Incidences of experiential and perceptive food insecurity among the Ethiopian and Nigerian households: Do environmental shock and head's gender matter?

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Ikechukwu Darlington Nwaka,Seyi Saint Akadiri
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2416

ACADEMIC PAPER

Incidences of experiential and perceptive food insecurity

among the Ethiopian and Nigerian households: Do

environmental shock and head's gender matter?

Ikechukwu Darlington Nwaka

1

| Seyi Saint Akadiri

2

1

Department of Economics, Girne American

University, Girne, Turkey

2

Research Department, Central Bank of

Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria

Correspondence

Seyi Saint Akadiri, Research Department,

Central Bank of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria.

Email: ssakadiri@cbn.gov.ng

Using two food insecurity measures (perceptive and experiential), we investigate

whether environmental shocks and other household characteristics do matter in

determining gendered nature of food insecurity in Ethiopia and Nigeria using the

Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey and General Household Survey cross-sectional panel

data for Nigeria. Applying Tobit and Probit models, we found significant differences

in the determinants of food security between male and female-headed households in

both countries. On perceptive food security indicators, female-headed households

(FHHs) are about two times more food insecure in Nigeria than it is in Ethiopia. Addi-

tionally, households that experienced shocks related to droughts or floods are almost

10 times likely to be food insecure in Ethiopia than it is in Nigeria which remained

the same after controlling for other household covariates. On experiential food secu-

rity indicators, while we see a significant effect of drought shock on days of food

reduction and restriction in Ethiopia, that of Nigeria is statistically insignificant. We

might associate this to possible differences in countries' demographic and tropical

location. Reflecting on mechanisms driving the established results, we observed that

the probability of food insecurity rises as the frequency of drought shock increases,

but with differential effects amongst male-headed households (MHHs) and FHHs

across both countries. In Ethiopia, probability of experiential food insecurity is lower

for the FHHs who are single (De jure and De factor), but in Nigeria, FHHs appears to

present higher incidences food insecurity. This result for Ethiopia implies that possi-

ble causes of food insecurity amongst the FHHs are associated with their status as

being single income heads which allows for independent decision concerning

consumption in the households.

1|INTRODUCTION

Climate change induced droughts and flooding present natural calami-

ties with detrimental effects to food gender equality and food security

(Memon, Aamir, & Ahmed, 2018). Firmly entrenched in the second

and fifth Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United

Nations, strong policy agenda emphasizes the fundamental need goal

toward food security and gender equality respectively. Over the years,

the study whether the female-headed households (FHH) are more

food secure than their male-headed households (MHH) has been the

focus of a number of researchers and policymakers (Fuwa, 2000;

Gangopadhyay & Wadhwa, 2004; Kassie, Stage, Teklewold, &

Erenstein, 2015; Mallick & Rafi, 2010). FHHs have been observed to

be more food insecure than MHHs, due to the economic and noneco-

nomic factors (see Odame, Hafkin, Wesseler, & Boto, 2002;

Quisumbing, 1995; World Bank, 2001). Several factors have been

pointed to account for this inequality. First, rests on cultural exclusion

hypothesis where community-based patriarchal norms related to

Received: 29 May 2020 Revised: 19 June 2020 Accepted: 16 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2416

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2416. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2416