Beyond Ownership: Land, Intra-Household Control and Women's Economic Agency: A Study of Naduvannur Village in Kerala

Women's economic empowerment is often assessed through asset ownership, but reported ownership does not necessarily imply effective control or legally documented title. This study examines whether reported land ownership translates into substantive economic agency among women in Naduvannur Village, Kerala. Using respondent-level survey data from 450 respondents, the study analyses the relationship between land-acquisition pathways, reported ownership form and women's decision-making authority over major household assets. The empirical analysis combines descriptive statistics, a chi-square test, non-parametric comparisons and binary logistic regression with robust standard errors. In the reference parcel, joint ownership with family is the most common category (54.2%), while 32.9% is reported as sole ownership. Inheritance is the dominant acquisition pathway (67.3%), and sole ownership is more common among inherited parcels (39.6%) than purchased parcels (13.8%). The association between acquisition mode and sole ownership is statistically significant (χ² = 28.34, p < 0.001). In the logistic model, purchased reference parcels have significantly lower odds of sole reported ownership than inherited parcels (OR = 0.279, 95% CI: 0.159–0.489, p < 0.001), conditional on total land size, recorded land value and government transfer. The broader survey further shows that women constitute 28% of individual land owners but only 12% of individual reported decision-makers in land sales. The findings support a distinction between formal ownership and substantive economic agency and suggest that women's empowerment policies should strengthen not only asset ownership but also documented rights, control and decision-making power.

women's economic empowerment; land ownership; property rights; intra-household bargaining; economic agency.

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