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This paper investigates whether the relative self-esteem level of spouses can lead to within- household competition for inputs and affect economic gender inequality in the home. Using data on smallholder farmer couples in Cote d'Ivoire, the paper examines the relationship between spouses' self-esteem and income-earning in agriculture. Although the link between own self-esteem and crop income earning is positive, there is a "battle of the sexes" in which one spouse's self-esteem is negatively related to the other's income earning, particularly income earning in higher-value, export-oriented agriculture. Women's outcomes are more sensitive to their own self-esteem (positively) and to their partners' (negatively) than men's. This negative relationship is driven by individuals during middle age, when self-esteem is considered most stable. A key channel through which self-esteem appears to matter is by increasing control over household land, which is a scarce but crucial input to agricultural production. In addition to confirming the importance of noncognitive skills for poverty reduction in rural settings, the findings highlight the importance of their impact on intra- and inter-household inequality, especially in the presence of interlocking market failures constraining the supply of inputs to production.

Africa Gender Policy --- Agricultural Investment --- Cognitive Skills --- Export Crops --- Gender and Development --- Gender and Rural Development --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Inequality --- Land Rights --- Psychology --- Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction --- Self-Esteem --- Socioeconomic Skills --- Wages, Compensation and Benefits

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This paper analyzes changes in agricultural productivity gender gaps in Cote d'Ivoire between 2008 and 2016 using decomposition methods. The analysis finds that the unconditional gender gap between male- and female-headed households has decreased by 14 percent over the past decade. The conditional gender gap has decreased by 32 percent and becomes statistically insignificant once accounting for whether households farm export crops. This transition is driven by improvements across crop types, but it is particularly remarkable for export crop productivity, likely due to increased adoption of fertilizer and pesticide by female-headed households. Despite these substantial improvements, female-headed households in the bottom half of the distribution remain disadvantaged. Moreover, over the past decade, female-headed households did not transition into commercial agriculture and have witnessed greater reductions in land area compared with their male counterparts. The results show that helping these female-headed households access agricultural labor, strengthen their land rights, and adopt export crops are the three most promising policy options to reach gender parity in agriculture in Cote d'Ivoire.

Africa Gender Policy --- Agricultural Productivity --- Agricultural Sector Economics --- Agriculture --- Climate Change and Agriculture --- Gender --- Gender and Development --- Gender and Economic Policy --- Gender and Economics --- Gender and Poverty --- Gender Gap --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Household Welfare --- Income Distribution --- Inequality --- Poverty Reduction --- Women and Agriculture