Determinants of women’s empowerment in food security in Walmara district, Ethiopia

Abstract This paper examines the drivers of rural women's empowerment in food security in Ethiopia: the case of Walmara District. We used a quantitative method to study it. The household surveys were administered to 335 rural women's households, which were selected through a systematic sampling technique. The Rural Women's Composite Empowerment Index was used to measure women's empowerment. We employed a binary logit model to investigate determinant factors. The finding suggests that factors like access to agricultural inputs, training, credit, market information, and education significantly enhance women's empowerment in food security. Notably, access to agricultural inputs boosts the likelihood of women being empowered in terms of food security by 69.9%, making it the most significant contributing factor when all other variables are held constant. Yet, circumscribed predictors hamper full empowerment. It concludes that a few negatively associated predictors—household dependence and restrictive cultural barriers—are hindering full empowerment, albeit women's empowerment in food security is predominantly positively associated with key predictors. It recommends the establishment of joint actions and monitoring platforms of several stakeholders such as religious leaders, government, elders, and women's representatives to address the negative factors and ensure comprehensive and sustainable improvements in women's empowerment in food security.