Women in household decision-making and implications for dietary quality in Bhutan

Sariyev, Orkhan; Loos, Tim K.; Zeller, Manfred; Gurung, Tulsi Article Women in household decision-making and implications for dietary quality in Bhutan Agricultural and Food Economics Provided in Cooperation with: Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA) Suggested Citation: Sariyev, Orkhan; Loos, Tim K.; Zeller, Manfred; Gurung, Tulsi (2020) : Women in household decision-making and implications for dietary quality in Bhutan, Agricultural and Food Economics, ISSN 2193-7532, Springer, Heidelberg, Vol. 8, Iss. 1, pp. 1-20, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-020-00158-0 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/240263 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RESEARCH Open Access Women in household decision-making and implications for dietary quality in Bhutan Orkhan Sariyev 1* , Tim K. Loos 2 , Manfred Zeller 1 and Tulsi Gurung 3 * Correspondence: [email protected];orxan.sariyev@gmail. com 1 Faculty of Agricultural Science, Hans Ruthenberg Institute, University of Hohenheim, Wollgrasweg 43, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract Despite the wide range of literature supporting the linkages between women’s empowerment and food security, it is not examined in social contexts where females historically enjoy equality and even favoritism, for instance where there is female succession and/or polyandry. This study was done in the Kingdom of Bhutan where matrilineal succession and polyandry were prevalent during the twentieth century. Both quantitative and qualitative survey methods were employed with the objectives of (i) investigating women’s participation in crucial domestic decision-making processes and (ii) identifying the implications of female involvement in domestic decision-making on household-level dietary quality. While descriptive analyses and qualitative interviews revealed that women do not lack significant participation in domestic decision-making, the estimations indicate that the relationship between women’s participation in decision-making and dietary diversity is non-linear. Further analyses indicate a positive association between (perfect) gender equal decision-making regarding household livelihoods and household-level dietary quality. Keywords: Decision-making, Gender equality, Dietary quality, Bhutan Introduction Seventeen sustainable development goals have been set to be achieved by 2030 (World Health Organization 2018). Gender equality is one of the cross-cutting issues highlighted in several of these goals. Fostering gender equality will contribute to and enhance the speed of achieving other goals including, for example, zero hunger (Nilsson 2017). There are numerous studies in the literature showing that women’s empowerment is a pathway to sustainable livelihoods. Women are more likely to invest in health and education (Schmidt 2012). Their empowerment has a positive impact on the dietary status of the households (Sraboni et al. 2014). Moreover, gender per se or genderlinked differences in access to resources, in many cases, was found to be a powerful determinant of the adoption of agricultural practices and technologies that increase yield and protect the environment and agro-biodiversity (Doss and Morris 2001; Fisher and Carr 2015; Ndiritu et al. 2014; Ragasa 2012; Simtowe et al. 2016). Kabeer (2001) defines empowerment as an expansion of one’s abilities to make crucial life choices. © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Agricultural and Food Economics Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-020-00158-0 Obviously, these choices not only affect one’s own life but have significant effects at the household and community levels. Many recent studies present the linkage between women’s empowerment and household livelihood outcomes. Programs that contribute to agricultural development will be more effective if they target women. When agricultural income is in women’s hands, it is more likely to be spent on health, education, and nutrition. When women have control over assets and decision-making power, they favor agricultural products that support and ensure household food security (Schutter 2013). Sraboni et al. (2014) find a positive association between women’s empowerment and dietary diversity as well as calorie availability. However, studies find that male-headed households are more food secure than female-headed households, a finding that can be explained by women’s limited access to productive resources (Agidew and Singh 2018; Magaña-Lemus et al. 2016; Tibesigwa and Visser 2016). Although literature about the outcomes of women’s empowerment is rich, to the authors’best knowledge, there is no literature about its outcomes in areas where females have historically enjoyed equality, and even in some cases were favored in asset inheritance and experienced polyandry (that is, women take two or more husbands) marriage practices. This study is done in Bhutan, a country where polyandry was still reported as a prevailing domestic custom in the early years of the twentieth century (Shakespear 2012), and vestiges like fraternal polyandry were still reported in a few nomadic ethnic groups in the early years of twenty-first century (Dorji 2003). Considering the above-mentioned gap, we aim to contribute to the literature by focusing on one important aspect of empowerment: intra-household decision-making. This study’s objectives are (i) to investigate intra-household decision-making and women’s participation in crucial decision-making processes of Bhutanese households’ livelihoods, and (ii) the outcome of their participation level on the household’s dietary diversity that reflects household-level dietary quality. The study adopts the latest methodology introduced by Sariyev et al. (2020) in building an index for women’s participation in domestic decision-making and aims to investigate the linkage between dietary quality and empowerment in Bhutanese households. This paper begins with the background information on the research country (Bhutan) and the status of its female population; it proceeds with a literature review on the linkages between women’s status and household food and nutrition security that is followed by a review of tools for measuring empowerment. In the second section, the conceptual framework of the paper is presented. The third section describes the data and methodology employed. The fourth section presents result and discusses them and is followed by concluding remarks in the final section. Bhutan and the status of women The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked South Asian country located in the Himalayas and bordered by India and China. The country remained isolated from the world until the early 1960s. Agriculture has been and remains a dominant sector of the economy. The country is mountainous and widely covered by forests. Except for significant investment in hydroelectric power production, there is little industrial development (Neuhoff et al. 2014). Its population mainly lives in rural areas and depends on agricultural production. Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 2 of 20 The remoteness of rural areas is a remarkable challenge for people and their livelihoods. Nonetheless, significant positive improvements were brought by the government’scommitment to infrastructural development (Minten and Dukpa 2015). Bhutan’s economy is growing fast. In fact, per capita GDP growth remained above 6% in past few years. It is forecasted that the growth will continue, and Bhutan might become the fastest growing economy in South Asia (Asian Development Bank 2018). In 2016, the agricultural sector contributed around 17% to the GDP of the country, and it employed around 58% of the labor force. Infrastructural development has enhanced the cash crop production of farmers who were mainly subsistence farmers during the twentieth century (National Statistics Bureau 2017). Bhutan has achieved noteworthy progress in the participation of women in the labor force. Nevertheless, much still remains to be improved with regard to the quality of jobs held by women. Moreover, general perceptions in the society about gender roles have moved towards more equality, and women are given off-farm work opportunities, while men increasingly support their wives with child care (World Bank 2013). In rural areas, unemployment rates are higher for women than for men, and in general, the unemployment rate is higher for rural than for urban females. Women constitute a considerable share of educated jobseekers in Bhutan, and they also constitute more of the agricultural labor force than men, and their working hours are longer than men’s (Asian Development Bank 2014). Bhutan ranks 110th on the gender inequality index, better than most South Asian countries, especially its culturally and historically close neighbors, India and Nepal. In fact, only the Maldives and Sri Lanka have a better ranking than Bhutan (United Nations Development Program 2018). FAO (2000) reported that 70% of the land was owned by women in Bhutan, and matrilineal heritage was seen as the major reason for female favoritism in land inheritance by the end of the twentieth century. World Bank (2013) indicates the matrilineal inheritance practice supports and creates opportunities for Bhutanese women in their empowerment and advancement, and contributes to the gender parity. In 2002, a member of the planning commission reported that in some areas of Bhutan, females controlled around 60% of property (ThingsAsian 2002). Moreover, Martin Brauen (1997) (as cited in Pain and Pema (2004)) in his study in Bhutan provides clear family examples evidencing matrilineal inheritance and female domination in land ownership and household headship. In Bhutan, according to the Land Act of 1979, men and women have the same rights in land ownership. Moreover, there is no reported gender discrimination in land distribution in Bhutan, unlike in other South Asian countries. In this regard, Agarwal’s book “A field of one’s own land: Gender and land rights in South Asia”(Agarwal 1994), where Bhutan is neither covered nor appears on the map, highlights the importance of land ownership on women’s empowerment. Thus, as also mentioned by Pain and Pema (2004), one would need to carefully search for an answer as to whether Agarwal’s argument that ownership has enhanced women’s well-being holds true in case of Bhutan. The Asian Development Bank (2014) does not confirm this pattern and reports that Bhutanese culture also enables women to be powerful participants in household decision-making processes. Although, land is an important resource, this does not mean that females are absolutely better off. Rural women have higher illiteracy rates than men, and their access and use of financial resources is limited (World Bank 2013). While, historically, matrilineal heritage supported daughters in land inheritance, nowadays, it has moved towards more equality. All children regardless of their gender inherit Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 3 of 20 lands from their parents mostly in equal shares. It is questionable if historical favoritism of women in land inheritance actually gave them any economic benefits. Despite the favoritism in land inheritance, their decision-making power over land was mostly limited. Men are reported to be the main decision-makers regarding land use. While decisions were generally found to be taken jointly, females were found to be sole decision-makers mostly only in the case of an absent male (World Bank 2013). Women’s status and food and nutrition security Although it is widely cited that women produce around 60% of the world’s food, empirically it is impossible to quantify female contribution to the food production as the production process involves both genders, and disaggregation is in most cases not possible. What is important is to highlight that women are principal in food production (Doss 2014) and homestead lands that are mostly used by females contribute a great deal to the dietary diversity of the households (Doss et al. 2018). Women’s status is found to have a significant positive effect on the nutritional status of children in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and Latin America. Sariyev et al. (2020) show a positive effect of women’s participation in household decision-making on dietary diversity in Ethiopian households. In Malawi, analysis shows that if femaleheaded households enjoy equality in access to productive resources their food security significantly improves (Kassie et al. 2015). In many parts of South Asia, there are inequalities in distribution of power within families. These inequalities can have different individual level outcomes regarding education, employment, and nutrition. The presence of this intra-household inequality can be observed as females eating left-over food and female children being fed less than male children. This is expressly present in poor households (Mukherjee 2009). Poor households are poor because of their limited productive resources, and it is often observed that food is assigned to higher priority members of the household who are quite often male (Miller 1997). Thus, the status of women may directly affect both their own and their daughters’nutritional status. Malapit et al. (2015) find positive implications for different specifications of female empowerment on dietary diversity of women and children in Nepal. Moreover, in Bangladesh, the status of women is found to be positively linked with long-term nutritional status of children (Bhagowalia et al. 2012). The large pool of literature on the interaction of food security and gender shows that investing in rural women is a proven method to contribute to household-level food and nutrition security. Among many analyses regarding food security, empowerment and their interaction in South Asia, the authors here fail to find any such studies in Bhutan or in any similar context. The study aims to contribute a good deal to the literature on women’s participation in intra-household decision-making. Measuring empowerment Kabeer (2001) finds that empowerment should be seen as a process of expansion in one’s freedom to make choices that affect one’s life. Its aim is to grant one’s deserved control over resources and decisions (Malhotra and Schuler 2005). In this study, we look at the decision aspect. As mentioned, land is a crucial productive resource over which Bhutanese women exercise control and in most cases, even enjoy favoritism. Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 4 of 20 Empowerment is difficult to measure as it is not directly observable. In light of this well-known difficulty, Malhotra and Schuler (2005) identify four possible ways of measuring empowerment. One of these approaches measures empowerment through survey questionnaires that capture aspects of one’s empowerment. This study uses the same strategy and tries to measure women’s empowerment through their participation in decision-making. Women’s participation in household decision-making is widely considered a good measure of empowerment (Acharya and Bennett 1983; Allendorf 2007; Bhagowalia et al. 2012; Schuler et al. 1996). Malhotra and Mather (1997) consider domestic decision-making one of the dimensions of empowerment along with paid work and education. Becker et al. (2006) reported and analyzed decision-making as a measure of empowerment using analysis of husband and wife reports on household decision-making, which revealed differences in the reported participation of wives. As mentioned, this is considered the main shortcoming of this approach of measuring empowerment. Hashemi et al. (1996) and Garikipati (2008), both use decision-making power as a proxy of empowerment along with a few other proxies to investigate the effect of credit programs on women in Bangladesh and India. Another example is from a nation close to Bhutan—Nepal, where empowerment was measured through questions on decision-making power. The analysis concentrates on uncovering the effect of owning land on the decision-making power of women. The results suggest that there is a high probability that women who own land have a final say or at least participate in joint decision-making (Allendorf 2007). This proves our earlier suspicion. A similar effect could be expected in Bhutan as well. To capture the level of female voices heard and preferences declared in domestic decisionmaking, we adopt a recently suggested approach by Sariyev et al. (2020) that enables the consideration of possible participation by all members in decision-making processes and aims to quantify women’s participation in them. Conceptual framework The underlying conceptual framework described in Fig. 1is adapted from Headey et al. (2011). It describes linkages between agriculture and nutrition affected by different socioeconomic factors. One key aspect is intra-household inequality, which is presumed to cause a leakage in the pathway. Agricultural policy at the national level influences the production of food, household income, and the amount spent on food and nonfood purchases. This is followed by its effect on the households’nutritional and health outcomes, which are determinants of individual nutritional intake and healthcare, respectively. Intra-household inequality can cause leakages in the pathway towards better nutrition. Headey et al. (2011) introduce intra-household inequalities that cause leakages with regard to food allocation among household members, and thus individuals’ food security. This study extends this approach and aims to discover the relation to the household-level dietary quality, measured by the Food Variety Score (FVS) and the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS). An increase in female participation in decision-making in households where inequality exists and males enjoy much stronger decision-making power than females is expected to positively contribute to the linkage. In general, gender inequality is a cross-cutting issue that needs to be considered if good nutritional attainments are to be achieved (Headey et al. 2011). Emphasizing that this Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 5 of 20 study investigates intra-household decision processes of Bhutanese households and aims to identify the effect of women’s participation level in domestic decision-making on the Bhutanese household nutritional outcomes, the study will test the following hypotheses: HI.Considering historical matrilineal heritage in Bhutan, women are not expected to be significantly lacking in participation in domestic decision-making. H II.The level of women’s participation in household decision-making determines the level of dietary diversity in the households. Echoing the thoughts of Headey et al. (2011), an increase in participation in decision-making will be associated with better outcomes in low levels of gender equality, but negative outcomes if it leads to inequality or one gender’s dictatorship in decision-making. Thus, the association between women’s intra-household decision-making power and household-level dietary quality is expected to be nonlinear. Methods Data The data analyzed in this study were collected in November 2017 and cover 251 households in two central western Dzongkhags (districts) of Bhutan: Tsirang and Dagana. It needs to be noted that because of time and financial constraints, this study was done in two central western regions of Bhutan with better road infrastructure than the north of the country. Multistage sampling was used. Simple random sampling was employed in all stages. In each of the seven randomly selected Gewogs (wards), three Chiwogs (villages) were randomly selected. Using the household lists acquired from the administration office, 12 randomly selected households were interviewed in each Chiwog. The survey was conducted by trained enumerators with a very good command of the local languages of the survey area. In order to secure data quality during data collection, computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) devices were carried. The questionnaire covered 10 sections that were related to household socio-economic characteristics, infrastructural situations, social networks, extension, household assets, land endowment, crop production, livestock production, labor and seasonality, food consumption, and expenditure. Farmers were asked questions regarding domestic decisionFig. 1 Linkages between agriculture and nutrition: effects of intra-household inequality. Source: Adapted from Headey et al. (2011) Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 6 of 20 making in all areas where households make crucial decisions that affect their livelihoods. Moreover, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted in randomly selected households in both Dzongkhags. These enabled us to freely discuss, understand, and capture different perceptions in the intra-household decision-making of Bhutanese households and served as complementary information to the quantitative survey. Although the minimum legal age of marriage, which one could regard as the formation of a new household, is 18 (Tahirih Justice Center 2014), UNICEF (2013) reports marriage at the age of 15 for 6.2% of the married population. Thus, the age eligibility criterion for consideration as a potential participant in domestic decision-making is 15 years. Members younger than 15 were not considered potential participants of decision-making processes. During the in-depth interviews, this cut-off point proved practically valid and was expressed distinctly by a farmer in Tsirang Dzongkhag who had two sons and a daughter: For smaller things no need to give the headache. I want my children to feel considered, or they might think we don’t care about their ideas. Class 10 is the time when they became an adult, that is when they are around 15-16 years old. When they are younger, their attention is to the school, no need to discuss with them anything, that is just an additional headache then. and he added, “My kids studied until class 10, after, they decided to quit, and it was already their decision.” This farmer reported that the decision was mostly taken by him and his wife, and children were also consulted in a few cases. Moreover, another farmer in Tsirang Dzongkhag on a question regarding children and their age to be eligible to participate in decision-making replied, laughing, “I was 14 years old when I got married, that was already a big decision,”and added, “I also consult my son, because later this land will be his land. I must discuss it with him.” Thus, in light of different perspectives regarding children and their eligibility to participate in decision-making, this study determines and concentrates on individuals who are 15 and older in the analysis of decision-making as the early marriage age and in-depth interviews signal that the age specification should be between 14 and 16 years old. Although the full sample contains 251 households, the analysis concentrates on 213 households as the rest of the households do not contain either male or female adult members within the appropriate age range, and thus we are unable to capture any potential gender bargaining in decision-making in those 38 households. This high dropout rate can be explained by the social situation in Bhutan where one can find many households with only one gender present, for example, where couples live separately or where a family member is employed and lives in an urban area. Methodology In interviews regarding domestic decision-making processes, household heads were first given a choice of reporting if the decision had been made by one household member, jointly by two household members, jointly by all household members or by someone outside the household. The names and household member IDs of the decision-makers in options of one household member and two household members were inserted by Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 7 of 20 enumerators into the CAPIs. This enables the identification of the sex of decisionmakers by way of cross-link to the household roster in CAPIs. Overall, as suggested by Sariyev et al. (2020), the decision made is considered a unit outcome in the analysis. To identify women’s participation levels in the decisions, this study adopts this approach and uses the following formula: WPDMi¼PFPDMi PPDMi where WPDM stands for women’s participation in decision-making and FPDM and PDM represent female participant and any gender participant in decision-making processes, respectively, in the ith domain. Thus, the number of female participants is divided by the total number of participants in decision-making which leads to WPDM ranging from 0 (no female participation) to 1 (full control over decision-making by females). Households must make various decisions to devise their livelihoods. This study investigates all potential decision-making processes that households hold. Naturally, households have different socio-economic characteristics and participate in different and various activities that might not be consistent among all households. That is why, in measuring women’s participation in domestic decision-making, the analyses are limited to the most important aspects of household livelihoods that is the decisions observed to be taken by almost all sample households in Bhutan. In this regard, the analyses consider decision-making processes regarding (i) household asset purchases, (ii) food purchases, (iii) crops grown, (iv) harvest use, (v) use of income from crop, (vi) input use, and (vii) land use. Variables of these seven decision-making processes (their respective WPDMs) are generated, and weights are assigned based on Formula 1. This is followed by a principal component analysis (PCA) to transform this set of correlated decisionmaking variables into one index: women’s participation in domestic decision-making or intra-household decision-making (WPDMI). The terms “domestic”and “intra-household”are used interchangeably. Further, we investigate WPDM variables to understand the intra-household decisionmaking in Bhutanese households. Moreover, to test H I, non-parametric statistical analyses are employed between three land ownership groups: male, female, and jointly owned. We define the land ownership variable as the ownership status of the largest parcel that household owns. Regarding the second objective of this study, WPDMI is regressed against two dietary diversity indicators: FVS and HDDS. Both are calculated using the reported domestic food consumption in the 7 days before the interview. Here, FVS is a simple count of different food items consumed by household members (Hatløy et al. 1998). Following guidelines by Kennedy et al. (2011), food items are aggregated into 12 food groups. HDDS is a simple count of households’consumption of food items from aggregated food groups. Obscure cut-off point in the number of food groups consumed to determine nutritional adequacy and minimum required size of serving for consideration in a food group are the main critics of dietary diversity scores. Dietary diversity indicators are not comprehensive food security measures (Cafiero et al. 2014). Nevertheless, household-level dietary diversity is found to be a good measure of household food access in multi-country level analysis (Hoddinott and Yohannes 2002), and its strong association with household-level per capita energy availability makes it an appropriate Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 8 of 20 hypothesis of this study, here, the question of interest is whether the initial threshold point is perfect gender equality. Unfortunately, the nature of the participation in the decision-making index generated by PCA does not allow for any such judgement to be made. Therefore, we transform the original WPDM variables into variables reflecting the level of gender equality in decision-making (GED). As 0.5 in WPDM variables indicates perfect gender equality in decision-making, any movement away from 0.5 must be seen as movement towards inequality. This is captured using the following formula (6): GEDi¼1− jWPDMi−0:5j 0:5ð6Þ GED variables have values ranging between 0 and 1, representing perfect gender equality and perfect inequality in decision-making, respectively. In the next step, PCA Fig. 3 Estimated quadratic and cubic regression graphs of WPDMI on HDDS and FVS, respectively. Source: Authors’graph Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 15 of 20 is applied to bundle these highly correlated GED variables in an index referred to as the gender equality in domestic decision-making index (GEDI). Table A3 of the “Additional file”section shows PCA results that indicate the index is representative of the common information shared by GED variables. We employ a linear regression to capture the association between GEDI and household dietary diversity indicators. The results are reported in Table 5. The main independent variable of interest, GEDI is found to be significantly positively associated with both FVS and HDDS. This result suggests that movement in any direction from perfect gender equality in decision-making will result in negative outcomes regarding the Bhutanese households’nutritional status. Moreover, production diversity, which is an unweighted count of crop and livestock units, shows a positive association with HDDS but not with FVS. It is observed that the significance of the association is different for dietary diversity indicators. Similar findings can be observed in meta-analysis by Sibhatu and Qaim (2018). The distance to the nearest farm road is negatively associated with household FVS. Access to the farm road captures households’market access, which is an important determinant of dietary diversity (Sibhatu and Qaim 2018). Increase in household size is associated with better dietary diversity. Additionally, keeping household size and other variables constant, an increase in the dependency ratio associates with lower HDDS. Households size and age structure are human capital indicators of welfare (Henry et al. 2003). A negative association between dependency ratio and HDDS can be explained by the decrease in the household labor force that translates into a loss in overall wealth and thus, access to a varied diet. Discussion The linkage between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security is widely supported by the literature but lacks robustness checks in societies where females historically enjoyed equality or even favoritism in cases like property inheritance, as in Bhutan. Therefore, the first objective of this study was to investigate one aspect of empowerment: women’s participation in domestic decision-making. The second objective Table 5 Linear estimation of association between gender equality in decision-making and dietary diversity indicators FVS HDDS Variables Coefficient Robust SE Coefficient Robust SE GEDI 1.326*** 0.355 0.411*** 0.125 Head age [years] −0.013 0.026 −0.004 0.009 Member with highest education [years] 0.044 0.076 0.010 0.028 Household size 0.676** 0.310 0.206* 0.107 Dependency ratio −2.417 1.791 −1.124* 0.669 Farm size [log] −0.251 0.422 −0.067 0.123 Production diversity 0.212 0.159 0.168*** 0.055 Distance to the nearest farm road [min] −0.045* 0.026 −0.009 0.011 Soil quality 2.679*** 0.543 0.462** 0.197 Observations 213 213 Adjusted Rsquared 0.249 0.381 Estimations include location dummies to control for Gewog level characteristics. Source: Authors’estimation ***p< 0.01, **p< 0.05, *p< 0.1 Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 16 of 20 was to investigate the association between their participation in domestic decisionmaking and household-level dietary quality. Historically, women enjoyed favoritism in land inheritance and experienced polyandry in Bhutan. Nowadays, in comparison with other countries in the region, Bhutanese women are found to be better off in terms of equality in many fields of social and household life. This study concentrated on and measured women’s participation in different fields of domestic decision-making. Descriptive analyses were conducted to understand the present situation of women. An index was created to quantify their overall participation in domestic decision-making and investigate the association with household-level dietary diversity. We found that, on average, females have a higher participation rate in a number of decision-making domains. Of the sample households, 45 to 50% declared proximity to gender equality in decision-making regarding different fields of domestic decisionmaking. Non-parametric test results show that women’s participation levels in decision-making is significantly different in different land ownership scenarios. Overall, the probability of women participating in decision-making processes is higher in households where a female owns the largest parcel. This is also the case, when comparing jointly owned lands with male owned lands. We observe an association between land ownership and women’s empowerment within households. Overall, we do not find that Bhutanese women lack any significant participation in domestic decision-making. Furthermore, we find positive association between gender equal decision-making and dietary diversity indicators. Our results are limited in its ability to assess causality between gender equality and dietary quality, and to rigorously investigate the impact of land succession on women’s empowerment. Future research could investigate the impact of matrilineal succession practice on women’s status more rigorously using a country-level representative longterm panel data, and causality between equality and dietary quality can be addressed employing tools like matching estimators or instrumental variable approach. Conclusion The results lead to two policy implications. Initial analysis in which we employ linear, quadratic, and cubic estimations of the association between WPDMI and dietary diversity measures find that, as hypothesized, the linkage between women’s participation in decision-making and dietary quality is nonlinear. Results revealed that women’s participation in decision-making is initially associated with positive outcomes. At some point, the association is reversed; a further increase in participation level is then negatively associated with the dietary quality indicators. Thus, women’s over-empowerment can distort the objectives of social programs and result in significant negative returns. Social programs that support women’s empowerment and nutrition need extensive knowledge of the societies and cultures in which they operate to ensure the effectiveness of their interventions. Therefore, we recommend undertaking ex-ante qualitative research in these types of social programs. Moreover, future research should elaborate on the negative returns of over-empowerment. To address the second hypothesis and further investigate the nonlinear association between women’s participation in decision-making and dietary quality, we generated an index capturing gender equality in decision-making (GEDI). Dietary diversity indicators Sariyev et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2020) 8:13 Page 17 of 20 were regressed on GEDI. The results suggest that an increase in intra-household equality in decision-making is positively associated with household FVS and HDDS. The results imply that in social programs, the focus should be on achieving intra-household equality, and not merely on empowering women. Considering that current literature mostly focuses on implications of women’s empowerment rather than equality, our findings contribute to the gender literature and highlight the importance of gender equality together with the need to empower women in discriminative societies. Overall, the results confirm the fifth sustainable development goal of the United Nations that is to achieve gender equality. Supplementary information Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-020-00158-0 . Additional file 1: Table A1. Comparison of WPDM between land ownership types (that is, male, female, and jointly owned lands) Table A2. Pairwise correlation of decision variables Table A3. Factor loadings and KMO values of GED variables Abbreviations CAPI: Computer-assisted personal interviewing; FPDM: Female participants of decision-making; FVS: Food Variety Score; GEDI: Gender equality in decision-making index; HDDS: Household Dietary Diversity Score; KMO: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin; PCA: Principal component analysis; PDM: Participants of decision-making; SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa; WPDMI: Women’s participation in decision-making index Acknowledgements The authors appreciate the welcoming and open culture of Bhutanese people. We are indebted to Dr. Emily McNulty for proofreading the article, Dr. Ling Yee Khor for helpful comments, and to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Authors’contributions OS and TL had developed the questionnaire that was checked and approved by MZ and TG. OS designed the survey and conducted the interviews together with TG. OS wrote the manuscript, and TL improved its content and language. MZ and TG critically revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Funding The research undertaken for this study has been financially supported by the fiat panis Ph.D. Grant from the Foundation fiat panis. Availability of data and materials The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available to protect the participant’s identities, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Ethics approval and consent to participate Before conducting the interviews, we obtained the informed consent of all the participants and assured them of confidentiality. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. 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