The impacts of women's land ownership: Evidence from Vietnam

• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Author: My Nguyen,Kien Le
• Date: 01 February 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12941

REGULAR ARTICLE

The impacts of women's land ownership:

Evidence from Vietnam

My Nguyen | Kien Le

Faculty of Economics and Public

Management, Ho Chi Minh City Open

University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Correspondence

My Nguyen, Faculty of Economics and

Public Management, Ho Chi Minh City

Open University, Ho Chi Minh City,

Vietnam.

Email: my.ngt@ou.edu.vn

Abstract

Women's equal access to and control over economic

resources such as land are integral to achieve gender

equality and sustainable economic development. This

study evaluates the impacts of women's land ownership

on various women's and household's outcomes in the

context of Vietnam. We discuss the beneficial effects of

allowing women to own more land on both women

and their families. In particular, there is a positive

association between women's land ownership and

intra-household bargaining power in various aspects.

In particular, the relationship is the strongest for

women's autonomy in decisions regarding their chil-

dren. It is also easier for land-holding women to

formally access credit and invest in human capital. We

further study the favorable effects of women's land

ownership on their families in terms of spending and

saving behaviors. Finally, women's land ownership also

contributes to household social capital. These findings

lend support to the passage and implementation of

laws intended to grant women equal rights to the

ownership and control over land.

KEYWORDS

empowerment, land ownership, sustainable development,

women

JEL CLASSIFICATION

J16, O12, O15, Q24

Received: 5 June 2020 Revised: 15 February 2022 Accepted: 2 September 2022

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12941

158 © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Rev Dev Econ. 2023;27:158–177.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode

1|INTRODUCTION

It is documented that land ownership reduces women's dependence on their husbands,

increases their autonomy in household decision-making, and enhances their access to productive

resources such as credit and extension services (FAO, 2018;Mishra&Sam,2016;Wiig,2013).

Furthermore, women who own land tend to invest more in their children's health as well as edu-

cation (Allendorf, 2007; Menon, Van Der Meulen Rodgers, & Nguyen, 2014). Therefore, improv-

ing women's equal access to and control over resources such as land is integral to achieve gender

equality as well as sustainable economic development (Duflo, 2012;FAO,2018;Han,Zhang,&

Zhang, 2019). In fact, within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a strong emphasis

has been placed on the implementation of reforms supposed to grant women equal right to the

ownership and control over land (FAO, 2018; United Nations, 2015).

Nevertheless, legislation in many developing countries fails to secure women's control and

ownership of land. For example, during the initial years after the passage of Vietnam's 1993

Law on Land, the certificate for land rights had space for only one name, which was usually the

name of the male household head. It means that in most cases, only men were legally titled to

land. Although further reforms requiring joint land ownership were introduced (between hus-

band and wife), these regulations are not well enforced, leaving gender disparities in land rights

intact (Menon et al., 2014; Ravallion & Van de Walle, 2008). In the context of Nepal, the 1853

National Code heavily restricted women's property rights (Allendorf, 2007; Mishra &

Sam, 2016).

1

Although amendments have been passed to secure women's land rights such as

promoting a wife's joint ownership of her husband's land, the lack of awareness along with

social norms prevents women from exercising their property rights and gaining access to land

(Mishra & Sam, 2016; Pandey, 2010).

2

Therefore, it is no surprise that women account for only

15% of the global agricultural landowners (FAO, 2018).

In this paper, we provide additional evidence on the effects of women's land ownership by focus-

ing on the context of Vietnam. The study makes two major contributions to the literature. First,

unlike prior studies that consider only the extensive margin of land ownership, that is, whether the

woman owns land, we account for the intensive margin of land ownership. We do so by considering

the proportion of the household's land area owned by a woman. It is expected that a woman titled

to a large fraction of land could possess a very different position in the family compared to a woman

who owns just a small fraction of land, which cannot be captured by the extensive margin of land

ownership. Second, we conduct a rigorous analysis on the impacts of women's land ownership on

both women and household outcomes, which are underexplored in the literature. Regarding women

outcomes, besides carefully considering women's intra-household bargaining power, we investigate

the effects of women's land ownership on their access to productive resources and the purposes of

use. Regarding household outcomes, not only do we thoroughly examine household food

budget allocation, but we also analyze household saving behavior. Finally, we shed light on the rela-

tionship between women's land ownership and household social capital.

To estimate the impacts of interest, we draw from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household

Survey (VARHS) and utilize a household fixed effects model. We find that women's land ownership

leads to improvements in a variety of outcomes for the wife and her household. There is a strong

association between women's land ownership and intra-household decision-making authority. A

wife owning 100% of the household's land has higher autonomy in household decision-making

(measured by the composite decision index) by 0.08 points than a woman without any land, which

is about 13% of the mean. While the improvement in authority results from various aspects, the esti-

mated impacts of women's land ownership on nonfinancial decision-making authority are much

NGUYEN AND LE 159