Impact of women’s share of income on selected value chains expenditure in rural south-east Nigeria

There exists a complex web of value chain expenditures in production and consumption of food by rural farm households. Men and women contribute differently to these expenditures. Addressing zero hunger in the regions with deeply entrenched gender norms requires gender responsiveness, uncovering how best to sustain women’s contribution in the selected value chains, as women contribute a greater proportion of gender involved in these web of chains. We used data from a sample of 400 households constituting 2520 members from November 2016 to April 2017 and disaggregated by gender to determine the impact of women’s and men’s share of income on the performance of selected value chain activities in southeast Nigeria using a bargaining model of household behaviour. We found that increasing women’s share of incomes raises the budget share of food preparation, planting, weeding, processing, and storage while increasing men’s share of income raised the budget share of clearing and cultivation. Our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing expenditure on any of the value chains should focus on instruments targeting the gender that will more likely spend their money on the value chains activity concerned. This will address gender inequality, food insecurity and poverty among rural farm households.