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Audrey Pereira

AIR Pipeline Partnership Africa program – December 2023

GENDER ANALYSIS IN DEVELOPMENT – PART II

The Project Level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)

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OVERVIEW

Last week with Amber

Household models
Understanding and operationalizing empowerment and agency

Today

Constructing the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)

(indicators, 3DE, GPI, pro-WEAI)

Using the pro-WEAI Stata .do files
Interpreting the pro-WEAI

Slides adapted from IFPRI WEAI team

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What is the WEAI?

Measures inclusion and empowerment of women in the agricultural sector
Survey-based index - interviews men and women in the same household
Captures both absolute and relative empowerment
Launched in 2012 by USAID, IFPRI, and OPHI
Methodology:

Similar to multi-dimensional poverty indices (Alkire and Foster 2011) and the Foster-Greere-Thorbeck (FGT) indices

Details on index construction in Alkire et al. (2013)

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Evolution of the WEAI

WEAI

A-WEAI

Pro-WEAI

Core

WEAI

A-WEAI

🡺

Attention to domains related to health and nutrition, livestock, and market inclusion

Health & Nutrition

Livestock

Market Inclusion

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Constructed from 10 indicators across 3 domains

Three domains are linked to agency and empowerment theory:
Intrinsic agency

personal sense of agency or internal voice, self-respect, or self-confidence

Instrumental agency

person’s ability to make decisions in their own best interest.

Collective agency

power we get from acting together with others

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Pro-WEAI questionnaire: Group membership

Black: required for indicator construction; Purple: optional

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Pro-WEAI questionnaire: Self-efficacy

Black: required for indicator construction; Purple: optional

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Pro-WEAI: 10 indicators across 3 domains

We create binary variables for each indicator
Individuals achieve adequacy in each indicator
Adequacy is defined specifically for each indicator as being at or above a set threshold

Refer to pro-WEAI Indicator definitions handout

Example: Self-efficacy

A respondent is considered adequate in this indicator if s/he has a response score of at least 16 on these items

4 required items; 5 point response scale; score ranges from 4-20

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ADEQUATE OR INADEQUATE IN GROUP MEMBERSHIP?

	Are you an active member of:
A	Agricultural / livestock / fisheries producer’s group (including marketing groups)	No
B	Water users’ group	Yes
C	Forest users’ group	No
D	Credit or microfinance group (including SACCOs / merry-go-rounds / VSLAs)	Yes
E	Mutual help or insurance group (including burial societies)	No

An individual gives the following responses to Q G5.03: Are you an active member of this group to the following types of groups:

Adequacy definition:

An individual is adequate in group membership if they are an active member of at least one group in the community

Etc…

Adequate!

Because they’re a member of 2 groups

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PRO-WEAI DATAPREP DO FILE

Examples:

Group membership
Self-efficacy

This is the file you would be editing the most

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PRO-WEAI CONSTRUCTION

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WHAT ARE WE DOING TODAY

Individual

Household

Sample

Adequacy in each of the 10

pro-WEAI indicators

Empowerment score

Women

Men

Empowerment score

3 Domains of empowerment (3DE) index

Intrahousehold

gender parity score

Gender Parity Index (GPI)

0.9 (3DE) + 0.1 (GPI) = WEAI

Adequacy in each of the 10

pro-WEAI indicators

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Pro-WEAI: Empowerment score

Each indicator gets 1/10^th weight

We calculate an empowerment score (weighted sum of the adequacies) for each individual (women and men)

Σ(Weight)*(binary indicator) =

(0.10*autonomy in income) + (0.10*self efficacy) + (0.10*IPV) + …

Empowerment score:

1 means adequate in all indicators

0 means adequate in no indicators

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EMPOWERMENT CUTOFF = 80%

Pro-WEAI defines empowerment as being adequate in at least 8 out of 10 (or 80%) of indicators

Empowerment score of 0.80

Those below the cutoff are considered disempowered and those above the cutoff are considered empowered.

E.g. An individual adequate in 5 indicators (score 0.50) is considered disempowered.
E.g. An individual adequate in 7 indicators (score 0.70) is considered disempowered.
E.g. An individual adequate in 10 indicators (score 1.00) is considered empowered.

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_Intrinsic

_Agency

_Collective

_Agency

_Instrumental

_Agency

Group membership

Visiting important locations

Work balance

Control over use of income

Access to and decisions on credit

Ownership of land and other assets

Input in productive decisions

Attitudes about domestic violence

Self-efficacy

Autonomy in income

EMPOWERED OR DISEMPOWERED?

Red = inadequate

Black = adequate

What is their empowerment score?

0.60

Are they empowered or disempowered?

Disempowered

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_Intrinsic

_Agency

_Collective

_Agency

_Instrumental

_Agency

Group membership

Visiting important locations

Work balance

Control over use of income

Access to and decisions on credit

Ownership of land and other assets

Input in productive decisions

Attitudes about domestic violence

Self-efficacy

Autonomy in income

EMPOWERED OR DISEMPOWERED?

Red = inadequate

Black = adequate

What is their empowerment score?

0.80

Are they empowered or disempowered?

Empowered

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WHAT ARE WE DOING TODAY

Individual

Household

Sample

Adequacy in 10

pro-WEAI indicators

Empowerment score

Women

Men

Adequacy in 10

pro-WEAI indicators

Empowerment score

3 Domains of empowerment (3DE) index

Intrahousehold

gender parity score

Gender Parity Index (GPI)

0.9 (3DE) + 0.1 (GPI) = WEAI

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Pro-WEAI is made up of two sub-indices

Three domains of empowerment (3DE)

A direct measure of women’s empowerment in 3 domains

Gender parity Index (GPI)

Women’s achievement’s relative to the primary male in household

Project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

(pro-WEAI)

All range from zero to one; �higher values = greater empowerment

90 %

10 %

RECALL

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QUICK DEFINITIONS

Pro-WEAI survey is administered to the main woman of interest and a man respondent (preferably her husband) in each household

Dual-adult households: households that have at least one adult woman and one adult man

Women included in construction of 3DE and GPI

Women-adult only households: households that do not have an adult man

Women included in construction of 3DE but not GPI

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THREE DOMAINS OF EMPOWERMENT (3DE)

Based on each woman’s empowerment profile
REFLECTS:
Incidence of Empowerment: The percentage of women who are empowered

Identifies who is empowered

Adequacy among the Disempowered: The weighted share of indicators in which disempowered women enjoy adequate achievements

Shows extent of adequacies among women who are disempowered
Depth of disempowerment

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GENDER PARITY INDEX (GPI)

REFLECTS:
The percentage of dual-adult HHs that achieve gender parity

A woman enjoys gender parity if she is empowered or if her empowerment score is at least equal to the empowerment score of the primary man in her household.

Woman’s score	Man’s score	HH gender parity?
0.8 or higher	Doesn’t matter	Yes – woman is empowered
0.5	0.5	Yes – at least the same score as man in HH
0.2	0.5	NO – not empowered and lower score than man in HH
0.5	0.2	Yes – at least the same score as man in HH

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GENDER PARITY INDEX (GPI)

The empowerment gap - the average percentage shortfall that a woman without parity experiences relative to the man in her household

How far away is the woman’s score from the man’s score in HHs that do not achieve gender parity

ONLY CALCULATED FOR DUAL-ADULT HOUSEHOLDS
This formula tells us that there are two ways to improve gender parity: (i) Increase proportion of HHs achieving gender parity, and/or (ii) Reduce the gap in scores within the HH

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PRO-WEAI

Pro-WEAI = 0.9*Women’s 3DE + 0.1*GPI
Captures absolute and relative empowerment of women in the sample
1 = Full empowerment
0 = Full disempowerment
Can compare pro-WEAI scores for different groups, treatment vs. control, time 1 vs time 2 etc.

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PRO-WEAI INDEX CONSTRUCTION DO FILE

Inadequacy count = 1 – empowerment score

lines 167-169

Disempowerment cutoff = 0.2 which is 1-0.8

loop in lines 192-193

3DE lines 342-343
GPI

lines 393, 499-501, 532-540

Pro-WEAI

line 646

Don’t need to edit file other than working directory and project name

PRO-WEAI TABLES AND CHARTS DO FILE

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PRO-WEAI INDEX CONSTRUCTION DO FILE

Measure	Variable name	Lines	Notes
Inadequacy count Empowerment score	ci emp_score	167-169; 585	ci = 1 – empowerment score
Disempowerment cutoff		Loop in lines 192-193	1 – empowerment cutoff (0.8) = 0.2
Whether empowered per 0.80 threshold	empowered	588
3DE	EA_20P	313
GPI	GPI	510-511
Pro-WEAI	PROWEAI	617

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PRO-WEAI INTERPRETATION

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INTERPRETATION: Adequacy by indicator

Example: self-efficacy

Percent of those achieving adequacy in self-efficacy by HH type

For example, approximately 67 percent of women in dual-adult HHs achieve adequacy in this indicator (score >=16)

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INTERPRETATION: Adequacy by indicator

Example: group membership

What is the percent of women in woman adult only households who achieve adequacy in group membership?

20%

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INTERPRETATION: Contributions to disempowerment

Total disempowerment on Y axis

Can see total disempowerment is higher for women than men

Longer (thicker) blocks indicate higher contribution of that indicator to overall disempowerment

This is 1 – 3DE

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INTERPRETATION: Contributions to disempowerment

WHICH ARE THE THREE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTORS TO DISEMPOWERMENT FOR WOMEN AND MEN?

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INTERPRETATION: Contributions to disempowerment

Women:

Control over use of income
Group membership
Work balance

Men:

Control over use of income
Group membership
Self efficacy

1st

2nd

3rd

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INTERPRETATION

Open the Excel spreadsheet from your working folder (e.g. proweai_charts_AIR_Webinar)

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Make sure number of observations is correct

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INTERPRETATION: 3DE

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Reflects:

Who is empowered (prevalence): The percentage of women who are empowered

Extent of adequacy among disempowered (depth): The weighted share of indicators in which disempowered women enjoy adequate achievements

1 = all women are empowered

0 = no women empowered + no adequacy among disempowered

Composed of women in dual-adult and woman-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: Empowerment score

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Average empowerment score in sample

0.67 for women

0.69 for men

Composed of women in dual-adult and female-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: Proportion achieving empowerment

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.30	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.60	0.60
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

30% of women and 37% of men achieve empowerment based on the 80% threshold in this example

Composed of women in dual-adult and female-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: Proportion achieving empowerment

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.30	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.60	0.60
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Extent (prevalence) and depth of empowerment among those who are disempowered

Composed of women in dual-adult and female-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: GPI

Composed of women and men in dual-adult only households

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Captures the proportion of dual-adult HHs that achieve gender parity and the extent of disparity between women and men’s inadequacy scores in households that do not achieve gender parity

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INTERPRETATION: Number of dual-adult HHs

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Should be equal to the number of men in your sample!

Composed of women and men in dual-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: % achieving gender parity

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Proportion of households in which:

Woman is empowered (80% cutoff)
Enjoys the same proportion of adequacies as the man in the HH

Composed of women and men in dual-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: Average intra-HH inequality

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Sample average of difference between men’s and women’s adequacy scores in each HH

Composed of women and men in dual-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: Empowerment gap

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Sample average of difference between the adequacy scores of the man and woman in the household, only calculated for households that do not achieve gender parity

Composed of women and men in dual-adult only households

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INTERPRETATION: pro-WEAI

Indicator	Women	Men
Number of observations	253	247
3DE score	0.72	0.75
Empowerment score	0.67	0.69
% achieving empowerment	0.3	0.37
Mean 3DE score for not yet empowered	0.6	0.6
Gender Parity Index (GPI)	0.91
Number of dual-adult households	247
% achieving gender parity	0.62
Average intra-household inequality score	0.02
Empowerment gap	0.24
Pro-WEAI	0.74

Extent of absolute and relative empowerment of women in the sample

1 = Full empowerment

0 = Full disempowerment

Composed of women in dual-adult and female-adult only households

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How can you use pro-WEAI?

Pro-WEAI and the indicators can be used to explore correlations with various indicators of wellbeing

Women’s empowerment and nutrition in Africa and South Asia (Quisumbing et al., 2021)

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How can you use pro-WEAI?

Pro-WEAI and the indicators can be used to explore correlations with various indicators of wellbeing

Women’s empowerment and child diets in Africa and South Asia (Quisumbing et al., 2021)

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How can you use pro-WEAI?

Pro-WEAI and the indicators can be used to explore correlations with various indicators of wellbeing

Women’s empowerment and child diets in Africa and South Asia (Quisumbing et al., 2021)

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WEAI-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

IFPRI-WEAI@CGIAR.ORG

WEAI WEBISTE:

https://weai.ifpri.info/

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QUESTIONS?

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Quisumbing AR, Sproule K, Martinez EM, Malapit H. Do tradeoffs among dimensions of women’s empowerment and nutrition outcomes exist? Evidence from six countries in Africa and Asia. Food Policy. 2021 Apr 1;100:102001.
Onah MN, Horton S, Hoddinott J (2021) What empowerment indicators are important for food consumption for women? Evidence from 5 sub-Sahara African countries. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0250014. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250014

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INTRINSIC AGENCY INDICATOR DEFINITIONS

Attitudes towards domestic violence: What is your opinion on the acceptability of a husband beating his wife in different situations?
Self-efficacy: Belief in your own abilities to succeed in certain situations or accomplish tasks
Autonomy in income: Regarding income, it is a measure of the internal and external motivations that determine a person’s decisions

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INSTRUMENTAL AGENCY INDICATOR DEFINTIONS

Input in productive decisions: What decisions are you a part of for ag activities you participate in? What is your role in making these decisions?
Asset ownership: Do you own any assets (large and small assets; land)? Do you own them solely or jointly?
Income: Do you have input in decisions on how income and output, from all ag activities you participate in, is spent or used? Do you have input in decisions on how income from non-agricultural activities is spent?
Credit: Do you contribute to household decisions on credit (e.g. taking out a loan)? Can you get a loan if you wanted to? Do you have access to a financial account?
Work balance: How many hours a day do you work? How much of that time is spent on care giving for children?
Visiting important locations: Can you visit locations such as markets, health facilities, public meetings etc.? How often can you visit those locations?

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COLLECTIVE AGENCY INDICATOR DEFINITIONS

Group membership: Are you a member of a group in your community?

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IMPORTANT DO FILE INDICATORS

Description	Variable name in Stata
Autonomy in income	autonomy_inc
Self-efficacy	selfeff
Attitudes towards IPV against women	never_violence
Input in productive decisions	feelinputdecagr
Ownership of land and other assets	assetownership
Access to and decisions on financial services	credit_accdec
Control over use of income	incomecontrol
Work balance	work_balance
Freedom of movement	mobility
Group membership	groupmember

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IMPORTANT DO FILE INDICATORS

Description	Variable name in Stata
Survey sampling weight	weight
Variable weight	w_`var'
Inadequacy score (count)	ci
Identifies those who are disempowered (binary)	ch_20p
Censored inadequacy score (for 3DE)	a_20p
Inadequacy score for woman is higher than man (binary)	ci_above
Empowerment gap	ci_gap
3DE	PROWEAI_3DE or EA_20p
GPI	GPI
Pro-WEAI	PROWEAI

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Steps in calculating the pro-WEAI

A. Calculate the 3DE score

Create the adequacy matrix
Create an inadequacy matrix
Create a weighted inadequacy matrix
Calculate uncensored headcounts for each indicator
Calculate an inadequacy score for each individual
Based on the cutoff, determine who is disempowered in your sample
Calculate H for women and men

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Steps in calculating the pro-WEAI

Censor the inadequacy matrix and inadequacy scores
Calculate censored headcounts for each indicator
Calculate A for women and men
Calculate M₀ for women and men
Calculate the 3DE for women and men

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Steps in calculating the pro-WEAI

B. Calculate the GPI

Using the weighted inadequacy scores of each individual, censor the matrix for those who are empowered
Identify the households that do not achieve gender parity
Calculate the inadequacy gap in each household
Calculate the average inadequacy gap across all households that do not achieve gender parity
Calculate H_GPI
Calculate I_GPI
Calculate the GPI

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Steps in calculating the pro-WEAI

C. Calculate the pro-WEAI score

Using the 3DE for women and GPI, calculate the pro-WEAI score for the sample