Who Benefits from Better Roads and Why? Mixed Methods Analysis of the Gender-Disaggregated Impacts of a Rural Roads Project in Vietnam
The literature lends empirical support for the idea that improvements to transport infrastructure lead to economic development. How and why the benefits of better transport differ between genders is less clear. This paper attempts to answer this qu...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/988911587391789207/Who-Benefits-from-Better-Roads-and-Why-Mixed-Methods-Analysis-of-the-Gender-Disaggregated-Impacts-of-a-Rural-Roads-Project-in-Vietnam http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33637 |
| Summary: | The literature lends empirical support
for the idea that improvements to transport infrastructure
lead to economic development. How and why the benefits of
better transport differ between genders is less clear. This
paper attempts to answer this question by combining a
nonexperimental impact evaluation of a large-scale rural
roads project in Vietnam with qualitative data collection.
The paper finds that roads improve economic opportunities
for agricultural production and trade: all households
increase agricultural trade. Yet only households headed by
men capitalize on these opportunities, experiencing an
increase in agricultural output and income. Production and
income do not increase in households headed by women. The
result seems to be driven by a lower level of household
labor and access to capital in female-headed households,
which constrains their ability to make up-front investments
to increase production and income. Overall, the results
indicate that female-headed households face constraints in
taking advantage of newly created economic opportunities.
Coordinating transport investments with complementary
development programs addressing these constraints can
improve the benefits of better transport for such households. |
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