 19.81% 0.29% 0.78% 9.51% 12.82% 28.54% 9.03% 5.53% 12.23% 1.46%

Absolute contribution 0.051 0.001 0.002 0.024 0.033 0.073 0.023 0.014 0.031 0.004

% Contribution by dimension 28.5%

Production Resources Leadership Time

20.1% 23.1% 14.6% 13.7%

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Table 6 takes a closer look at women participation in productive activities and decisions

over income.

Although over 47% of women participate in cash crop farming, around 54% of these

women feel they cannot make decision in the productive process, and 37.5% of them

feel they cannot decide on how to spend the proceeds generated. On the other hand,

although participation in non-farm economic activities and in salaried employment is

lower for women in our study region, the extent to which women feel they can make

decisions over the tasks and over the income generated in these activities is much higher.

This result reflects the fact that although women in agricultural areas are likely to be

involved in the agricultural production process, it is men who are in charge of selling the

crops and therefore the ones receiving the cash. In fact, 82.3% of the women

interviewed responded that it is their husband (or the primary male in the household)

that is responsible for taking the crops to the market, while 15.7% of women responded

that it is a decision taken jointly4.

Figure 4 depicts households’ ownership of productive assets and the access and rights

women have over those assets. The majority of households in our sample own

agricultural land and non-mechanized farm equipment; yet, women report a low sense

of ownership over these two assets. This is especially concerning in the case of

agricultural land, which is likely to be the household´s most valuable asset and its

4 The remaining 2.1% is distributed between a decision taken solely by the wife (or the primary woman in the household), by someone else in the household, and by someone else outside of the household.

Table 6: Women participation in productive activities and decisions over income

Activities Participation (%)Feels can make

decisions (%)

Feels can decide over the

income generated (%)

Food crop farming 42.11 60.94 60

Cash crop farming 47.37 45.83 62.5

Livestock raising 15.13 26.09 33.33

Non-farm economic activities (small business,

self-employment, buy-and-sell)24.34 91.89 94.44

Wage and salaried employment 7.89 91.67 91.67

Fishing or fishpond culture 1.97 100 100

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principal means of subsistence the household has. Nonetheless, women report a higher

sense of entitlement over agricultural land than that of ownership, which reflects the

aforementioned critical importance agricultural land has for rural households. On the

other hand, it can be observed that women have a higher access to less valuable

productive resources, like poultry.

2.5. Women’s empowerment and individual characteristics

The WEAI is an aggregated measure of women’s empowerment. In this section we are

going to explore the incidence of disempowerment across a diverse set of individual

characteristics. In particular, we are going to assess how the levels of disempowerment

differ by age, education, literacy, wealth, age at first children, and children composition.

Table 7 depicts the results.

In Honduras, age is a good predictor of disempowerment. More than 40% of women

aged 26 to 59 years old are empowered, compared to less than 30% of women in the

younger and older groups. This is probably reflecting the fact that younger women are

more likely to be living with their mothers-in-law, while older women may be depending

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on their descendants. This two scenarios could limit the extent to which women in these

two groups can contribute in the management of the household.

Education is also a good predictor of empowerment. While 90.1% of women with no

education are disempowered, this percentage decreases to 74% for women with

incomplete primary education, and to 51% for women that completed primary

education. The percentage of disempowered women keeps decreasing as women get

more educated, being 45.5% for those with incomplete secondary education, and 42.9%

for the group of women who completed secondary or any other higher level. Similarly

to education, only 7.7% of illiterate women were empowered, compared to 42.1% of

literate women. This results suggest that, even for women in the rural world living in an

agricultural setting, education can have an impact on the opportunities and living

conditions women will experience throughout their lives.

On the other hand, wealth seems not to be associated with higher levels of women’s

empowerment5. Although there is a difference on the levels of disempowerment of

21.6% between women in the poorest and the richest quintile, the distribution of

empowerment across the rest of categories seems to not follow a clear pattern. This

result suggest that increasing levels of wealth alone might not necessarily translate into

higher levels of empowerment for women in agriculture, as household wealth poorly

captures intra-household allocation of resources.

With respect to fertility decisions, it can be observed that women that postponed the

age at which to have their first child are also more empowered in our sample. Almost

68% of the women that had their first child before the age of 18 are disempowered. This

percentage gradually decreases with age at first child, and it is only 16.7% for the women

5 The wealth index is a PCA-weighted index that includes household members per sleeping room,

rooftop material and floor material of dwelling, main source of household´s drinking water, main type of toilet used by the household, access to electricity, main source of cooking fuel in the household, agricultural land, large and small livestock, fishpond or fishing equipment, mechanized farm equipment, nonfarm business equipment, house and other constructions, large and small consumer durables, cell phone, other land not used for agricultural purposes, means of transportation, and whether the household employs a household servant.

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that had their first child when they were 30 years of age or older. This result is capturing

both education and fertility decisions, as the level of education and age at first child are

highly correlated (Table 8).

If we look at household composition, it is interesting to note that in those household

where all children are female (only daughters), women are significantly more likely to

be empowered than in any other possible combination (only sons, children of both sexes,

and no children). The following testimony of a 38-year-old woman in rural Honduras

might provide some insights into the operating mechanisms behind this particular result.

“I don’t need to be a man to take the decisions that are normally reserved to men. Even

if I’m a woman, I still can do the work that men do. […] When I was a little girl I learned

[how] to work [in the field] with my dad, given that almost all of us were sisters. I used

to be asked, when seen with the hoe, if I thought I was a man. “

What this woman implies in her speaking is that, in the absence of male descendants,

daughters are more likely to be taught how to exploit the family farm, most likely

because they will be the ones taking over the farm management in the future. This

higher investment and attention for female descendants in only-daughters-households

might translate into a broader female-friendly environment from which the household’s

primary adult female benefits as well.

Table 7: Tabulations between empowerment and individual characteristics

Characteristics Disempowerment

headcount Empowerment

headcount

Age

16-25 72.7% 27.3%

26-45 58.0% 42.0%

46-59 56.7% 43.3%

>60 83.3% 16.7%

Education

No education 90.9% 9.1%

Incomplete primary education 74.0% 26.0%

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Complete primary education 51.2% 48.8%

Incomplete secondary education 45.5% 54.5%

Complete secondary education or higher 42.9% 57.1%

Literacy

Knows how to read and write 57.9% 42.1%

Does not know how to read or write 92.3% 7.7%

Wealth Index

1st quintile 68.0% 32.0%

2nd quintile 65.4% 34.6%

3rd quintile 63.0% 37.0%

4th quintile 66.7% 33.3%

5th quintile 46.4% 53.6%

Age at first child

<18 67.9% 32.1%

18-23 64.0% 36.0%

24-29 55.6% 44.4%

>30 16.7% 83.3%

Children composition

No children 75.0% 25.0%

Only sons 60.5% 39.5%

Only daughters 37.5% 62.5%

Sons and daughters 68.3% 31.7%

Table 8: Correlations

Age Education Literacy Wealth Index

Age at first child

Age 1.0000

Education -0.3115 1.0000

Literacy -0.1935 0.4801 1.0000

Wealth Index -0.0771 0.4574 0.2323 1.0000

Age at first child

0.0004 0.4600 0.1629 0.1773 1.0000

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2.6. Conclusions

The analysis has shown that the HRNS gender project is planned in a region where

women are still significantly disempowered. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture

Index score of the sample of female coffee farmers in Ocotepeque and Copan is 0.75,

which places the region on the low end of “medium” empowerment according to the

Index. The areas where women are least empowered are lack of control over use of

income and low access to and decisions on credit. They also have little ownership of

agricultural land and non-mechanized farm equipment, and are often left out of the

decisions what happens with income generated from cash crop and livestock-raising

activities. Empowerment is higher in women between 26 and 59, in literate and

educated women and those that delayed their first pregnancy. Furthermore, women are

more empowered in households with only female children, and seem to gain a lot of

independence and skills when they fill traditional male roles out of necessity.

The study also showed that the gender project is taking place in a social context defined

by insecurity, poverty, and strong religious conservatism. To be successful, it will be

important to ensure high and continued attendance of the workshops by working with

community and possibly religious leaders to frame the issue of women’s empowerment

in a non-threatening way. Furthermore, supporting the establishment and long-term

functioning of skills-focused women’s groups could be an additional avenue toward

strengthening women’s self-confidence and providing alternative role models of typical

female behaviour for the next generation.

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3. References

Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., Quisumbing, A. R., Seymour, G., & Vaz, A.

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