Access to Livelihood Capital and Food Security Status as Correlates to Empowerment Among Women on Irrigation Schemes in North-West Province, South Africa

This paper examines the empowerment, access to livelihood capital, and food security status among women in irrigation Schemes in North-West Province, South Africa. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 84 women farmers. Data was obtained with a female empowerment agricultural index questionnaire and analyzed with frequency distribution, percentages, mean and standard deviation, and Chi-Square. The results on the indices of empowerment show that women are disempowered in the use of income and access to productive capital and credit, but are empowered in leadership and decision-making. The Chi-square analysis reveals that significant relationships exist between levels of empowerment, livelihood capital, and food security. The paper concludes that there is a need to modify intervention programs if empowerment is to be attained.

本研究聚焦南非西北省（North-West Province）灌区（Irrigation Schemes）女性的赋权（Empowerment）状况、生计资本（Livelihood Capital）获取情况与粮食安全（Food Security）现状。本研究采用简单随机抽样法选取84名女性农户，通过女性赋权农业指数问卷采集数据，并采用频数分布、百分比、均值、标准差及卡方检验（Chi-Square）开展数据分析。赋权指数相关结果显示，女性在收入支配、生产资本获取与信贷渠道方面仍处于赋权不足状态，但在领导力与决策制定层面具备赋权优势。卡方检验结果表明，赋权水平、生计资本与粮食安全三者间存在显著相关关系。本研究最终提出，若要实现女性赋权目标，需对现有干预项目进行优化调整。