Women's Role in Household Food Security in Rural Sri Lanka

Abstract

Food security is a major development issue which has been prioritised in domestic economic policies ofmany developing countries. Recently, there is an increasing trend of directing food security policies towardsempowering women, because, many studies have revealed that women play a significant role in reducingpoverty and food insecurity in their households. However, there is a dearth of studies that discusses thewomen's role in achieving household food security in the context of Sri Lanka, even though women areculturally assigned a huge responsibility in almost all the household tasks including household foodmanagement. Hence, this study attempted to analyze the women's role in household food security in SriLanka in the rural context. The primary data was gathered from a cross sectional sample survey inThirappane division in the Anuradhapura district, and the data was collected from 100 households whichwere selected based on simple random sampling method. To achieve the objectives, both descriptive andeconometric methods were used in the data analysis. The study found that women play a strong role inassuring household food security in all three dimensions of food security; they make a significantcontribution to farming and thereby household food availability, their contribution to income is crucial inhousehold food access especially in low income households, and their nutritional knowledge is alsoimportant inthe proper utilization of food in households. Furthermore, the study estimated a regressionmodel using ordinary least square (OLS) method and could identify that women's income, their nutritionalknowledge, and their use of indigenous food management knowledge as important determinants of householdfood security in rural households. Accordingly, the results suggested that the food security policies in thecountry should be aimed at empowering women's capacities through income and education to yield betteroutcomes.

Kywords: Food security, Women’s role, Rural households