Social capital and women's willingness to pay for safe water access: Evidence from African rural areas

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between women willingness to pay for water access and civic participation as social capital dimension. We use a dataset from a survey in three rural districts of Karamoja, one of the poorest regions of Uganda. Our results suggest that civic participation is not a silver bullet to empower women in rural areas; rather, its effect depends on both context and type of participation. In particular, participation in religious activities has a positive role, but only if it is strictly anchored to the progress of society in terms of gender equality improvement.