Findings on the food security of women in male-headed households (MHH)

While the data I've worked with this summer was collected at the household level, making it challenging to assess the conditions of women living in MHH in terms of food security and vulnerability, I did manage to compile some findings of interest:

Married women face challenges in terms of resources. Legally married women's names are generally on the land registration certificate, but women and men continue to regard land as "really" belonging to their husbands.

This can be a problem in terms of food security because in households working in agriculture, women tend to manage food crops, while men handle cash crops. As land is culturally controlled by men, men's crops are allocated more space. Women have to struggle to meet family food and income needs from the little food crops that they harvest. This limited space results in reduced crop diversity for family consumption, which can negatively impact nutritional outcomes.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential to improve the food security of families and nutritional outcomes of children. Studies in Rwanda have found that households where women are empowered to make certain decisions (i.e. about land purchase, breastfeeding) have significantly lower rates of stunting than those where women are not empowered. For instance, households where women did not have input into decisions made on crop harvesting were 60-80% more likely to have children that were stunted. Additionally, households where women lacked active participation in credit groups were 46.6 percent more likely to have children that were stunted.

Decision-making was linked to a range of factors, such as being employed for cash, being older, living in an urban area (particularly Kigali) and falling in a higher wealth quintile.

Women are responsible for most reproductive work as well as for most of the cultivating/subsistence farming.Without female-friendly agricultural labor-saving technologies such as mechanization, women put in long hours of agricultural work. Women who spend more than average me in agriculture are less likely to breastfeed their children or ensure their sanitation, which is associated with child stunting. This is important in WFP's work because it means that programs should try to reduce women's workload rather than adding to it.

Crises have a large impact on women and girls.Women are the ones that have to find coping strategies when there is a food shortage. They may reduce their own nutritional intake.

Finally, gender-based violence is linked to food security.GBV inhibits gains in agricultural production, contributes to food insecurity, and limits agricultural project’s abilities to maximize efficiencies, outcomes, and impact. Similarly, food scarcity can also lead to violence against women.