Gender gap in agricultural productivity in Nigeria: A commodity level analysis

Abstract

This study assesses gender gap in agricultural productivity across selected major crops grown by Nigerian farmers including cassava, yam, maize, guinea corn, bean and millet. The data for the study is sourced from the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for the year 2012/2013. The pairwise mean comparisons was applied to determine the extent of gender gap in agricultural productivity, inputs access and other variables; while non-parametric quantile regression technique was employed to assess the relationship between input use and gender gaps in farm outputs. The key finding is that gender gaps in farm output is low with quantity harvested and harvest sales of male managed plots marginally higher than female managed plots by 0.22% and 6.24%, respectively. The gender productivity gaps vary across selected crops and it is more pronounced in cassava, yam and maize production, while it is mild in other crops. The gender farm productivity gaps are traceable to longer farming experience in favour of men and labour market imperfection which is biased against women. Hence, labour market imperfections against women need to be addressed. This requires a formalized farming system which is presently lacking in Nigeria.