Gender effects of agricultural cropping work and nutrition status in Tanzania

Although agriculture is an important source of food and income for food expenditures, women’s involvement in the agricultural cropping production process could increase their work load and reduce their BMI. Using three waves of the Tanzania National Panel Survey, we investigate the extent to which time spent in agricultural crop production affects women and men’s nutritional status among non-overweight individuals (age 20–65). We also test whether the impact of agricultural cropping work on nutritional status is modified by access to agricultural equipment, and whether gender differences exist. The study finds that time spent in agricultural cropping work is negatively associated with BMI for non-overweight individuals, albeit of small magnitude, and this finding is consistent across different crop production processes. This suggests that agricultural interventions should not ignore the implications of increasing work intensities on nutrition. While increased agricultural production could improve nutritional status by increasing agricultural income and food, the gains in nutritional status could be offset by an increase in work effort of doing agricultural work. Our results suggest that it is possible that access to equipment reduced effort for one production activity, but increased work for other activities in the production process, such as in harvesting. Furthermore, we find that the BMI of women in households with a hand powered sprayer is positively related to time spent in weeding, fertilizing, and non-harvest activities, while it is negatively correlated for men. It is possible that access to a hand powered sprayer may have helped reduce women’s work, for example, in weeding, while this was not the case for men’s work such as in ridging and fertilizing. Further disaggregation of agricultural activities in the dataset would have been helpful to provide more insights on the gender roles.尽管农业是食品与收入的重要来源，可为家庭粮食支出提供支撑，但女性参与农作物种植生产流程，反而可能加重其工作负担并降低身体质量指数（Body Mass Index，BMI）。本研究依托三轮坦桑尼亚国家面板调查（Tanzania National Panel Survey）数据，探究农作物种植生产耗时对20至65岁非超重群体男女营养状况的影响程度。同时，我们检验了农作物种植劳动对营养状况的影响是否会因农业设备可及性发生调节，以及是否存在性别差异。研究结果显示，农作物种植劳动时长与非超重群体的BMI呈负相关关系，尽管相关程度较弱，且该结论在不同农作物生产环节中均成立。这表明农业干预政策不应忽视劳动强度提升对营养健康的潜在影响。尽管扩大农业生产可通过提升农业收入与食品供给改善营养状况，但农业劳动投入增加可能抵消上述营养收益。本研究结果表明，设备可及性或许降低了某类生产活动的劳动强度，却加重了生产流程中其他环节（如收获环节）的工作负担。此外，我们发现，配备手动喷雾器（hand powered sprayer）的家庭中，女性的BMI与除草、施肥及非收获类活动的劳动时长呈正相关，而男性的BMI则与该类劳动时长呈负相关。这可能是因为手动喷雾器有助于减轻女性在除草等环节的劳动负荷，但对男性起垄、施肥等劳动环节并无类似减负效果。若能对数据集内的农业活动进行更细致的分类，将有助于进一步揭示农业生产中的性别分工特征。