Assessing the effect of women empowerment on labor time allocated to soil and water conservation strategies in northern rwanda

Despite Rwanda’s high score (0.91) of the women empowerment in agricultural index (WEAI), key constraints for empowering women for sustainable land management include heavy workload, poor access to and decision on credit, and lack of control over use of income still persist. Furthermore, the contribution of women empowerment to SWC strategies has not been addressed in Northern Rwanda. To assess these effects, the survey analysed both plot-level and pro-WEAI data from 653 individual household members comprising 256 male and 400 female respondents. Data analysis was performed using independent t-test and the ISURE model. Findings show that female use between 221.04 and 2709.01 additional labor-hours for invisible SWC investment and SC practices compared to male. Further, compared to men, women use less than 17,423.46 labor-hours for soil fertility management, 14,210 labor-hours for integrated soil management and water conservation, and 248.51 labor-hours for financing SWC investments. Results also reveal that investment in both integrated and financing SWC investments have less costs and more comparative advantage in producing non-traditional agricultural export crops. Empirical results indicate that, apart from financing SWC, intrinsic agency, instrumental agency and collective agency have mixed effects on labor time allocated to SWC strategies. Socio-economic characteristics, mainly education, main occupation, and access to institutions and markets influence the labor time allocated to SWC strategies. The findings are relevant for designing economic strategies and gender transformative approaches to bolster women’s empowerment in SWC and to create just pathways to agricultural feminisation.