Gender Difference: Decision Making in Agricultural Production in Yayo District, South-Western Ethiopia

Recently, gender differences in agriculture have caught attention of many scholars and researchers. The objective of this paper is to analyze women’s and men’s access to and decision making over productive resources in Yayo district with the intension of identifying gaps between them in terms of equity and equality. To meet the above mentioned objective, a cross sectional survey design was employed with a mixed research approach of data collection and analysis. Both primary and secondary data were gathered. Among 17 kebeles that are found in Yayo district, Witate and Hamuma were selected purposively. Among the total 2060 husbands and wives who live together, 324 of them were picked randomly by using Raosoft sample size determination formula. Household survey, key informant interview, and focus group discussions were used as methods of data collection. Descriptive statistics and chi-square were used as quantitative methods of data analysis where as thematic analysis was used as a qualitative method of data analysis. Findings from descriptive statistics showed decision making on when and how to prepare land, what to grow, fertilizer utilization, and when to harvest were dominantly decided by men. Insufficient well among the users of drinking water impeded other activities because women stay long hours to access to drinking water. This calls for the designing of effective interventions to address the problems of quality water service provision.