Allocation of Land Tenure Rights in Tigray: How Large Is the Gender Bias?

This study investigates gender differences in land ownership and use in northern Ethiopia. Female-headed households have 23% smaller owned landholdings and 54% smaller operational landholdings. Household endowments of nonland productive inputs are important, but decomposition analysis shows that differences in observable characteristics such as labor and oxen explain less than half of these differences, whereas the remaining differences can be attributed to differences in returns to these characteristics. The latter suggests a gender bias in land allocation. The main policy recommendation is to strengthen women’s opportunities to cultivate their land and continue the process of securing women’s tenure rights.