What Is the Impact of Increased Women’s Land Rights on Nutrition? A Study of Ethiopia's Land Reform

Felix Muchomba, Columbia University

Increased women’s land rights are associated with improved household outcomes such as better child health and increased proportion of budget spent on food. However, the effect estimates from existing studies are likely to be biased because women who have secure land tenure are different from women without such tenure on unobserved characteristics that affect the outcomes under study. I address this shortcoming by exploiting regional variation in women’s land rights generated by Ethiopia’s land certification program. In one state land certificates were issued only to the household head (typically male) whereas certificates were issued jointly to household heads and spouses in three other states. Using panel data from rural households, I find that the joint-certificate program was accompanied by decreases in spending on men’s clothing and, in regions with relatively low women’s status prior to the land reform, increases in food budget share.