Replication Data for: Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries Index

Working with fishing communities in Barotse and Lake Chilwa, and other partners, the project will analyze fish value chains, including the differing roles of men and women, to understand how losses occur in fish volume, nutrient content, and economic value. The research team will then develop and pilot interventions to reduce these losses, while also addressing issues connected to gender and power. These interventions will include improved processing methods, such as parboiling, solar drying, and kilning. Gender training and behavior change communication activities will address the gender and social relations in the fisheries value chain. The team will work with policymakers to increase recognition of the importance of fish production and gender equality in national and regional policies. Men and women from the Malawian and Zambian communities will participate in the analysis and in developing innovations. Partnerships between researchers, private sector representatives, local community members, and government staff will help to build strong links with those responsible for fisheries governance in Malawi and Zambia. In mid-2015, the project modified the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI, Uganda abridged version) to fit the capture fisheries context. The WEAI is a survey-based index that measures the state of empowerment and gender parity in the broad agriculture sector, identifies areas that empowerment-focused interventions could be strengthened, and enables projects to track progress implementing their interventions over time. WEAI measures the roles and extent of women’s engagement in agriculture in five domains: decisions about agricultural production, access to and decision-making power over productive resources, control over use of income, leadership in the community, and time use. It also measures women’s empowerment relative to men’s within their homes (see Alkire et al. 2013 and Sraboni et al. 2014 for more information on the WEAI). The project’s modification efforts of the WEAI produced the Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries Index (WEFI). Changes made included: 1) exclusion of certain questions and domain sections that were not appropriate given the project focus; 2) alterations to domain sections to shorten the questionnaire and ensure it took under 45 minutes to administer with project participants; and 3) addition of a gender attitudes scale on norms (see Nanda 2011) in part due to the relatively short duration of the project as attitudinal change precedes behavioral change (Underwood 2009). In addition, the project interviewed women and men value chain actors (fishers, processors, and traders) and not their spouses. The project’s original intent behind developing and using the WEFI was to benchmark gendered aspects of the capture fishery value chain, use this information to inform project activities and the design of the GTC tool, and track any changes that occurred over the course of the project by administering the WEFI at endline. The project did not envision using the WEFI to develop a score that gauged women and men value chain actors’ levels of empowerment given the significant changes made to the instrument during the modification process. The WEFI underwent extensive pretesting and refinement before administering it at baseline. The data collected by the WEFI and used for analysis in this study included those on women’s and men’s involvement in fishing, processing and trading fish and their control over the use of income generated from these activities, their ownership status of key value chain assets, and on gender attitudes. Project participants were asked whether they participated in a particular value chain activity (e.g., fishing) in the past 12 months prior to administering the WEFI and how much input (no input, or low, medium, or high input) they made into decisions on the use of income generated from the activity. In this study, larger input into decisions made on the use of income from fishing or trading fish implies a person is more empowered. Participants were also asked about who in their household owns a certain value chain asset, specifically whether they or their spouse owned it outright or they owned it jointly with their spouse. It is believed that joint ownership of assets rather than sole ownership by an individual or their spouse is a more equitable way of owning assets within the household, especially those that help or are sold to generate larger sums of money. The gender attitudes scale comprised 8 statements that participants were asked to respond to: “agree” = 1, “partially agree” = 2, “disagree” = 3. Responses to the 8 statements were summed with the highest score = 24 (perfect gender equal attitude) and the lowest score = 8 (perfect gender unequal attitude). Statements reflected current gender norms such as “women should not get involved in fishing fulltime, this is a man’s responsibility” and “women should primarily be the ones who clean and...

本项目与巴罗策地区（Barotse）、奇尔瓦湖（Lake Chilwa）的渔业社区及其他合作伙伴开展合作，将对鱼类价值链展开分析——其中涵盖男性与女性的差异化角色，以厘清鱼类在产量、营养成分与经济价值层面出现损耗的成因。随后，研究团队将制定并试点各类干预措施以减少上述损耗，同时改善与性别及权力相关的问题。此类干预措施将包含改良加工方法，例如预煮加工、太阳能干燥与窑烘干燥。性别培训与行为改变传播活动将用于改善渔业价值链中的性别与社会关系。研究团队还将与政策制定者合作，提升各国与区域政策对渔业生产重要性及性别平等的认可度。马拉维与赞比亚社区的男女居民将参与分析工作与创新方案的制定。研究人员、私营部门代表、当地社区成员与政府工作人员之间的合作，将助力构建与马拉维及赞比亚渔业治理负责方的紧密联系。

2015年中期，本项目对《农业女性赋权指数》（Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, WEAI）乌干达精简版进行适配调整，以适配捕捞渔业场景。WEAI是一项基于调查的指数，用于衡量广义农业领域的赋权现状与性别平等状况，识别可强化赋权导向干预措施的领域，并助力项目追踪其干预措施的实施进度。WEAI从五个维度衡量女性在农业领域的参与角色与程度：农业生产决策、生产资源获取与决策权、收入使用控制权、社区领导力及时间使用。同时，该指数还衡量家庭内部女性相较于男性的赋权水平（详见阿尔基尔等（Alkire et al., 2013）与斯拉博尼等（Sraboni et al., 2014）以了解WEAI的更多细节）。

本项目对WEAI的调整最终形成了《渔业女性赋权指数》（Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries Index, WEFI），调整内容包括：1）剔除部分与项目聚焦方向不符的问题与领域模块；2）优化领域模块以缩短问卷时长，确保面向项目参与者的问卷作答时间不超过45分钟；3）新增一项关于规范的性别态度量表（详见南达，2011），这一调整部分源于本项目周期较短——因为态度改变先于行为改变（安德伍德，2009）。此外，本项目访谈的对象为男女价值链参与者（渔民、加工者与贸易商）本人，而非其配偶。

本项目开发并使用WEFI的初衷是：为捕捞渔业价值链的性别维度建立基准，利用相关信息为项目活动与GTC工具的设计提供参考，并通过在项目末期开展WEFI调研追踪项目周期内的变化。鉴于修改过程中对该工具进行了大幅调整，本项目并未计划使用WEFI生成用于衡量男女价值链参与者赋权水平的评分。WEFI在基线调研前经过了广泛的预测试与优化调整。

本研究使用的WEFI采集数据包括：男女在捕鱼、鱼类加工与贸易中的参与情况，他们对上述活动产生的收入的使用控制权，对价值链核心资产的所有权状况，以及性别态度。项目参与者需回答：在WEFI调研前的12个月内，是否参与过某项价值链活动（例如捕鱼），以及他们在该活动产生的收入使用决策中的投入程度（无投入、低投入、中等投入或高投入）。在本研究中，对捕鱼或鱼类贸易收入使用决策的投入程度越高，意味着该参与者的赋权水平越高。参与者还需回答：其家庭中谁拥有某项价值链资产，具体为该资产是由受访者本人或其配偶单独所有，还是由受访者与配偶共同所有。学界普遍认为，相较于个人或其配偶单独所有，资产的共同所有是家庭内部更公平的资产持有方式，尤其是对于那些可用于创收或出售以获取大额收益的资产而言。

性别态度量表包含8项陈述，参与者需进行作答："同意"计1分、"部分同意"计2分、"不同意"计3分。8项陈述的得分相加后，最高分24分（完全性别平等态度），最低分8分（完全性别不平等态度）。量表陈述涵盖当前性别规范，例如"女性不应全职参与捕鱼，这是男性的职责"与"女性应主要负责清洁及……"