This paper is motivated by the observation that children in land-rich households are often more likely to be in work than the children of land-poor households.The vast majority of working children in developing countries are in agricultural work, predominantly on farms operated by their families. Land is the most important store of wealth in agrarian societies and it is typically distributed very unequally. These facts challenge the common presumption that child labour emerges from the poorest households.

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The author finds that in contrast to the literature, area farmed is a determinant of investment and tenure security. However, no link exists between investment and tenure security.

This report gives a description of the financial life of residents with a limited basis for cash-crop and off-farm opportunities, hence restricting them to size of landholding as a critical indicator of wealth and status and influences access to cheap bank finance.The authors demonstrates that the use of informal mechanisms like reciprocal gifts, interest-free lending and borrowing and taking credit in kind from shopkeepers, is widespread and does not decrease with increasing wealth.

This report recounts the experiences of 130 women from various regions, ethnic groups, religions, and social classes in Kenya who have had their property rights flouted because they are women.The report presents evidence that women are excluded from inheriting, evicted from their lands and homes by in-laws, stripped of their possessions, and forced to engage in risky sexual practices in order to keep their property. When they divorce or separate from their husbands, they are often expelled from their homes with only their clothing.

Walter ChambatiApril 2013

Examines the role of religion in the formation and assertion of political identity in Kashmir. The issue has been highlighted by the rise of Islamic militancy in the 1990s. Four aspects are examined: the meaning of Islam for the people of Kashmir; the role of Islam in the formation of Kashmiri political identity; the secularization of this political identity; and the implications for the politics of fundamentalism.

Commercial farms in South Africa could become significantly more efficient if they became smaller. The government could encourage that trend by removing policies and distortions that favor large over small farms.Drawing on international evidence, van Zyl, Binswanger, and Thirtle discuss the sources of economies of scale.

Paper addresses the following concerns:rural women have limited access to and control of landmost agrarian reforms and legislation that directly or indirectly regulate access to land discriminate against womenthe establishment of legal frameworks with a gender perspective and the elimination of cultural and institutional factors that prevent the recognition of women as producers are essential to safeguard rural women’s access to land.Merely introducing principles of equality into constitutions and in certain norms is not sufficient.

What are the gains from a better education, more land ownership, or a different occupation in Bangladesh? Do the gains differ in urban and rural areas? Have they remained stable over time? Do household size, family structure, and gender affect well-being? Do consumption, poverty, and inequality depend more on characteristics of households or on the areas in which those households are located?Using household data from five successive national surveys, Wodon analyzes the microdeterminants of (and changes in) consumption, poverty, growth, and inequality in Bangladesh from 1983 to 1996.

Since 1994, the South African government has embarked on an ambitious land reform programme to redistribute and return land to previously disenfranchised communities. However, many black people lack the knowledge, skills and experience needed to manage their land.

Apparently factor prices do matter in agricultural production and in the selection of production technology. And in South Africa, more attention should be focused on the technological needs of small scale farmers.

Most of the land in sub-Saharan Africa is governed under various forms of customary tenure. Over the past three decades a quiet paradigm shift has been taking place transforming the way such landl is governed. Driven in part by adaptations to changing context but also accelerated by neo-liberal reforms, this shift has created a ‘new’ customary tenure in sub-Saharan Africa.