GENDER DECOMPOSITION IN SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURAL PERFORMANCE IN RURAL NIGERIA

Abstract

Although women are actively involved in a wide array of agricultural production activities, they have limited access to farm productive resources and their influence in decision making is also restricted compared with men. These limitations have the potential to affect women performance in agriculture. This study assesses gender-based farm performance (proxy by productivity) differences and identified sources of performance differentials amongst rice farmers in rural Nigeria using the Blinder-Oaxaca gender decomposition framework. The results revealed a disparity between men and women with a gender performance gap of about 11% in favour of men, of which 77.66% of the gap remained unexplained after accounting for gender differences in household characteristics, access to supply-driven factors, and farm productive resources. A more detailed analysis suggests that factors such as the use of improved rice varieties, membership of farmer-based organisations, extension services, and quantity of seeds sown could contribute to the gender performance gap. As a result, the study concludes that focusing on these productivity gaps and the factors that contribute to them is critical for developing policy interventions aimed at empowering women.