Gendered Incidence and Impact of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System

Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provide an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only wide...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Deininger, Klaus, Xia, Fang, Holden, Stein
Format: Journal Article
Published: Taylor and Francis 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29304
Description
Summary:Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provide an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land but is also associated with a productivity loss of 12 per cent for female operators, equivalent to US$ 14 million per year at the national level, enough to pay for a nation-wide tenure regularization program in two to three years.