Women's land ownership and participation in decision-making about reproductive health in Malawi.

Behrman, Julia

Given the centrality of land to rural livelihoods and the high rates of fertility in Africa, there is a need for more research that explores the intersection between gendered patterns of land ownership and reproductive health outcomes. Drawing on a household bargaining framework, I hypothesize that women's land ownership should be associated with increases in women's decision-making in multiple domains in the household including financial decision-making (the focus of bargaining literature), but also decision-making about reproductive health. Using the 2010 Malawi Demographic Health Survey (DHS), I find women's ownership of land (sole or joint) is associated with increases in women's participation in financial decision-making in the household and women's sole ownership of land is associated with increases in women's participation in reproductive health decision-making. However, women's joint ownership of land with spouses is negatively associated with participation in reproductive health decision-making, perhaps because of backlash or intra-household conflict.

MALAWI; LAND tenure; WOMEN landowners; HUMAN fertility; REPRODUCTIVE health; DECISION making in social policy

Population & Environment, 2017, Vol 38, Issue 4, p327

0199-0039

Academic Journal

10.1007/s11111-017-0272-4