Page 55 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Mbu Daniel Tambi, Mah-Soh Glennice Fosah: Econometric Modelling of Women
Empowerment and Agricultural Production in Cameroon

CONCLUSION
The study had as main objective to measure the contribution of women empowerment
on agricultural production in Cameroon, with specific objectives; to discuss the
determinants of women empowerment in Cameroon; investigate the actual effects of
women empowerment on agricultural production; and to verify the heterogeneity
effect of women empowerment on agricultural production by family status. To
achieve these objectives, secondary data related to the variables under study were
extracted from the 2014 Household Consumption Survey data set produced by the
National Institute of Statistics. The data were analysed using both descriptive and
inferential statistical tools. The descriptive tool used summary descriptive statistics
while the inferential statistic tool involved the OLS estimation, the 2SLS estimation
and the Maximum Likelihood Control function estimation technique.

To create the women empowerment indicator, a multiple correspondence analysis was
conducted. The results reveal that woman has higher education, has a post of
responsibility in a professional association, receives assistance from family, receives
assistance from friends and associates, assistance from religious association, receives
assistance from solidarity association, having a savings account and being a
shareholder contributed significantly contributed to the total inertia. The indicator was
predicted from the first dimension (mother received higher education) as it has the
highest contribution (about 18%) to total inertia. To attain the objective of the
determinants of women empowerment in Cameroon, the reduced form model of
women empowerment was estimated and the results revealed that the cost of medical
consultation, marital status, socioeconomic status, fertilizer used, agricultural primary
activity, cost of seeds, farm size, formal agricultural training, household size and place
of residence significantly affect women empowerment in Cameroon. The model
specified was reliable, indicated by the Prob>chi2, which show that the explanatory
variables are globally significant in determining women empowerment, significant at
2
1% level of significance. Nonetheless, the R revealed that only 16.37% of variation
in women empowerment is being explained by the independent variables specified in
our model. Thus other important variables that affect women empowerment were
omitted though captured in the error term.

The OLS, 2SLS and Control Function regression was also estimated to address the
objective of investigating the actual effects of women empowerment on agricultural
production in Cameroon. The 2SLS estimation reveals that 89% of variation in
agricultural production is caused by the variables specified in the model. However,
both models are globally significant at 1% level of significance.

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