This study examines the effect of women-centric agricultural self-help groups (SHGs) on intra-household decision-making in agriculture. Using data collected from an intra-household survey of 815 households, we analyze the effect of women's membership in different types of SHGs on 14 decisions related to farms and households. Specifically, we investigate the discord in decision-making, which is the difference in the perceived decision-making roles of spouses within a household. Our results show that women's participation in SHGs has increased their role in decision-making by 8–13%. However, the effects vary according to the type of intervention and the decision. We found fewer discords in intra-household decision-making in seed SHGs than in micro-finance SHGs. In conclusion, our study suggests that women's engagement in agriculture-based SHG interventions can encourage joint decision-making, but the magnitude of this effect depends on the type of SHG. Development agencies can use this information to design interventions targeted at empowering women through the improvement of the agricultural value chain.

中文翻译：

---

妇女自助团体和家庭内部农业决策

本研究探讨了以妇女为中心的农业自助团体（SHG）对家庭内部农业决策的影响。我们利用对 815 个家庭进行的家庭内部调查收集的数据，分析了不同类型 SHG 中女性成员对 14 项与农场和家庭相关的决策的影响。具体来说，我们调查了决策中的不一致，即家庭中配偶对决策角色的认知差异。我们的结果表明，女性参与 SHG 后，她们在决策中的作用提高了 8-13%。然而，效果因干预类型和决策而异。我们发现，种子 SHG 中的家庭内部决策不一致程度比小额信贷 SHG 中的不一致要少。综上所述，我们的研究表明，妇女参与基于农业的SHG干预措施可以鼓励联合决策，但这种影响的程度取决于SHG的类型。发展机构可以利用这些信息来设计干预措施，旨在通过改善农业价值链赋予妇女权力。