Economic opportunities for women in floriculture, women’s health and child nutritional outcomes

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A key feature of economic development is structural change resulting in the absorption of underemployed labor from agriculture to the industry or service sectors. In Sub-Saharan African countries, the ongoing structural transformation is augmented with the expansion of the high value agri-food export sector which mainly comprises of production and export of horticultural products. The sector is mainly operated by large companies and is increasingly becoming a main source of employment opportunities for low income rural households, especially for unskilled laborers. This mainly stems from the fact that the high value agri-food industry is labor intensive and has a substantial potential to absorb the continuously growing young population in the region. Importantly, the agri-food industry mostly employs women and has a gender dimension to the welfare impacts. Growing empirical literature shows that women’s employment in agri-food industry contributed to an increase in household income, women empowerment and improvements in other welfare indicators, including food security and child education. Less attention however has been given to the implications of the sector for the physical and reproductive health of women and for young children’s nutritional outcome. This is particularly relevant in the floriculture sector which tends to employ a high percentage of women and at the same time involves the use of hazardous chemicals with negative implications for the health of working women. In this project, we focus on the health and nutrition implications of floriculture employment for the most vulnerable groups of the rural society, women and children. Rigorous econometric analysis will be applied to identify the causal impact. Health effects on women will be analyzed using both subjective health data and objective measures. In addition, implications for nutritional outcomes of children will be examined using height-for-age and weight-for-height Z-scores. Overall, the main variables of interest include anthropometric outcomes of children, health status of women, fertility of women, dietary effects, and differences in institutional set ups of the flower farms. Empirical analyses for this project will be based on Ethiopia, a country where the cut flower sector has boomed in the recent years. Data will be collected from households living in the vicinity of flower farms in Ethiopia. Findings will provide an empirical example that will be relevant for other Sub-Saharan African countries with a similar context. Results will also have an important contribution to advancing the research direction in examining health impacts of employment opportunities. Further, findings will inform policies since health impacts of employment in the high-value chain sector on women and children have a long-term development implication. In the end, the future economy of Sub-Saharan African countries relies on the future generation.