Soft Skills for Hard Constraints : Evidence from High-Achieving Female Farmers
This paper documents the positive link between the noncognitive skills of women farmers and the adoption of a cash crop. The context is Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, where the majority of rural households practice subsistence f...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/938611496941808624/Soft-skills-for-hard-constraints-evidence-from-high-achieving-female-farmers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27295 |
| Summary: | This paper documents the positive link
between the noncognitive skills of women farmers and the
adoption of a cash crop. The context is Malawi, one of the
poorest countries in the world, where the majority of rural
households practice subsistence farming. The analysis finds
that a one standard deviation increase in noncognitive
ability related to perseverance is associated with a five
percentage point (or 33 percent) increase in the probability
of adoption of the main cash crop. This link is not
explained by differences across women in education and
cognitive skills. It is also not explained by the fact that
women with higher noncognitive ability tend to be married to
husbands of higher noncognitive ability and education. The
effect of female noncognitive skills on adoption is
concentrated in patrilocal communities, where women face
greater adversity and thus where it would be expected that
the returns to such skills would be highest. One main
channel through which noncognitive skills seem to work is
through the use of productive inputs, including higher
levels of labor, fertilizer, and agricultural advice services. |
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