Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Does empowering women benefit poverty reduction? Evidence

from a multi-component program in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region of China

GU Rui, NIE Feng-ying

Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, P.R.China

Abstract
Ending poverty is a top priority of the international development agenda, and governments worldwide have attached great
importance to poverty alleviation measures. However, poverty reduction policies have mostly focused on men, which has
widened the gap in productivity and income between men and women and increased gender inequality. This paper aims
to determine the impacts of a multi-component program on women’s empowerment and poverty reduction, and explore the
role empowered women play in poverty reduction. The dataset used in this study was collected in nine poor counties of
Ulanqab City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China at the end of 2014, yielding a sample of 900 households.
Recall questions were used to reconstruct the baseline data and build a panel dataset. Smaller groups of rural households
were further identified to better target the women in the beneficiary group. To control the selection bias, propensity score
matching, inverse probability weighting, and the difference-in-differences matching method were used to analyze the
effect of the program and undertake robust checks. The results show that the program has positive effects on women’s
empowerment and poverty reduction simultaneously. Empowering women also has positive effects on poverty reduction,
and the women who were the beneficiaries have contributed to increasing the incomes and living standards of households.
Training, microfinance, and associations are common means or strategies to empower women to address poverty. This
paper provides new empirical evidence that women can benefit from a gender-focus program through portfolio intervention
such as training, cooperatives, and credit. Empowered women further improve the livelihoods of poor households and
help lift them out of poverty. The results suggest that researchers and policymakers need to pay more attention to poverty
issues from the perspective of gender.

Keywords: women, empowerment, poverty reduction, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Received 18 June, 2020 Accepted 16 September, 2020
GU Rui, Tel: +86-10-82109968, E-mail: gurui@caas.cn;
Correspondence NIE Feng-ying, Tel: +86-10-82109901, E-mail:
niefengying@caas.cn
© 2021 CAAS. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
doi: 10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63436-0
1. Introduction
Since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
adopted at the United Nations Fourth World Conference
on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, empowering women
has been recognized as essential to realizing sustainable
development. It underpins the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
According to data from the World Bank in 2018, for every
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
100 men there were 104 women in poor households, and
it has been found that girls and women of reproductive age
are more likely to live in poor households than boys and
men (Boudet et al. 2018). Women are more vulnerable
to poverty than men due to cultural norms and values,
the gendered division of assets, and the power dynamics
between men and women (Atozou et al. 2017). Women
usually bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid household
responsibilities. If they have a job, it is most likely to
be casual, informal work, which is easily overlooked by
policymakers. Empowerment is the process whereby
women learn knowledge and skills, overcome difficulties,
and benefit from helpful resources along the way (Cornwall
2016). It is not only an outcome but also an intermediate
variable to further observe other development outcomes
(Moyo et al. 2012), especially poverty. To achieve the
final goal of poverty reduction, greater emphasis must be
placed on gender equality and removing the barriers that
affect women.
Empowering women is a vital instrument in the fight
against poverty (Sharma et al. 2012; Faborode and Alao
2016). In the short run, increasing women’s productivity
(Seymour 2017; Diiro et al. 2018), employment (Khumalo
and Freimund 2014; Maligalig et al. 2019), and earnings
can contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth.
And in the long run, gender equality is an important factor
in preventing the intergenerational transmission of poverty
(Morrison et al. 2007), because women often bear the
most important responsibility for raising the education
levels of children and mothers are directly related to the
improvement of children’s health and education (Malapit and
Quisumbing 2015; Sraboni and Quisumbing 2018; Holland
and Rammohan 2019; Jones et al. 2019). However, poverty
reduction policies have mostly focused on men, which has
widened the gap in productivity and income between men
and women and greater gender inequality. Meanwhile,
gender differences have also not been fully accounted for
in the traditional poverty analysis, design, and monitoring
system, which has dramatically reduced the effectiveness
of poverty reduction. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze
and address poverty issues from the perspective of gender.
Despite the theoretical potential of various development
strategies to simultaneously promote women’s empowerment
and poverty reduction, there are mixed messages in the
existing literature. For example, microfinance is well-
known to be an important means to empower women and
address poverty, usually combined with other thematic
areas (Taylor and Pereznieto 2014). However, there is
no consistent conclusion about microfinance’s effect on
women’s empowerment (van Rooyen et al. 2012; Ganle
et al. 2015; Hossain et al. 2016). While some researchers
1093
found microcredit programs had positive effects on women’s
empowerment (Lyngdoh and Pati 2013; Raphael and Mrema
2017), others found they had no effect or negative effects.
One possible reason for these discrepancies is the usage
of different measures for empowerment (Supriya 2013).
In addition, the fact that women have little control over
productive assets may account for their disempowerment
(Supriya 2008). The seemingly paradoxical findings from
previous studies suggest that the impacts of microfinance
programs depend on the context in which they are
implemented and how they are implemented.
Another example is agricultural cooperatives, which are
also increasingly promoted as part of rural development
strategies to empower women. Many studies have
examined the potential positive role of cooperatives in
women’s empowerment (Ferguson and Kepe 2011; Ataei
and Miandashti 2012; Biru 2014), but the conclusions
are also mixed (Mayoux 1992, 1995; Paryab et al. 2014).
Moreover, membership of a cooperative has heterogeneous
impacts, implying rural financial markets can maximize
the potential positive impacts of cooperative services on
farmers’ productivity and welfare (Wossen et al. 2017),
which suggests that the intervention portfolio might generate
opportunities to effectively empower women and further
contribute to poverty reduction. In addition, training is
another strategy, which can improve women’s empowerment
on aspects of increased control beliefs and intra-household
decision-making power (Huis et al. 2019). Overall, access
to resources (including credit, training, and social networks)
enable women to generate income and fight against poverty,
but it is not sufficient (Kabeer 1999; Cornwall 2016). The
relationship between women’s economic participation and
empowerment is complicated; increasing women’s incomes
does not necessarily balance gender relations (Bailur and
Masiero 2017).
This paper uses a dataset from one of the programs of
the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
in China to detect the simultaneous impact of a multi-
component program on women’s empowerment and poverty
reduction. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Rural
Advancement Programme (IMARRAP) became effective
in 2008 and ended in 2014. Its objective was to achieve
poverty reduction in the program area in a sustainable and
gender-equitable way. Generally, women in the program
area faced many constraints on their participation in
economic activities. They had limited access to resources
such as land, credit, technical advice, and the market,
which restricted their capacity to make a living and made
them more vulnerable to various risks. In this context, the
program aimed to reduce poverty through a “gender lens”
and provided training and credit to support women.
1094 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
After the initial sample design using village-level
propensity score matching (PSM), project villages and non-
project villages were chosen based on a series of indicators
such as the distribution of investment and beneficiaries.
Then direct beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries were
randomly selected in two different groups of villages,
respectively. In addition, indirect beneficiaries were also
identified and selected to detect possible spillover effects.
They were defined as the households that did not participate
in the program, which were adjacent to direct beneficiary
households. The data were collected in nine poor counties
of Ulanqab City at the end of 2014, where the program
was implemented, yielding a sample of 900 households.
To better target women beneficiaries, households in which
women reported their participation in the program were
further identified as being in the direct beneficiary group.
To better control the selection bias, household-level PSM,
inverse probability weighting (IPW), and the difference-in-
differences (DID)-PSM method were used to analyze the
effect of the program as well as provide robust checks.
Recall questions were used for the baseline data as
neither the beneficiary groups had a comparison group nor
provided the necessary outcome indicators. The respective
indicators of women’s empowerment were measured using
intra-household decision-making scored in the dimensions
of livelihood. Different poverty incidences calculated based
on income, consumption expenditure, and the wealth index
were used as the objective measurements of poverty and
households’ own judgments of their economic status as the
subjective measurement.
The results show women are empowered due to
participation in the program, and poor households potentially
move out of poverty due to empowered women. This paper
employs an empirical strategy to analyze the effect of a
package of interventions, including microcredit, training,
and association on women’s empowerment and poverty
reduction. With women assuming an ever more important
role in agricultural production in China, the results will
also provide evidence for researchers and policymakers
to better understand the relationship between women’s
empowerment and poverty reduction.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a
brief introduction of program context and raises the hypothesis
that needed to be examined under the empowerment
framework. Section 3 presents the methodology to detect
the relationship among program participation, women’s
empowerment, and poverty reduction, including the data and
sampling strategy, empirical strategy, indicator definition,
1
100 USD=686.91 CNY (2020).
and descriptive statistics. Sections 4 and 5 report the results
of the empirical models and discuss the main findings.
Section 6 summarizes and concludes the findings.
2. Context and framework
2.1. Program area
Ulanqab City is located in the middle of the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region of China, with its longitude between
40°10´N and 43°28´N and latitude between 110°26´E and
114°49´E. By the end of 2006, the city was administratively
divided into Jining District, Fengzhen City (county-level),
and nine rural banners or counties. All nine banners or
counties involved in this study were Chayouqian Banner,
Chayouzhong Banner, Chayouhou Banner, Siziwang
Banner, Shandu County, Huade County, Xinghe County,
Zhouzi County, and Liangcheng County. Ulanqab belongs
to the mid-temperate zone and experiences a continental
climate. The annual average temperature is around 3°C,
and there are just 125 frost-free days. In 2008, the total
area of land in Ulanqab was around 5.45 million hectares,
of which 11% was arable land, 8.2% was forest, and 63%
was grassland (Jin 2009). Major crops included potatoes,
maize, vegetables, oilseeds, and sugar beet. The per
capita net income per year for the rural population (including
herdsmen and farmers) increased from 2 003 CNY1 (291.6
USD) in 2000 to around 4 061 CNY (591.2 USD) in 2008
(Jin 2016), and income for herdsmen was traditionally much
higher than for farmers engaged in crop growing.
In the program area, women had difficulties in accessing
resources such as new technology, extension services,
market information, and credit. More and more farmers
had been migrating from rural to urban areas before the
program implementation, of which most of the migrant
workers were male. Under these circumstances, women
were therefore rapidly becoming the main labor force for
farming activities. But women’s access to technical services
such as extension and skills training was very limited. Few
women were able to access such services provided through
the formal agricultural extension channels. On the other
hand, most rural women were highly motivated to improve
the livelihoods of their households. But women suffered
from relatively limited access to credit. Most loans provided
by formal financial credit institutions were to men. Some
poor women even had to pay high interest through informal
loan channels.
In response, the program attached importance to gender
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
focus at all levels of implementation and management.
First, there was a good proportion of women (about 35%)
in the program management team. Second, women had
equal opportunities or priority to access technologies such
as greenhouses for vegetable production and net sheds for
potato production, extension services including crop planting
and animal feeding, and the market. Third, specific modules
were designed to provide strategic support for women; for
example, the establishment of village-level micro-credit
groups and the provision of training to assist women to
establish income-generating activities.
2.2. Conceptualizing empowerment
From the previous studies, empowerment can be seen
as an approach to address poverty and gender inequality.
In the context of poverty reduction, empowerment refers
to the expansion of assets and capabilities so that poor
people can participate in, negotiate with, influence, control,
and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives
(Narayan 2002). Compared with conventional anti-poverty
approaches, an empowering approach is grounded in the
conviction that poor people themselves are invaluable
partners for development (Narayan 2005), with the emphasis
on reducing inequality through improving human capabilities
and the distribution of tangible assets (Narayan 2002).
As one of society’s empowerment subsets, the
empowerment of women has its unique concerns such
as cross-cutting category and intra-household relations
(Malhotra and Schuler 2005). In the context of gender
consideration, women’s empowerment is about the process
by which those who have been denied the ability to make
strategic life choices acquire such an ability (Kabeer
1999). Agency is generally viewed as the essence of
women’s empowerment (Malhotra and Schuler 2005),
which includes processes of decision-making and less-
ro
ap
as
ent
w erm
po
Em
Empowered women
Empowerment as an outcome
at the individual level Empowerment as a process
Fig. 1 The roadmap of this study.
1095
measurable manifestations such as negotiation, deception,
and manipulation (Kabeer 1999), though actors may be
constrained by their opportunity structure, which may
influence their ability to transform agency into action (Alsop
et al. 2006). Women always experience development
programs differently from men and are affected differently.
The existing evidence suggests that financial services and
training programs are not gender-neutral and that gender-
specific design can yield more positive economic outcomes
for women (Buvinić 2019).
The empowerment of women and poverty reduction
are intertwined with each other under the framework of
empowerment. A growing amount of evidence shows that
empowerment is instrumental in reducing income and
consumption poverty (Alsop et al. 2006). As a member of
a poor household, empowering a woman has the potential
to empower the whole household.
This paper aims to examine whether empowering
women through interventions (training, cooperatives,
financial services, etc.) could help achieve the poverty
reduction goal. Empirically, we examine the effect of the
program on women’s empowerment and poverty reduction
simultaneously. In detail, there are several steps as follows
(Fig. 1):
The first step is to examine whether the program had
positive effects on women’s empowerment and poverty
reduction simultaneously at the household level. In this step,
the participants might be both female and male members in a
poor household. Therefore, the possible positive results may
imply that empowered women have contributed to poverty
reduction, but the effect on poverty may not only come from
female beneficiaries but also from male beneficiaries.
The second step is to examine whether the program
has positive effects on women’s empowerment and poverty
reduction simultaneously at the individual level. In this step,
the participants are just the female members of a poor
Intervention
ss
ce
Poverty reduction
Empowerment as an outcome
at the household level
1096 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
household. Therefore, the possible positive results may
imply that empowered women have contributed to poverty
reduction.
The third step is to discuss the empowerment process
under different gender-specific interventions such as
training, cooperatives, and micro-credit services. In this
step, the possible reasons for women’s empowerment
through interventions and how they contribute to poverty
reduction are explored.
3. Data and methods
3.1. Data and sampling strategy
The data were collected in nine poor counties of Ulanqab
City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China
at the end of 2014, yielding a sample of 900 households.
Prior to conducting the household survey, a series of steps
were taken to facilitate an evaluation of the program. First,
treatment villages (project villages) were identified based
on the distribution of investment and beneficiary households
as well as the local coordinator’s opinion. Second, control
villages (non-project villages) that were most comparable
to treatment villages were identified using PSM with the
baseline data of 2008, conditional on a set of observable
characteristics such as per capita income, per capita
arable land, landform, and main production type. Third,
after discussion with key local organizations, a final village
list comprising 60 villages (30 treatment villages and 30
control villages). Fourth, within each treated village,
there were households who participated in the program
(participants) and others who did not (non-participants).
Since non-participants live near the participants, they may
obtain indirect benefits from the program. A useful group of
households were identified to detect the potential spillover
effects as well as avoid potential bias in the estimates of
impact, otherwise the estimates may reflect fundamental
differences between participants and non-participants
rather than the impact of the program. The final sample,
therefore, included three sets of households: (1) the direct
beneficiary households of the program, with 10 households
randomly chosen from selected treatment villages based
on lists of direct beneficiary households provided by village
leaders; (2) indirect beneficiary households in the treatment
village, with neighbor households of the direct beneficiaries
chosen from the treatment village; (3) non-beneficiary
households in the control villages, with 10 households
selected randomly from each selected control village.
Finally, the sample included a total of 900 households of
which 600 were in the treatment villages (300 were direct
beneficiaries and 300 were indirect beneficiaries) and 300
in the control villages.
For projects which lack valid baseline data, efforts should
be made to construct baseline data through respondent
recall (Bamberger 2009). Recall was used in this study
as the baseline data of 2008 did not have a comparison
group; in addition, inadequate baseline data were collected
at the household level on outcomes. The recall period
was indexed to a landmark event, the Beijing Olympic
Games coinciding with the baseline year, which ensured
some variables such as household asset ownership could
be reliably remembered. Again, specific training and pilot
interviews were performed to validate the recall data.
To avoid biases due to the effects of household structure
on decision-making outcomes, we restricted our analysis to
dual-adult households. In all, 816 dual-adult households
(those with male and female adults) were selected from all
900 households, excluding single-male and single-female
households.
Among the direct beneficiaries, rural households in which
only women were participants of the program were identified,
whatever they access to training, credit, and other resources
from the program. While in the indirect beneficiary group
and non-beneficiary group, no women participated in the
program directly. As a result, there were 177 households
in the direct beneficiary group, 237 households in the
indirect beneficiary group, and 251 households in the non-
beneficiary group.
3.2. Empirical strategy
The estimate of the treatment effect may be biased due to
possible non-random treatment assignment in observational
studies. PSM is a statistical matching technique that
minimizes bias and identifies every possible observation
under the treatment group and constructs a comparison
group with similar observable characteristics. The
implementation of PSM requires two steps. In the first
step, the propensity scores p(Xi) of households has been
estimated with a logit model containing the explanatory
variables Xi of the probability of enrolling in the program
(Ti=1 if a household is enrolled in the program and Ti=0
otherwise). The estimated propensity scores are then used
to construct the comparison groups.
p(Xi)=Pr(Ti=1|Xi)
In the second step, the average treatment effect on the
treated (ATT) has been estimated. The final estimator for
this average treatment effect is obtained as the average of
the differences in the situation of households in the treatment
group and their counterfactuals. The mean difference of
the two groups should be statistically significant to show an
effect on the surveyed households.
ATT=E(Yi1–Yi0|Ti=1)=E(Yi1|Ti=1)–E(Yi0|Ti=1)
where Yi1 is the potential outcome when Ti=1; Yi0 represents
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106 1097

the counterfactual outcome when Ti=0.
There are many different methods to find the “similar
households” in the control group with propensity scores
close to those treated households. Among them, the nearest
neighbor method chooses counterfactual households for
each treated household who is closest in terms of the
propensity score. Nearest neighbors are not determined
by comparing treated observations to every single control,
but rather by first sorting all records with the estimated
propensity score and then searching neighbors forward and
backward for the closest control unit. In addition, balancing
tests for PSM should be used to confirm the validity of
matching.
Inverse probability weighting (IPW) is an alternative to
PSM, which is also used to reduce the bias caused by non-
random treatment assignment. It tends to perform better
than even the most effective matching estimators in finite
samples (Busso et al. 2014). IPW refers to weighting the
outcome measures by the inverse of the probability of the
individual with a given set of covariates being assigned to
their treatment. The weights are constructed based on
propensity score p(Xi). They are 1/p(Xi) for the treated
participants and 1/[1–p(Xi)] for the untreated participants.  There are two main outcome focuses: poverty reduction
Ti 1–Ti
ω= +
p(Xi) 1–p(Xi)
Since the systematic differences in unobservable
variables may still bias PSM estimators, several extensions
have been proposed as a response. One of the extensions
is the difference-in-difference PSM estimators, which is
an attractive estimator because it permits the selection to
be based on potential program outcomes and allows for
selection on unobservable variables (Heckman et al. 1997).
Here, t1 represents the time period to when the program
was completed and t0 denotes a time period from when the
program started. The conditional difference-in-differences
estimator compares the conditional before–after outcomes
of program participants with those of non-participants.
It extends the conventional difference-in-differences
estimator by defining outcomes conditional on X and using
semiparametric methods to construct the differences.
Dt1, t0(Xi)=E(Yi1t1–Yi0t0|Xi, Ti=1)–E(Yi1t1–Yi0t0|Xi, Ti=0)
The key assumption for standard DID is that the outcome
in the treatment group and the control group would follow
the same time trend in the absence of the treatment. First, a
placebo test and DID estimation using different comparison
groups can be used to check the assumption of equal
trends. Second, for the PSM-DID strategy, a standard DID
is done using propensity score-matched groups. The point
of matching is to provide robustness against the potential
violation of the parallel trends assumption.
3.3. Key indicators
and women’s empowerment (Table 1). With regard to the
empowerment of women, its measurement is still being
debated. Some of the key methods that researchers
have used to measure empowerment include Gender
Development Index (GDI), Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM), and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index
(WEAI). Except for these indexes, the extent to which
women participate in intra-household decision-making

Table 1 Brief description of key outcome variables

Variable
Women’s empowerment
Decision-making score
Disempowered headcount ratio
Poverty
Poverty incidence (I)
Poverty incidence (E1)
Poverty incidence (E2)
Poverty incidence (W)
Poverty incidence (S1)
Poverty incidence (S2)
Description
The total score is calculated with equal weight given to six domains to measure the women’s
decision-making power. A score is assigned from 1 (a man has the final say alone) to 5 (a woman
has the final say alone) for each domain.
The inadequacy score is computed with equal weight given to the six domains. For each
domain, the value equals 1 when a man has the final say alone; and 0 otherwise. A woman is
disempowered when the inadequacy score is greater than 20%.
Measured using a poverty line of per capita rural household net income per year of 2 300 CNY
(334.83 USD) in 2010 constant prices. A household is poor when its per capita net income per
year is below the poverty line.
Measured using a poverty line of 1.25 USD per capita a day at 2005 purchasing power parities
(PPPs). A household is poor when its per capita expenditure per day is below the poverty line.
Measured using a poverty line of 1.90 USD per capita a day at 2011 PPPs. A household is poor
when its per capita expenditure per day is below the poverty line.
Five wealth quintiles are divided equally based on the wealth index. A household is poor when it is
in the lowest quintile.
There are four rural household categories recognized in the program area: better-off (A), ordinary
(B1), poor (B2), and very poor (C). A household is poor when it self-reports as B2 or C.
There are four rural household categories recognized in the program area: better-off (A), ordinary
(B1), poor (B2), and very poor (C). A household is poor when it self-reports to be C.
1098 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
processes is often used as a measurement of women’s
agency (Donald et al. 2017) and women’s empowerment
(Alkire et al. 2013; Seymour and Peterman 2018). The
Decision Power Index introduced in 1960 asked questions
about “who has the final say” in respect of eight family
decisions and weighted the answers from 5 (husband
always) to 1 (wife always) (Donald et al. 2017). Similar to
this idea, this paper scored on women’s decision-making
role within the household in six domains, including (1)
agricultural production, (2) access to and control over
productive resources, (3) access to and control over
household assets, (4) access to and control over food and
high-frequency non-food items, (5) access to credit, and
(6) social connection in the community. For each domain,
score was assigned in terms of the following rules (Hwang
et al. 2011): male has the final say alone=1, male has more
final say than woman=2, male has equal final say with
woman=3, male has less final say than woman=4, woman
has the final say alone=5. The total score was calculated
with equal weights to measure the women’s decision-making
power. Another method to measure women’s empowerment
in this paper is to calculate the disempowered headcount
following the main idea of WEAI (Alkire et al. 2013) but only
with the decision-making module. All adequacy indicators
in the above six domains were first coded, assuming that
the value 1 if the individual lacked adequate achievements
in that indicator and zero otherwise. An inadequacy score
was then computed for each person, according to his or
her inadequacies across all indicators. Assuming equal
weighs for simplicity, a second identification cut-off was set to
identify who is disempowered. After exploring the sensitivity
of the empowerment classification for different cut-offs, we
selected a disempowerment cut-off of 20% (Alkire et al.
2013). For those whose inadequacy score was less than
the disempowerment cut-off, their score was replaced with
zero. Then the disempowered headcount ratio was the total
population divided by the number of individuals who were
disempowered.
With regard to poverty, it can be measured using objective
and subjective indicators. The objective measures focus
on people’s access to different kinds of resources, and the
subjective measures emphasize the standard of living people
actually enjoy. From the objective aspect, there are three
principal indicators of economic status: household income,
household consumption expenditures, and household wealth
(Rutstein and Johnson 2004). The use of asset indices as
proxies for welfare, wealth, economic status, and living
standards has rapidly become very popular in social studies.
The method has been introduced in the analysis of poverty
(Sahn and Stifel 2000; Filmer and Pritchett 2001). This
paper used income-based, consumption expenditure-based,
and assets-based poverty incidences to measure poverty
status respectively and objectively. First, we used per capita
rural household net income per year of 2 300 CNY (334.83
USD) in 2010 constant price as the income poverty line to
calculate the income-based poverty incidence. Second, the
expenditure-based poverty incidence was calculated using
the World Bank’s household consumption poverty line. Two
poverty lines were selected in accordance with the program
period. In 2008, the World Bank updated the international
poverty line to 1.25 USD per capita per day at 2005 PPPs.
The international poverty line was adjusted at the Chinese
2008 constant price using the PPP conversion factor and the
official Chinese consumer price index. In 2015, the World
Bank again updated the international poverty line to 1.90
USD per capita per day at 2011 PPPs. Third, the wealth
index was composed of key asset ownership variables such
as the household ownership of a number of consumer items
and dwelling characteristics. Then five wealth quintiles
were divided equally, and the lowest quintile was defined as
poor. From the subjective aspect, poverty can be defined
by examining which people consider themselves poor or
defined by collecting peoples’ beliefs about their position
in a system of inequalities (Nándori 2010). The economic
status of rural households in the program area was classified
into four categories: better-off (A), ordinary (B1), poor (B2),
and very poor (C). The categories of very poor and poor
were considered as poor households. Likewise, sampled
households gave us their subjective answers about which
categories they belonged to. We viewed these answers as
the subjective measurement of poverty. Also, we measured
the very poor category separately.
We used a number of covariates that were believed to
be associated with program participation, covering a set
of household characteristics such as household size, age
of household head, education of household head, number
of children less than 5 years old, number of children aged
between 6 and 14 years old, number of elderly people who
were more than 64 years old, number of female workers,
number of agricultural laborers, size of arable land, and
access to credit.
3.4. Descriptive statistics
Tables 2 and 3 present descriptive statistics of rural
household characteristics in the full sample and various sub-
groups (G1, direct beneficiaries; G2, indirect beneficiaries;
G3, non-beneficiaries; G4, indirect beneficiaries and non-
beneficiaries), and detect the differences between the direct
beneficiaries and its different counterpart groups in 2014
and 2008. From the data for the full sample in 2014, shown
in the first column, we can see nearly three persons in a
household on average. The average age of the household
head was about 57 years old. The formal schooling of
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106 1099

Table 2 Descriptive statistics in 20141)

Diff. Diff. Diff.
Variable Full sample G1 G2 G3 G4
(G1–G2) (G1–G3) (G1–G4)
Sample size 665 177 237 251 488
Household size 2.99 3.27 2.90 2.88 2.89 0.37*** 0.39*** 0.38***
Age of household head 57.38 55.04 58.59 57.87 58.22 –3.56*** –2.83*** –3.18***
Education of household head (years) 6.35 6.97 6.07 6.18 6.13 0.90*** 0.79*** 0.84***
Number of children <5 years old 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 –0.01 –0.00 –0.00
Number of children 6–14 years old 0.12 0.15 0.12 0.10 0.11 0.03 0.05 0.04
Number of elderly >64 years old 1.62 1.85 1.50 1.58 1.54 0.35*** 0.27*** 0.31***
Number of female laborers 1.26 1.44 1.14 1.25 1.19 0.30*** 0.19*** 0.24***
Number of agricultural laborers 1.56 1.85 1.43 1.49 1.46 0.43*** 0.36*** 0.39***
Size of arable land (ha) 1.52 1.60 1.41 1.56 1.49 0.19* 0.04 0.11
Credit 0.26 0.38 0.19 0.25 0.22 0.19*** 0.13*** 0.16***
Decision-making score 16.16 17.64 15.89 15.37 15.62 1.75*** 2.28*** 2.02***
Disempowered headcount ratio 0.45 0.28 0.52 0.51 0.51 –0.24*** –0.23*** –0.23***
Per capita income (CNY per day) 12.26 20.47 10.03 8.57 9.28 10.44*** 11.90*** 11.19***
Per capita expenditure (CNY per day) 14.50 18.78 12.93 12.97 12.95 5.85** 5.81*** 5.83***
Poverty incidence (I) 0.46 0.29 0.41 0.64 0.52 –0.11** –0.34*** –0.23***
Poverty incidence (E1) 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.05 0.05 –0.02 –0.03 –0.02
Poverty incidence (E2) 0.16 0.10 0.20 0.18 0.19 –0.10*** –0.08** –0.09***
Poverty incidence (W) 0.20 0.03 0.14 0.38 0.26 –0.11*** –0.35*** –0.23***
Poverty incidence (S1) 0.30 0.12 0.30 0.43 0.37 –0.18*** –0.30*** –0.24***
Poverty incidence (S2) 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.04 0.05 –0.04** –0.02 –0.03*
1)
G1, direct beneficiaries; G2, indirect beneficiaries; G3, non-beneficiaries; G4=G2+G3.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05; ***, P<0.01.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics in 20081)

Diff. Diff. Diff.
Variable Full sample G1 G2 G3 G4
(G1–G2) (G1–G3) (G1–G4)
Sample size 665 177 237 251 488
Household size 3.39 3.66 3.31 3.27 3.29 0.34*** 0.39*** 0.37***
Age of household head 51.38 49.04 52.59 51.87 52.22 –3.56*** –2.83*** –3.18***
Education of household head (years) 6.35 6.97 6.07 6.18 6.13 0.90*** 0.79*** 0.84***
Number of children <5 years old 0.06 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.04* 0.03
Number of children 6–14 years old 0.24 0.32 0.19 0.24 0.21 0.13*** 0.08 0.10**
Number of elderly >64 years old 1.60 1.64 1.58 1.58 1.58 0.06 0.06 0.06
Number of female laborers 1.26 1.38 1.19 1.25 1.22 0.19*** 0.13** 0.16***
Number of agricultural laborers 1.76 1.95 1.69 1.70 1.69 0.27*** 0.25*** 0.26***
Size of arable land (ha) 1.63 1.66 1.46 1.78 1.62 0.20 –0.15 0.04
Credit 0.13 0.19 0.10 0.12 0.11 0.09*** 0.06* 0.08**
Decision-making score 15.17 16.10 14.72 14.93 14.83 1.38*** 1.17** 1.27***
Disempowered headcount ratio 0.53 0.39 0.62 0.54 0.58 –0.23*** –0.15*** –0.19***
Per capita income (CNY per day) 6.05 11.00 4.79 3.76 4.26 6.21** 7.23*** 6.74***
Per capita expenditure (CNY per day) 8.16 9.01 7.75 7.96 7.86 1.27* 1.05 1.15*
Poverty incidence (I) 0.70 0.61 0.66 0.81 0.74 –0.05 –0.20*** –0.13***
Poverty incidence (E1) 0.25 0.20 0.30 0.23 0.26 –0.10** –0.03 –0.06
Poverty incidence (E2) 0.47 0.38 0.51 0.49 0.50 –0.13*** –0.10** –0.12***
Poverty incidence (W) 0.20 0.10 0.15 0.32 0.24 –0.05 –0.23*** –0.14***
Poverty incidence (S1) 0.67 0.66 0.65 0.69 0.67 0.00 –0.03 –0.02
Poverty incidence (S2) 0.10 0.07 0.11 0.11 0.05 –0.04** –0.04 –0.03*
1)
G1, direct beneficiaries; G2, indirect beneficiaries; G3, non-beneficiaries; G4=G2+G3.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05; ***, P<0.01.

household heads was, on average, slightly more than six household members could work as agricultural laborers.
years. Few households had young children who were less The average per capita arable land was around 0.51 ha.
than 14 years old, but most households had old people There were around 26% of households who had credit in
who were more than 64 years old. More than half of the 2014. The per capita expenditure was 14.50 CNY per day
1100 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106

on average, and 45% of women were disempowered. The 4. Results

poverty status varied according to different poverty lines
and methods.
Compared with 2008, household livelihoods had
improved in 2014. From the subjective measurement of
poverty, we can see that poverty incidence (S1) decreased
from 67% in 2008 to 30% in 2014, and poverty incidence
(S2) decreased from 10% in 2008 to 4% in 2014. In addition,
credit access doubled from 2008 to 2014 due to rural finance
intervention.
From the results of the t-test of differences between the
direct beneficiary group and various counterpart groups,
we can see that there were many significant differences
among groups, which suggests no group could provide a
good counterfactual. The factors which affected program
participation may potentially influence the outcomes we
wanted to evaluate. If so, the difference in outcome was
not the true impact of the program. For example, there
were obvious different distributions in the wealth quintiles
between the direct beneficiary group and the non-beneficiary
group. The economic status in the direct beneficiary
group seemed to be better than that of the non-beneficiary
group. The selection bias might be a possible reason for
the significant difference in economic status between the
direct beneficiary and non-beneficiary groups. The program
aimed to provide technologies, extension services, and
credit for poverty reduction, which targeted households
who were poor but with potential production capacity, so
some absolutely poor households targeted for assistance
by the government might not be included in the program.
That is to say, these households were potentially excluded
from the direct beneficiary group, but households in the
non-beneficiary group were randomly selected, they could
be contained in the non-beneficiary group.
4.1. Influencing factors of participation in the
program
As shown in Table 4, we use a logit estimator with an
odd ratio to explain the determinants of participation in
the program in 2008. The selected variables can predict
74.14% of outcomes in the full sample of 665, in which
non-participants came from the indirect beneficiary group
and the non-beneficiary group (G4). Consistent with
descriptive statistics above, the estimation results show that
the education of household head, number of elderly people
more than 64 years old, number of agricultural laborers, and
access to credit have significant positive effects on program
participation. The results indicate that participants are likely
to have higher levels of education and access to credit. And
participant households have more agricultural laborers and
old people than non-participant households. In addition,
the age of the head of the household is significant and
negative, which means that younger heads of households
are more likely to participate in the program. Moreover, other
variables, such as the number of children aged between 6
and 14, are significant and positive when non-participants
only came from the indirect beneficiary group (G2). Using
these variables, propensity scores can be calculated for
the different groups, and more estimates based on the
propensity scores are further considered to ensure an
unbiased estimate of impacts.
4.2. Program intervention, empowerment of women,
and poverty reduction
Different model specifications, including PSM, IPW, and DID,
are used to evaluate at the household level the impact of the

Table 4 Influencing factors of participation in the program1)

G1 vs. G2 G1 vs. G3 G1 vs. G4
Variable
Odds ratio P>|z| Odds ratio P>|z| Odds ratio P>|z|
Household size 1.07 0.52 1.18 0.12 1.13 0.21
Age of household head 0.97 0.06* 0.96 0.02** 0.97 0.04**
Education of household head (years) 1.07 0.06* 1.08 0.05** 1.08 0.03**
Number of children <5 years old 1.23 0.64 2.08 0.12 1.55 0.25
Number of children 6–14 years old 1.60 0.09* 1.13 0.64 1.38 0.17
Number of elderly >64 years old 1.46 0.07* 1.66 0.03** 1.53 0.03**
Number of female laborers 1.21 0.38 0.94 0.75 1.05 0.79
Number of agricultural laborers 1.29 0.13 1.52 0.01** 1.39 0.02**
Size of arable land (ha) 1.00 0.43 0.99 0.15 0.97 0.45
Credit 1.70 0.09* 1.41 0.43 1.53 0.09*
Sample size 414 428 665
Correctly classified (%) 60.63 64.02 74.14
1)
G1, direct beneficiaries; G2, indirect beneficiaries; G3, non-beneficiaries; G4=G2+G3.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05.
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106 1101

program on women’s empowerment and poverty reduction
simultaneously. Table 5 presents the average treatment
effects of the program on the treated households for a
selection of indicators such as intra-household decision-
making, women’s disempowerment headcount ratio, and
various poverty incidences based on expenditure, wealth,
and self-reporting, considering direct beneficiaries (G1)
as the treatment group and non-beneficiaries (G3) as the
control group. As expected, the size of effects and the
degree of significance vary, but signs are generally similar
across specifications. According to the results on women’s
empowerment, all estimates of the decision-making score
are significant and positive, which implies the program has
contributed to increasing women’s decision-making power.
The PSM and IPW estimates of the disempowerment
headcount ratio are significant and negative, suggesting
that women are empowered due to their participation in the
program. With regard to poverty reduction, the program has
a significant and positive effect on expenditure using PSM,
IPW, and DID approaches. All IPW estimates except the
self-reported very poor category are significant and negative,
which indicates that the number of poor households declines
due to the program. Viewed from the asset-based poverty
incidence (W), the program changes the distribution of
poor households between the direct beneficiary group and
the non-beneficiary group. All estimates denote that more
poor households in the direct beneficiary group have been
lifted out of poverty, and accordingly the number of poor
households increases in the non-beneficiary group. From
the subjective measurement of poverty, all estimates show
that poor households have moved out of poverty because
of the program.
A number of sensitivity analyses were also carried out to
check the results and explore the potential spillover effect.
Given the significance of most IPW estimates in Table 5,
Table 6 only reports the results using the IPW approach
among different pairs of comparison groups. First, in the
column of “G1 vs. G2”, we replace the control group with
the indirect beneficiary group (G2). The results show that
almost all estimates are lower than what we have seen
in Table 5, a consistent sign indicating potential spillover
effects in the G2. Second, in the column of “G1 vs. G4”,
we change the control group into the indirect beneficiary
and non-beneficiary groups (G4). The effect’s size is
located between the result of the first column in Table  6
and the third column in Table 5 for nearly all indicators, as
expected. Third, in the column “G2 vs. G3”, the results are
very different from others in Table 6 because there are no
direct beneficiaries in this pair of groups. The estimates
are nearly insignificant, which provides information that no
other interventions except the program may differ for all
indicators in the program area. The results also imply that
the spillover effects haven’t turned into substantial effects
on the outcome indicators. Fourth, in the column “G5 vs.
G3”, it is reasonable to put direct and indirect beneficiary
groups together (G5) to detect the program’s total effect due
to the existence of spillover effects.
4.3. Empowered women and poverty reduction
We can see from the results in Tables 5 and 6 that the
program has simultaneously positive effects on women’s
empowerment and poverty reduction, which to some extent
provides evidence that empowering women is one of the
mechanisms to fight against poverty, but the effect on
poverty has not come exclusively from female beneficiaries
as it may also come from male beneficiaries. To further
examine the relationship between women’s empowerment
and poverty reduction, we select a smaller group of
households in the sample in which women were the only

Table 5 Effects of program participation on women’s empowerment and poverty reduction1)

PSM IPW DID-PSM
Variable
ATT2) P>|z| ATT2) P>|z| Diff-in-Diff P>|z|
Decision-making score 2.14 0.00*** 2.16 0.00*** 1.19 0.08*
Disempowered headcount –0.20 0.00*** –0.23 0.00*** –0.07 0.29
Per capita income (CNY per day) 14.09 0.00*** 13.11 0.00*** 5.85 0.21
Per capita expenditure (CNY per day) 6.58 0.01** 6.20 0.01** 4.86 0.05*
Poverty incidence (I) –0.39 0.00*** –0.37 0.00*** –0.16 0.01**
Poverty incidence (E1) –0.06 0.06* –0.04 0.06* –0.01 0.86
Poverty incidence (E2) –0.08 0.04** –0.08 0.02** –0.04 0.50
Poverty incidence (W) –0.35 0.00*** –0.32 0.00*** –0.11 0.03**
Poverty incidence (S1) –0.30 0.00*** –0.28 0.00*** –0.26 0.00***
Poverty incidence (S2) –0.01 0.66 –0.02 0.26 0.01 0.80
Sample size 428 428 760
1)
PSM, propensity score matching; IPW, inverse probability weighting; DID, difference-in-differences.
2)
ATT, the average treatment effect on the treated.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05; ***, P<0.01.
1102 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106

participants. Table 7 reports the robust results on women’s
empowerment with direct beneficiaries (G1) in the treatment
group and non-beneficiaries (G3) in the control group. Due
to participation in the program, women’s decision-making
power increases across different model specifications, and
the ratio of the disempowerment headcount decreases under
the estimation of PSM and IPW. Moreover, the estimates
of per capita income (except the DID-PSM estimate) and
income-based poverty incidence are significant, which
indicates that empowered women have contributed to
increasing household income and reducing income poverty
accordingly. Intuitively, access to technology, extension
services, market, and credit can help women involve in
income-generating activities, which improves their ability
to earn income and contribute to the household income.
In addition, significant estimates of asset-based poverty
incidence suggest that empowered women are conductive
to improve living standards compared to other households
in the sample. Again, the self-reported poverty incidence
denotes that empowered women have a positive effect
on poverty reduction. On the contrary, the estimates of
consumption expenditure and expenditure-based poverty
incidence are almost insignificant. One possible reason
for this is that except income, consumption is also related
to consumers’ preferences and habits, which are not easy
to change in the short term.
5. Discussion
5.1. Training is a common means to empower women
in the agricultural sector
Traditionally, women are good partners to their husbands
with regard to agricultural production in China. Among the
direct beneficiary households from the program modules,
such as the technical envoy system, greenhouses, potato-
net sheds, and strengthening village livestock service
stations, 91% of women engaged in income-generating

Table 6 Effects of program participation among different pairs of groups based on inverse probability weighting (IPW)1)
G1 vs. G2 G1 vs. G4 G2 vs. G3 G5 vs. G3
Variable
ATT2) P>|z| ATT2) P>|z| ATT2) P>|z| ATT2) P>|z|
Decision-making score 1.64 0.00*** 1.96 0.00*** 0.50 0.29 1.23 0.00***
Disempowered headcount –0.24 0.00*** –0.24 0.00*** 0.01 0.76 –0.09 0.03**
Per capita income (CNY per day) 10.19 0.01*** 11.66 0.00*** 2.03 0.18 6.78 0.00***
Per capita expenditure (CNY per day) 5.14 0.05** 5.77 0.02** 0.26 0.75 2.72 0.03**
Poverty incidence (I) –0.09 0.10 –0.24 0.00*** –0.23 0.00*** –0.29 0.00***
Poverty incidence (E1) –0.02 0.36 –0.03 0.06* –0.00 0.81 –0.02 0.30
Poverty incidence (E2) –0.10 0.01*** –0.09 0.00*** –0.01 0.86 –0.03 0.31
Poverty incidence (W) –0.05 0.02** –0.19 0.00*** –0.25 0.00*** –0.28 0.00***
Poverty incidence (S1) –0.18 0.00*** –0.23 0.00*** –0.12 0.01*** –0.19 0.00***
Poverty incidence (S2) –0.02 0.24 –0.02 0.15 0.02 0.30 –0.00 0.83
Sample size 414 665 488 665
1)
G1, direct beneficiaries; G2, indirect beneficiaries; G3, non-beneficiaries; G4=G2+G3.
2)
ATT, the average treatment effect on the treated.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05; ***, P<0.01.

Table 7 Effects of empowered women on poverty reduction1)

PSM IPW DID-PSM
Variable
ATT2) P>|z| ATT2) P>|z| Diff-in-Diff P>|z|
Decision-making score 3.37 0.00*** 3.15 0.00*** 1.66 0.04**
Disempowered headcount –0.29 0.00** –0.34 0.00** –0.11 0.17
Per capita income (CNY per day) 17.31 0.03** 16.50 0.04** 5.28 0.49
Per capita expenditure (CNY per day) 8.06 0.17 8.37 0.14 8.41 0.04**
Poverty incidence (I) –0.35 0.00*** –0.36 0.00*** –0.21 0.00***
Poverty incidence (E1) –0.02 0.53 –0.02 0.53 –0.08 0.13
Poverty incidence (E2) –0.03 0.50 –0.03 0.46 –0.06 0.42
Poverty incidence (W) –0.23 0.00*** –0.29 0.00*** –0.14 0.02**
Poverty incidence (S1) –0.24 0.07* –0.27 0.01*** –0.18 0.01**
Poverty incidence (S2) –0.01 0.58 –0.01 0.60 –0.01 0.75
Sample size 324 324 594
1)
PSM, propensity score matching; IPW, inverse probability weighting; DID, difference-in-differences.
2)
ATT, the average treatment effect on the treated.
*
, P<0.1; **, P<0.05; ***, P<0.01.
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106 1103

activities along with their husbands. But as their husbands
migrate to urban areas to find work, a growing proportion
of women play an increasingly important role in agricultural
production. However, a lack of formal education and training
opportunities is a key factor to limit women’s access to new
technologies in crop agriculture and the livestock sector.
Field survey data showed that women’s educational level
was nearly three years lower than men’s in the same
household on average. Therefore, the training component
was well-designed in the program to provide equal or more
opportunities for women to gain new knowledge and skills.
The number of women participants was systematically
monitored as well. As a result, an increasing number
of women were involved in technical activities due to
project implementation. Data shows that more women
were trained than men in most modules of the program.
Women empowered through the training component have
the potential to increase their share of family incomes and
further strengthen their bargaining power in the household.
Meanwhile, participating in stable income-generating
activities can also increase rural women’s confidence and
promote their participation in community activities.
5.2. Microfinance support for women is an effective
gender strategy to increase women’s role in the
production
In the 1990s, microfinance programs have increasingly
targeted women because access to credit can enable
women to play a more active role in household decision-
making and increase investment in family welfare. Some
evidence shows that access to microfinance can initiate
the virtuous spiral of economic empowerment, increased
well-being, and women’s social and political empowerment
(Cheston and Kuhn 2002). Therefore, the formation of
Women’s Group Micro-credit (WGMC) became one of the
important modules in the program, which aimed to raise
poor women’s income and status by improving their access
to credit and knowledge. Previous studies showed that
resources and incomes controlled by women are more
likely to be used to improve family food consumption and
welfare, reduce child malnutrition, and increase the overall
well-being of the family (García 2006). WGMC was more
inclined to create opportunities for women to increase
income and reduce poverty. Compared with household
credit, gender-specific credit from WGMC showed a different
result (Fig. 2), which illustrates that gender-specific credit
was most used to buy animals or productive materials.
There are three possible reasons for this: First, raising
animals is profitable, because the demands for meat and
milk have been growing with the increase of population and
improvement of living standards; second, livestock is one
of competitive industries of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region and rural households there have the habit of raising
animals; and third, small animals are always good choices
for poor women to generate income and improve food and
nutrition security.
5.3. Associations or cooperatives for women are
grassroots hubs where productive resources can
be channeled to enhance women’s capacity for self-
improvement
Compared with men, women face a number of disadvantages
as farmers, including less mobility, less access to training,
less access to market information, and less access to
productive resources. Some evidence suggests that
women tend to lose income and control as a product moves

(%)
Gender-specific credit Household credit
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
rs

ls

ry

ss

th

s
en

en
al

er
io
ia
te

ne

l
ne

ea
im

at
pm

th
er
el

hi

si

uc
e

O
An

at
sh

ac
ui

ov
Bu
m

Ed
eq
al

pr
e
im

im
iv

rm
ng
An

ct

Fa

e
si
u

s
es
od

ou
oc
Pr

H
Pr

Fig. 2 Different purposes of gender-specific credit and household credit.

1104 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
from the farm to the market (Gurung 2006). Women’s
association support was another module of the program
designed to provide organizational, technical and market
support to women’s credit groups. Members of the
women’s association could gain training about association
management, contract farming, processing, and marketing.
They also had opportunities to build human and social
capital and further increase their capacity to participate in
village and township activities. In addition, the women’s
association has the potential to raise women’s awareness
to become members of other cooperatives. From the field
visits, we can see that the number of women participating
in producer cooperatives in the direct beneficiary group
was far more than the numbers of the two other groups
(the indirect beneficiary and non-beneficiary groups).
For women, associations or cooperatives’ organizational
empowerment impact may be more important than the
direct economic benefits. The program has especially
enhanced the skills, opportunities, and prestige of women
who were active leaders in these organizations. Being
leaders in producer cooperatives has improved women’s
self-confidence in working collectively to realize positive
changes to their communities.
6. Conclusion
In recent decades, more and more attention has been paid
to gender differences in poverty analysis. Among them,
microfinance, training, and cooperatives are the common
means to empower women for poverty reduction. However,
the results of existing studies have varied depending on
how the researchers designed the program, identified
the target group, measured the key indicators and chose
model specifications. Based on a gender-focus program
implemented in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of
China, this study has looked at women’s participation in the
program for dual-sex households to detect the program’s
effect on women’s empowerment and poverty reduction.
The role of empowered women in poverty reduction has
been examined by further identifying rural households in
which women were the only participants.
In the initial sample design, project villages and non-
project villages were chosen based on village-level PSM.
After the villages were determined, both direct beneficiaries
and non-beneficiaries were randomly selected in the
two kinds of villages. Especially, indirect beneficiaries
were identified to detect possible spillover effects. They
were defined as households who were adjacent to direct
beneficiaries, but which did not directly benefit from the
program. As a result, there are substantial differences
between the direct beneficiary group and various counterpart
groups. The logistic model’s estimation indicates that the
education level of the head of the household, number of
elderly people above the age of 64, number of agricultural
laborers, and access to credit have significant positive
effects on program participation. Other variables such as
the age of household head and the number of children aged
between 6 and 14 may also have influenced participation
in the program. In order to control the selection bias,
household-level PSM, IPW, and DID method were used
to analyze the effect of the program as well as do robust
checks, of which recall questions were used because the
baseline data did not have a comparison group and outcome
indicators.
The measurement of women’s empowerment and poverty
were also key contents of this study. On the one hand,
we calculated both women’s intra-household decision-
making score and the disempowerment headcount ratio
as the respective indicators of women’s empowerment.
On the other hand, income, consumption expenditure, and
wealth index were used as the objective measurement of
a household’s poverty, and households’ judgments of their
economic status were used as the subject measurement of
their poverty. These indicators were considered together
because we can observe and explain the results from
different perspectives. Under the empowerment framework,
this paper examined whether empowering women through
interventions could achieve poverty reduction. The results
show that empowered women positively affect poverty
reduction, and training, microfinance, and women’s
associations are important mechanisms for women to fight
against poverty. Especially, gender-specific credit in the
program area is most effective when used to purchase
animals or productive materials for income-generating
activities. Given gender differences have not been fully
accounted for in the traditional poverty analysis, which
has greatly reduced the effectiveness of poverty reduction,
these results suggest researchers and policymakers need
to analyze and discuss poverty issues from the perspective
of gender.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the People’s Republic of China
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Rural Advancement
Programme led by IFAD, the National Natural Sciences
Foundation of China (71661147001) and the Special Fund
for Basic Scientific Research in Agricultural Information
Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
(2020JKY040). This research would not have been possible
without the support from IFAD that permit our team to conduct
collaborative research. We acknowledge the farmers and
the local extension workers in the study area for their help
during the pilot testing survey and main fieldwork. We are
 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
grateful to Dr. Bi Jieying, Ms. Huang Jiaqi, Dr. Sun Mengyao,
Mr. Zhu Cong, Dr. Zhang Xuebiao, and Dr. Samesh Adhikari
from Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy
of Agricultural Sciences for their constructive contributions
to evaluation design and data collection.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
References
Alkire S, Meinzen-Dick R, Peterman A, Quisumbing A, Seymour
G, Vaz A. 2013. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index. World Development (Oxford), 52, 71–91.
Alsop R, Bertelsen M F, Holand J. 2006. Empowerment in
Practice. The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Ataei P, Miandashti N Z. 2012. The role of women’s
cooperatives in empowerment of their members. Iranian
Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Research (IJAEDR), 42, 433–444.
Atozou B, Mayuto R, Abodohoui A. 2017. Review on gender
and poverty, gender inequality in land tenure, violence
against woman and women empowerment analysis:
Evidence in Benin with survey data. Journal of Sustainable
Development, 10, 137–154.
Bailur S, Masiero S. 2017. Women’s income generation
through mobile Internet: A study of focus group data from
Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. Gender, Technology and
Development, 21, 77–98.
Bamberger M. 2009. Strengthening the evaluation of programme
effectiveness through reconstructing baseline data. Journal
of Development Effectiveness, 1, 37–59.
Biru A G. 2014. The role of agricultural cooperatives in
promoting food security and rural women’s empowerment
in eastern Tigray region, Ethiopia. Developing Country
Studies, 4, 96–109.
Boudet A M M, Buitrago P, de la Briere B L, Newhouse D,
Matulevich E R, Scott K, Suarez-Becerra P. 2018. Gender
differences in poverty and household composition through
the life-cycle: A global perspective. Policy Research
Working Paper. World Bank Group, Washington, D.C.
Busso M, Dinardo J, Mccrary J. 2014. New evidence on the
finite sample properties of propensity score reweighting and
matching estimators. Review of Economics and Statistics,
96, 885–897.
Buvinić M. 2019. Gender matters in economic empowerment
interventions: A research review. World Bank Research
Observer, 34, 309–346.
Cheston S, Kuhn L. 2002. Empowering women through
microfinance. In: Daley-harris S, ed., Pathways out of
Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest
Families. Kumarian Press, Bloomfield.
Cornwall A. 2016. Women’s empowerment: What works?
Journal of International Development, 28, 342–359.
1105
Diiro G M, Seymour G, Kassie M, Muricho G, Muriithi B W.
2018. Women’s empowerment in agriculture and agricultural
productivity: Evidence from rural maize farmer households
in western Kenya. PLoS ONE, 13, e0197995.
Donald A, Koolwal G, Annan J, Falb K, Goldstein M. 2017.
Measuring Women’s Agency. The World Bank, Washington,
D.C.
Faborode H, Alao T O. 2016. The battle against rural poverty
and other challenges of development: Empirical analysis of
women empowerment programme of Justice, Development
and Peace Movement (JDPM) in Osun State, Nigeria.
Acta Agronomica, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 65,
149–155.
Ferguson H, Kepe T. 2011. Agricultural cooperatives and
social empowerment of women: A Ugandan case study.
Development in Practice, 21, 421–429.
Filmer D, Pritchett L H. 2001. Estimating wealth effects without
expenditure data - or tears: An application to educational
enrollments in States of India. Demography, 38, 115–132.
Ganle J K, Afriyie K, Segbefia A Y. 2015. Microcredit:
Empowerment and disempowerment of rural women in
Ghana. World Development (Oxford), 66, 335–345.
García Z. 2006. Agriculture, Trade Negotiations and Gender.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Rome.
Gurung C. 2006. The Role of Women in the Fruit and Vegetable
Supply Chain in Maharashtra and Tamil Naduindia: The
New and Expanded Social and Economic Opportunities
for Vulnerable Groups Task Order Under the Women
in Development IQC. U.S. Agency for International
Development, Washington, D.C.
Heckman J J, Ichimura H, Todd E P. 1997. Matching as an
econometric evaluation estimator: Evidence from evaluating
a job training programme. The Review of Economic Studies,
64, 605–654.
Holland C, Rammohan A. 2019. Rural women’s empowerment
and children’s food and nutrition security in Bangladesh.
World Development, 124, 104648.
Hossain D, Islam M A, Majumder S. 2016. Influences of
micro-credit programmes on women empowerment in
Bangladesh. Journal of the Bangladesh Agricultural
University, 14, 93–100.
Huis M, Lensink R, Vu N, Hansen N. 2019. Impacts of the
gender and entrepreneurship together ahead (GET Ahead)
training on empowerment of female microfinance borrowers
in Northern Vietnam. World Development, 120, 46–61.
Hwang J, Paris T R, Cabrera E, Choi Y. 2011. A comparative
study on women’s role in intrahousehold decision-making in
Korean and the Philippine rice farming households. Journal
of Rural Development (Seoul), 34, 117–136.
Jin H. 2009. Ulanqab Statistics Year Book 2007–2008. pp.
97–101. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode
=CYFD&filename=N2010042033000076&dbname=
CYFD201102 (in Chinese)
Jin H. 2016. Ulanqab Statistics Year Book 2013–2014. p.
99. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=
1106 GU Rui et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(4): 1092–1106
CYFD&filename=N2016080063000091&dbname=
CYFD2016 (in Chinese)
Jones R, Haardorfer R, Ramakrishnan U, Yount K M, Miedema
S, Girard A W. 2019. Women’s empowerment and child
nutrition: The role of intrinsic agency. SSM-Population
Health, 9, 100475.
Kabeer N. 1999. Resources, agency, achievements:
Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment.
Development and Change, 30, 435–464.
Khumalo K E, Freimund W A. 2014. Expanding women’s
choices through employment? Community-based natural
resource management and women’s empowerment
in Kwandu Conservancy, Namibia. Society & Natural
Resources, 27, 1024–1039.
Lyngdoh B F, Pati A P. 2013. Impact of microfinance on women
empowerment in the matrilineal tribal society of India: An
analysis using propensity score matching and difference-
in-difference. International Journal of Rural Management,
9, 45–69.
Malapit H J L, Quisumbing A R. 2015. What dimensions of
women’s empowerment in agriculture matter for nutrition
in Ghana? Food Policy, 52, 54–63.
Malhotra A, Schuler R S. 2005. Women’s empowerment as a
variable in international development. In: Narayan D, ed.,
Measuring Empowerment: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives.
The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Maligalig R, Demont M, Umberger W J, Peralta A. 2019.
Off-farm employment increases women’s empowerment:
Evidence from rice farms in the Philippines. Journal of Rural
Studies, 71, 62–72.
Mayoux L. 1992. From idealism to realism: Women, feminism
and empowerment in Nicaraguan tailoring cooperatives.
Development and Change, 23, 91–114.
Mayoux L. 1995. Alternative vision or utopian fantasy?
Cooperation, empowerment and women’s cooperative
development in India. Journal of International Development,
7, 211–228.
Morrison A, Raju D, Sinha N. 2007. Gender equality, poverty
and economic growth. Policy Research Working Paper. The
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Moyo C, Francis J, Ndlovu P. 2012. Community-perceived
state of women empowerment in some rural areas of
Limpopo province, South Africa. Gender and Behavior,
10, 4418–4432.
Nándori E S. 2010. Subjective poverty and its relation to
objective poverty concepts in Hungary. Social Indicators
Research, 102, 537–556.
Narayan D. 2002. Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A
Sourcebook. The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Narayan D. 2005. Conceptual framework and methodological
challenges. In: Narayan D, ed., Measuring Empowerment:
Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. The World Bank,
Washington, D.C.
Paryab J, Miyandashti N Z, Pezeshkirad G, Jamali H. 2014.
The role of production cooperatives in rural women’s
empowerment: Case of Homayjan women rural cooperative.
Rural Research, 5, e45–e70.
Raphael G, Mrema G I. 2017. Assessing the role of microfinance
on women empowerment: A case of PRIDE (T)-Shinyanga.
Business and Economic Research, 7, 35–54.
van Rooyen C, Stewart R, de Wet T. 2012. The impact of
microfinance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of
the evidence. World Development, 40, 2249–2262.
Rutstein S O, Johnson K. 2004. The DHS Wealth Index.
DHS Comparative Reports No. 6. ORC Macro, Calverton,
Maryland.
Sahn D E, Stifel D C. 2000. Poverty comparisons over time
and across countries in Africa. World Development, 28,
2123–2155.
Seymour G. 2017. Women’s empowerment in agriculture:
Implications for technical efficiency in rural Bangladesh.
Agricultural Economics, 48, 513–522.
Seymour G, Peterman A. 2018. Context and measurement: An
analysis of the relationship between intrahousehold decision
making and autonomy. World Development, 111, 97–112.
Sharma V, Seth P, Niyazi S. 2012. Capability enhancement of
women through information technology to reduce poverty,
inequality and radical feminism. International Journal of
Asian Business and Information Management, 3, 1–10.
Sraboni E, Quisumbing A. 2018. Women’s empowerment
in agriculture and dietary quality across the life course:
Evidence from Bangladesh. Food Policy, 81, 21–36.
Supriya G. 2008. The impact of lending to women on household
vulnerability and women’s empowerment: Evidence from
India. World Development (Oxford), 36, 2620–2642.
Supriya G. 2013. Microcredit and women’s empowerment:
Have we been looking at the wrong indicators? Oxford
Development Studies, 41, S53–S75.
Taylor G, Pereznieto P. 2014. Review of Evaluation Approaches
and Methods Used by Interventions on Women and Girls’
Economic Empowerment. Overseas Development Institute,
London.
Wossen T, Abdoulaye T, Alene A, Haile M G, Feleke S,
Olanrewaju A, Manyong V. 2017. Impacts of extension
access and cooperative membership on technology
adoption and household welfare. Journal of Rural Studies,
54, 223–233.
Executive Editor-in-Chief HUANG Ji-kun
Managing Editor WENG Ling-yun