Katrien Van Aelst & Nathalie Holvoet (Institute of Development Policy and Management)
Climate scholars increasingly recognize gender is key in climate change vulnerability, but often dichotomize between men and women as homogeneous categories or limit themselves to comparing male- and female-headed households. We use an intersectionality framework to examine how local farmers’ adaptive strategies are mediated through their gender and marital status in rural Morogoro (Tanzania). Drawing from focus group discussions and using logistic regression to analyze questionnaire data, we compare different adaptive strategies’ adoption rates across married, divorced, widowed and never-married men and women. Our study finds, first, that while women’s access to adaptive strategies depends on their marital status, this is less the case for men. Second, we show that widows and female divorcees are disadvantaged in agricultural water management, while the latter at the same time adopt more non-farm income-earning activities compared to other women. Finally, we find evidence of livelihood diversification at household level, through specialization by individual household members. Based on the empirical evidence we develop a typology to synthesize the linkages between gender, marital status and adaptive strategies; and we subsequently underscore the importance of an intersectionality approach to gender and climate change policy and practice.
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