{"title":"Unintended consequences of farm input subsidies: women’s contraceptive usage and knock-on effects on children","authors":"Martin Limbikani Mwale, Tony Mwenda Kamninga","doi":"10.1007/s12546-024-09337-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sub-Saharan Africa’s countries adopted farm input subsidies, with a twin goal of bolstering food security and reducing poverty. Many scholars evaluate the subsidies against these intended impacts, while ignoring the potential unintended consequences. In this paper, we take advantage of a rare combination of information on both contraceptive usage and a subsidy program, from Malawi’s 2020 multiple indicator cluster survey, to investigate whether Malawi’s farm input subsidy program (FISP) affected women’s contraceptive usage. Using the instrumental variables method, we find that women that lived in FISP households increased contraceptives usage. This is in line with the hypothesis that the women aimed to prevent pregnancy, and hence dedicate uninterrupted time to farming, complementing the FISP. More of women’s time in farming could imply less of their time in domestic chores. We, therefore, further investigated whether children, in the same households, increased participation in the domestic chores, to take up roles left by the farming women. We find that this is the case. These findings therefore highlight the importance of understanding both the intended and unintended consequences of welfare programmes to ensure that the impacts of such programmes are not over-or underestimated.</p>","PeriodicalId":45624,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF POPULATION RESEARCH","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF POPULATION RESEARCH","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-024-09337-y","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"DEMOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa’s countries adopted farm input subsidies, with a twin goal of bolstering food security and reducing poverty. Many scholars evaluate the subsidies against these intended impacts, while ignoring the potential unintended consequences. In this paper, we take advantage of a rare combination of information on both contraceptive usage and a subsidy program, from Malawi’s 2020 multiple indicator cluster survey, to investigate whether Malawi’s farm input subsidy program (FISP) affected women’s contraceptive usage. Using the instrumental variables method, we find that women that lived in FISP households increased contraceptives usage. This is in line with the hypothesis that the women aimed to prevent pregnancy, and hence dedicate uninterrupted time to farming, complementing the FISP. More of women’s time in farming could imply less of their time in domestic chores. We, therefore, further investigated whether children, in the same households, increased participation in the domestic chores, to take up roles left by the farming women. We find that this is the case. These findings therefore highlight the importance of understanding both the intended and unintended consequences of welfare programmes to ensure that the impacts of such programmes are not over-or underestimated.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Population Research is a peer-reviewed, international journal which publishes papers on demography and population-related issues. Coverage is not restricted geographically. The Journal publishes substantive empirical analyses, theoretical works, applied research and contributions to methodology. Submissions may take the form of original research papers, perspectives, review articles and shorter technical research notes. Special issues emanating from conferences and other meetings are also considered.