Evaluation of Gender Effects of Micro-Land Ownership for India’s Landless Agricultural Laborers, in

Orissa and West Bengal

Vivien Savath and Pinaki HalderAddis Ababa

January 9-11, 2013

Motivation Women’s independent and secure rights to land

are often overlooked and the interventions that address them tend to be remedial in nature

Landesa is guiding the implementation of a number of innovative efforts to improve the conditions of women and girls through multi-faceted programs that enhance the security of their land rights

Evaluating these efforts will provide key evidence on the impact of differential access to and control over assets by men and women as part of the GAAP portfolio

What type of assets?

Land – in several forms: Access Perceived ownership Formally documented homestead

land (as households) Women’s names on land

documents (as individuals) Relative shares of ownership, or

gender-gap in land

Odisha Program Features Vasundhara and GKP

Features: regularizes land; residents are allocated land they are already on; emphasis on joint title; garden support

Timeline: 2004-present; Landesa involved 2009-present

Beneficiaries: households currently residing on government land (Vasundhara) and households on land that was collectively owned (GKP)

West Bengal Program Features

CDPA Features: allocates land that was either purchased or vested; priority to female headed households; emphasis on joint title with women’s names first; basic support services drinking water, housing, sanitation and roads

Timeline: 2006-2011 (now known as NGNB) Beneficiaries: families according to selection criteria that prioritizes scheduled tribes and castes, female-headed households, families who have been landless for 2 generations, etc.

Research questions Landesa hypothesizes household-

level impacts on: Investments in human capital Agricultural production

Research questions Landesa hypothesizes individual-

level impacts on: Women’s assets; Women’s participation in household

decision-making; Women’s perceptions of the security of

their land rights.

Quantitative Data

Baseline: Timeline: 2010 (West Bengal); 2010-2011 (Odisha) Sample: representative sample of 1,373 households covering

three districts (West Bengal); representative sample of 1, 730 households covering four districts (Odisha)

Methods: survey questionnaire with head of household and repeated subset of questions with female spouse (if available)

2012 GAAP data: Timeline: September-October 2012 (West Bengal and Odisha) Sample: same as baseline; with replacement Methods: survey questionnaire with female head of household

Qualitative Methods: Data

Key Informant Interviews: Purpose: process information about the land regularization and

allocation programs from implementers Sample: 15 in Ganjam, Odisha; 12 in Coochbehar, West Bengal. Selection: purposeful in qualitative study villages following up the

chain of command in the implementing government departments. Tools: semi-structured interview guide

Life History Interviews: Purpose: individual and household-level information about livelihood

strategies and how they have changed over time Sample: 14 in Ganjam, Odisha,;11 in Coochbehar, West Bengal Selection: purposeful among program beneficiaries, including large

minority groups, and to include different types of women. Tools: biographical interview guide and visual timeline

Qualitative Methods: DataFocus Group Discussion: Purpose: insight into community level norms about land ownership and use, and an

understanding of the available livelihood activities within the village Sample: 7 in Ganjam, Odisha; 8 in Coochbehar, West Bengal Selection: purposeful. Groups of 4-8 conducted separately for female beneficiaries,

male beneficiaries, female head of household beneficiaries, and females who were eligible, but non-beneficiaries.

Tools: Focus group discussion guide and participatory exercise tools.

Proposed Analysis

Specific Hypothesis: Land ownership and documentation enables additional livelihood strategies and therefore improves food security.

1. Draw upon qualitative and quantitative information to establish the landlessness or vulnerability context, and identify livelihood activities in the two states.

2. Quantitatively and iteratively define livelihood strategies that best capture the combinations of activities undertaken by the households in our sample.

3. Map every household to a particular livelihood strategy. 4. Create household level indicators of food security and calculate

mean levels of food security associated with the various livelihood strategies to arrive at a logical rank order for these strategies.

5. Use multivariate analysis to assess whether households’ choice of livelihood strategies vary with land access and ownership.

Landlessness and Vulnerability

Land sales to arrange cash dowry for a daughter’s marriage or to raise money for an illness or other negative income shock

Other causes of landlessness are more prevalent by state

Odisha - Displacement from large scale land acquisitionOdisha – Scheduled Tribes mortgage away landWest Bengal – high population density and land scarcityWest Bengal – river erosion

“People are very concerned about loss of houses, but what remains un-recorded is that-cultivable lands are going under water. We are losing good quality cultivable lands.

–BDO West Bengal, age 32

Landlessness and Vulnerability

Roughly half the focus groups concluded that both men and women use and earn from land but that land is understood to be owned by men

All major respondent types acknowledged that men at times sell land without consulting their wives Researcher - “Government has issued joint pattas. The

name of the wife has also been included in the patta, what are your feelings about that?”Respondent – “ It is good, we boys we don’t have much control over ourselves. The patta being on her name means we won’t lose that due to my foolishness.”

–Men’s Focus Group, West Bengal

Land and Food Security Nearly all beneficiary respondents

(qualitative) were growing vegetables in their backyard garden

Mixed results on whether households were engaging in agriculture prior to obtaining the patta; causalityUnable to isolate the effect of land from the agricultural extension and seedsResearcher: “What did you do after getting homestead patta?”

Participant: “What did I do? Grew some chili and other vegetables and was fearless.”Researcher: “Fearless in the sense?”Participant: “In the sense if anyone would claim that this was their land then we would have [had] to leave this place.”

–Life History, woman beneficiary, age 28

Intra-household Food Distribution

Women are the food preparers Women will deprive themselves to feed the children under

conditions of scarcity (and share equally between the boys and girls)

Choice pieces (meat, fish heads) are usually reserved for the adult men or boy children

Gender differences were slightly more pronounced in West Bengal; typical for women to eat off of the husband’s plate when he has finished

“Children…are not mature enough to realize crisis. therefore it is wise decision to not curtail from their quantity. Husbands need food because they work hard- then only wives can sacrifice their food.”

–Women’s Focus Group, West Bengal

Livelihood Activities Respondents reported a range of

livelihood activities that varied temporally (seasonally) or according to necessity

Common activities in both states were agricultural labor on others’ fields (both wage and non-wage), rearing livestock, backyard cultivation of vegetables, non-agricultural labor, seasonal migration labor, and accessing the Public Distribution Scheme for subsidized rations

Gendered Livelihood Activities

Livelihood activities (and the assets required to engage in them) varied by gender

Women – firewood collection, “home work,” house-cleaning

Men - weaving, rickshaw pulling, priestly duties, plowing

Livelihood Strategies (quant)

[frequency table – only have data from Jagatsinghpur and Khorda (2/4) from Odisha

ready]

Next Steps White paper – Does land ownership

enable better livelihood strategies? Evidence from land titling and allocation interventions in Odisha and West Bengal, India

World Bank paper - Can Government Allocated Land Contribute to Food Security? Intrahousehold Analysis of West Bengal’s Microplot Allocation Program

GAAP Partner Organizations