Gender and household-level responses to soil degradation in Honduras
Paolisso, M.; Gammage, S.; Casey, L.
Human Organization 58(3): 261-273
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0018-7259 DOI: 10.17730/humo.58.3.x154puh1681p2l57Document Number: 523680
In Honduras, the economic and social effects of natural resource decline, poverty, and population pressure, all exacerbated now in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, are directly experienced at the household level. Recent research and policy work on gender and environment raise a number of interesting questions on how and why household labour responses to natural resource decline may be gender differentiated. The paper presents results on the gender-disaggregated response to natural resource degradation. Specifically, it investigates whether women's and men's time allocated to corn production responds to changes in soil quality. The paper also addresses the issue of whether the gender division of labour is modified as households respond to soil degradation.