Confronting the Wall of Patriarchy: Does participatory intrahousehold Decision Making empower Women in agricultural Households?

This mixed methods study investigates the impact of introducing participatory intrahousehold decision making in Ugandan agricultural households on multiple dimensions of women’s empowerment, including more subjective aspects of sense of agency and achievements, by examining how impact aligns with women’s perceptions of the process, meaning and value of their empowerment. Participatory intrahousehold decision making is expected to empower women through increasing their voice and decision-making power and through reducing collective action problems within households, which compromise efficiency and equitable sharing of costs and benefits of household farming. Introducing participatory intrahousehold decision making by intensively coaching couples contributed to women’s priority of enhanced access to household coffee income, which is only feasible in a pathway to empowerment where women have some leeway to participate in strategic household affairs. Awareness raising couple seminars promoted women’s involvement in strategic farm and household decisions, highly aspired and valued by women to actively contribute to their households’ welfare. This may facilitate the pathway to empowerment where there is scope for participating in household affairs. Household welfare improved as a result of couple seminars, an important achievement in itself that has great meaning to women as it answers to their priorities and sense of agency.本项混合研究方法（mixed methods）研究以乌干达农业家庭为样本，探究引入参与式家庭内部决策（participatory intrahousehold decision making）对女性赋权多维度的影响，涵盖能动性感知与成就感等更具主观性的维度；同时考察干预效果与女性对自身赋权的过程、意义及价值的认知之间的契合程度。 参与式家庭内部决策旨在通过提升女性话语权与决策影响力，缓解家庭内部的集体行动困境——此类困境会损害家庭农业的生产效率，以及成本与收益的公平分配，最终实现女性赋权。 通过对夫妇双方开展密集辅导来推行参与式家庭内部决策，有助于达成女性优先获取家庭咖啡收入的诉求，而这一目标仅能在女性拥有一定参与家庭战略性事务自由度的赋权路径中实现。面向夫妇的赋能意识提升研讨会可推动女性参与农场经营与家庭事务的战略性决策，而这类参与正是女性热切期盼且高度重视的，能够助力其主动为家庭福祉贡献力量。这或将为女性拥有参与家庭事务空间的赋权路径提供便利。 夫妇研讨会推动了家庭福祉的提升，这本身便是一项重要成果，且对女性而言意义非凡——因其契合了女性的核心诉求与能动性感知。