Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/330222 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Citation: 
[Journal:] Food Security [ISSN:] 1876-4525 [Volume:] 17 [Issue:] 5 [Publisher:] Springer Netherlands [Place:] Dordrecht [Year:] 2025 [Pages:] 1301-1315
Publisher: 
Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
Abstract: 
The small-farm sector is home to many of the world's food-insecure and undernourished people. Strategies to make smallholder farming more nutrition-sensitive often focus on agricultural diversification. In addition, women's empowerment is widely considered useful to improve diets and nutrition. Many studies have analyzed the effects of farm production diversification and of women's empowerment on dietary outcomes, but mostly in separate strands of literature. Here, we connect these strands to contribute to a better understanding of the multifaceted links between farm production diversity, women's roles in decision-making, and household diets. Using primary data from Malawi, we show that women's decision-making is positively associated with farm production diversity and with household dietary diversity. Furthermore, women's decision-making increases the positive association between farm production diversity and dietary diversity. We also differentiate between different domains of decision-making, including agricultural production, market sales, cash income control, and food purchases. The results suggest that strengthening women's agency can make smallholder farming more nutrition-sensitive through multiple channels.
Subjects: 
Farm production diversity
Dietary diversity
Female decision-making
Nutrition
Africa
Malawi
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.