Asset ownership is important for women since it can improve their bargaining, help them in case of exogenous shocks and increase their choice set. Yet, in most cases, assets may not be individually owned but rather a joint resource that is used by all members of the household. This makes it difficult to design interventions targeting women’s asset ownership, especially in countries such as Pakistan, due to the lack of gender disaggregated data available on the kind of assets that women own and control. In this regard, data collected by the government and made publicly available can help in identifying trends in key indicators of asset ownership and to identify target groups within the population in a cost-effective manner. The problem is that most surveys are conducted at the level of the household where information is gathered on the head of the household who is normally a male member. This makes it difficult to disentangle relationships of individual and joint ownership of assets within the household as well to decide whom to target regarding interventions in which the main beneficiary has been identified as women.

One of the ways in which this obstacle can be overcome is by ensuring that data on access to resources such as assets is disaggregated by gender as well as individual and joint ownership Although the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) gathers data regarding asset ownership of land and other durable goods such as televisions, cars and motorcycles, their microdata released for 2019-2020 for the first time also includes data on asset ownership disaggregated not only by gender but by joint ownership as well. Despite this progression in the way data is being collected, the released microdata does not differentiate by the kind of asset that the household owns. Households are questioned about two assets: land and livestock, but without knowing which asset the information is about it becomes difficult to look at trends regarding women’s ownership of these assets and the factors that impact their ownership of such assets.

Individually owning land or livestock can significantly impact a woman’s ability to obtain credit which ultimately has a significant impact on her empowerment. It can also improve women’s social standing in the community given the importance of both types of assets as indicators of status. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women are more likely to own livestock as an asset since they are normally the ones in the household who take care of the well-being of the animals. It is also one of the commonly owned assets within rural and poor households. Animals can be quickly sold off for cash in times of exogenous shocks such as illness, crop failure or expenses of a major event such as a marriage, death, or birth. Livestock can also be used as a form of collateral if the household needs to borrow money from other people in the community. But with the introduction of legal reforms that support women’s rights to land, it becomes important to determine how much land women currently own and how this reform may have positively impacted these numbers. Land is an important asset for any individual to own especially in an agriculturally based economy such as Pakistan where land is an important commodity in both urban and rural areas. In both locations, land not only provides a place to stay but also to grow crops or to provide rental income. Protecting women’s land rights is a necessity for ensuring women’s empowerment. Land is a critical source of revenue through which women can secure subsistence and collateral. Therefore, knowing the extent of the gender gap in land ownership as well as the profile of women who gain access over land can help to guide interventions which can have the highest impact on women’s legal access over land rights. It is a positive step that the PSLM survey has ensured that women and joint ownership options are also included in the survey but summing the values of land ownership and livestock ownership can present a conflated picture of asset ownership which may not be beneficial to women in the true sense.

Even if this issue in microdata can be sorted, it would still only present a partial picture on the gender gap in asset ownership with regards to land and livestock. Although the existing data can provide a clearer picture on the kind of asset (land or livestock), women in Pakistan are more likely to hold and which profile of women are more likely to hold these assets, it still lacks information regarding who within the household primarily takes decisions regarding these assets. This can also lead to difficulty in identifying the channels of decision-making regarding the asset within the household and the bargaining power that ownership can create for individuals within the household. These problems of access and control over assets are further compounded for women in Pakistan because ownership rights for assets are normally implemented according to existing social norms rather than formal rules. The informal nature of these rights can create difficulty in formal arenas such as disputes and markets especially over assets which may be jointly owned. It is also not uncommon in areas of Pakistan for assets to be maintained primarily for the purpose of subsistence but certain individuals within the household (normally women and girls) may still not be benefitting in terms of the increased revenue to the household. This makes it even more important to have gender disaggregated data of the gender gap in access and decision-making of assets and specifically information regarding individual ownership of land and livestock. The detail in the data can help in identifying marginalised segments of the gender population and the reasons for this marginalisation so that the design of interventions targeting women can be more effective and benefit the largest number of women.

Dr. Hana Zahir is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, LUMS and the Gender Specialist – Asia for Harvest Plus (IFPRI).

Notes

• Agarwal, B. (2003). Gender and land rights revisited: Exploring new prospects via the state, family and market. Journal of agrarian change, 3(1‐2), 184-224.
• Deere, C. D., & Doss, C. R. (2006). The gender asset gap: What do we know and why does it matter?. Feminist economics, 12(1-2), 1-50.
• Njuki, J., & Sanginga, P. (2013). Gender and livestock: key issues, challenges and opportunities. Women, Livestock Ownership and Markets, 1-8.