Women's Economic Activities, Household Decision Making & Child Welfare in Manabi, Ecuador

第二次世界大战后，不发达国家的经济发展项目侧重于为男性创造收入，假设男性将把收益分配给妇女和儿童。 经过几十年的经验，发展问题专家认识到，收入往往没有得到公平分配-妇女和儿童的福利往往被忽视。 过去20年来，这些项目一直试图把重点放在妇女作为儿童的主要照料者。 该项目评价一种形式的发展项目-合作食品加工厂-对妇女控制资源和改善其子女福祉的能力的影响。 匹兹堡大学的这一奖项支持一个人种学项目，研究厄瓜多尔农村贫困妇女参与经济发展项目对其家庭经济和健康福祉的影响。 研究将在四个社区进行，其中两个是合作发展项目的所在地，另两个不是。 该项目将记录妇女对收入和其他资源的控制情况，审查有关家庭资源的家庭决策，并研究参与创收活动对妇女和儿童健康和营养状况的影响。 有待检验的假设是，妇女在合作项目中的活动对其子女的福祉产生积极影响。 将收集人种学和调查数据，涉及广泛的变量，包括社会参与、社区对社会福利和保健的投资、个人对男女重要性和社会价值的看法，以及人体测量和营养数据，以评估研究村庄抽样家庭的福利。 这项研究很重要，因为如果不显著改善妇女和儿童的福利，经济发展就不可能成功。 评估不同改善福利战略的重要性的新知识将有助于规划者和政府设计更好的改善农村福利的方法。

Economic development projects in the underdeveloped world after World War 2 focused on generating income for men, assuming that the men would distribute the benefits to women and children. After decades of experiences development specialists realized that the income frequently was not fairly distributed -- the welfare of women and children was often ignored. For the past 20 years projects have attempted to focus on women as the primary caretakers of children. This project evaluates one form of development project -- a cooperative food processing plant -- in its impact on women's abilities to control resources and improve the well-being of their children. This award to the University 0f Pittsburgh supports an ethnographic project to study the effects of poor rural Ecuadorian women's participation in economic development projects on their household economic and health well-being. The research will take place in four communities, two which were the sites of cooperative development projects, and two which were not. The project will document the control of income and other resources by women, examine household decision making concerning household resources, and study the impact of participation in income generating activities on the health and nutritional status of women and children. The hypothesis to be tested is that activity by women in cooperative projects positively affects the well-being of their children. Both ethnographic and survey data will be gathered on a broad range of variables including social participation, community investment in social welfare and health, individual perceptions of the importance and social worth of men and women, as well as anthropometric and nutritional data, to assess the welfare of a sample of households in the study villages. This research is important because economic development can not be successful without significant improvement in the welfare of women and children. New knowledge which assesses the significance of different strategies of improving welfare will be useful to planners and governments in designing better ways to improve rural welfare.