mechanical mills may not make economic sense. In Mali,
one study examines the potential determinants of demand
for maize flour products. It finds that working women
appreciate the convenience of maize flour; however, the
poverty of many urban households limits the effective
demand for purchased maize flour (Boughton et al. 1997).
Similarly, in Kenya, the quantity purchased of sifted maize
meal rises with increasing household income. We might
expect that it particularly rises with the increased incomes
or time value of women. Households cite price and
convenience as major determinants of the quantity of
sifted maize meal that they purchase (Mukumbu and
Jayne 1995).
A number of factors may affect the types of preferred
outputs. As the value of women’s time increases,
particularly in urban areas, women frequently choose
foods that are less time consuming to prepare. This may
involve the substitution of milled varieties of maize for
hand-pounded maize or the substitution of one crop over
another. In Mali, urban households shift to rice from
maize and other coarse grains as the value of women’s time
increases (Dibley et al. 1994). Although the cost of a meal
of coarse grains is lower, processing costs, measured in
time, are a larger component of the total cost of this type
of meal. Examining countries in both East and West
Africa, Kennedy and Reardon (1994) find that the value of
women’s time is a more important determinant of
consumption decisions than the total household income.
Relatively little work has been conducted on gender
differences with regard to desired outputs. To analyze
possible impacts, a number of questions could be
considered: What is the use of the crop? Is it for home
consumption, sales, or both? What are the desired
characteristics in terms of storage, processing, and taste?
This data would need to be considered together with
information on household decision-making to determine
which combination of characteristics would be chosen.
Household Decision-Making
Numerous studies note that men and women in Africa
frequently engage in different production activities and
that in many cases they are not jointly managed. This
suggests that it is important to treat individual production
activities separately, while also examining the relationships
between them. In addition, men and women may be
involved in separate consumption activities, often
described as men and women having separate purses
(Guyer 1980).
In the economics literature, however, the tendency has
been to assume that although the activities were separate, it
was still possible to treat the household as a single
economic unit, making a single set of production and
consumption decisions. Recently, a growing literature in
economics has challenged the traditional models,
emphasizing the importance of understanding the
dynamics within the household. This work claims that
outcomes depend on the dynamics and distribution of
resources and power within the household.
Agricultural household models, which explicitly
incorporate both production and consumption decisions
(Singh et al. 1986), provide one set of reasons that
undergird the importance of considering gender
constraints in agricultural production. To the extent that
women have limited access to resources based on gender,
female-headed households will be disadvantaged relative to
households that include men. As men move out of
agriculture, these models suggest that it may be important
to consider reducing the constraints to increased
productivity by women.
However, recent household decision-making models and
the empirical evidence supporting them suggest that there
are more important reasons for examining the gender-
based constraints facing farmers. These models more
accurately reflect the reality of African households,
although specifics vary widely across Africa. Two categories
of models can be considered: cooperative bargaining and
collective models, and noncooperative bargaining models.10
10 For a detailed description of the different models and the empirical distinctions between them, see Doss (1996).
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