11 pages, Background: Teenage pregnancy is a major public health concern, especially in low- and middle-income countries, due to various social, economic and cultural influences on teenage girls. These pregnancies prove to have negative long-term effects on the health status of both the mother and the child where there are high risks of further complications and poor nutrition among the pregnant woman and the unborn child.
Methodology: This review combined searches from databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The main languages of the included articles were restricted to English, and the themes for the search were limited to teenage pregnancies and child malnutrition. The selection criteria were studies published between 2010 and 2023, and peer-reviewed articles that involved adolescent mothers between the ages of 10-19 years and different child nutrition outcomes.
Results: This study shows that teenage mothers are more likely to suffer some pregnancy complications, such as anaemia, which is made worse by poor maternal diets. These complications result in poor child health outcomes including stunting, wasting and low birth weight. The review revealed influential factors related to teenagers’ pregnancy including poverty, illiteracy, early marriage and unavailability of reproductive health facilities to all. Conversely, high-income countries record fewer incidences of these outcomes owing to improved and enhanced medical care services and social welfare provisions.
Conclusion: Findings from this review underscore issues that require intervention such as; education on the broader aspects of sexual and reproductive health, access to healthcare services, socio-economic empowerment, and addressing cultural factors through community mobilization. The realization of these strategies can greatly enhance maternal and child health outcomes. Future research should incorporate longitudinal designs and employ panel data analysis to investigate other social and economic effects of teenage pregnancy.
17 pages, In developing countries, agriculture plays a vital role in reducing poverty and enhancing food security. In Sunamganj, Bangladesh, rural women significantly contribute to agriculture but face gender disparities and limited access to resources. Green cooperatives provide a promising model to empower these women through sustainable practices and economic support. This study explores the roles and impacts of green cooperatives on rural women entrepreneurs in Sunamganj, focusing on factors influencing their involvement, the benefits, and constraints they face, and changes in empowerment before and after joining cooperatives. This study was conducted across five upazilas in Sunamganj, the sampled 200 women entrepreneurs-100 cooperative members and 100 non-members using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Data was gathered via interviews, surveys, and focus group discussions (FGDs) and analyzed with SPSS and Microsoft Excel. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify key influencing factors and the Problems Confrontation Index (PCI) was utilized to assess the severity of challenges faced by members. The findings reveal that green cooperatives enhance women’s socio-economic status through improved production, market access, financial stability, and decision-making roles. Education, credit access, input availability, training, and experience were key drivers of the cooperative engagement of rural women entrepreneurs. However, challenges like male dominance, limited training, transportation issues, labor shortages, and market information gaps persist. Despite these, women in green cooperatives benefit from fixed pricing for organic products, increased bargaining power, and timely access to inputs and training. The study highlights the need for improved education, continuous training, extension services, high-quality inputs, and better infrastructure to support women’s participation further. The insights provided aim to guide policymakers in developing supportive policies that enhance the impact of green cooperatives, address gender-specific challenges, and promote the use of digital tools for market access. Future research should explore longitudinal studies and regional comparisons for deeper insights into rural women’s empowerment.
15 pages, Information on gender specific contribution and challenges within the beekeeping values chain is vital for shaping policies that promote gender equity and enhance productivity. This study examined gender dynamics in beekeeping, focusing on the roles of men and women in the value chain. Using cross - sectional design, 265 individuals were surveyed, and interviewed. Descriptive statistics summarized respondent’s demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, while binary logistic regression identified factors influencing involvement in beekeeping. The findings found that most respondents (81.1%) were males aged 41-60 years, and over 80% were married. A majority (87.2%) were heads of their families, and over 60% had incomes below 1,500,000TZS. Most respondents (57.7%) involved in beekeeping as a part-time activity. Men were engaged in apiary preparation, placing hives, honey harvesting and selling with women’s involvement significantly lower across most beekeeping activities. Older men, household heads from large families, and those attending seminars were more involved. Factors such as a gender, family size, household position, age, education, income, seminar attendance, technology, market access, and number of beehives influencing involvement, with a p – value of < 0.05, indicating strong associations with beekeeping activity levels. The illustrated notable gender disparities in beekeeping, with the beekeeping, with men dominating key activities compared to women.
26 pages, Commercial restrictions limit the extent of women's participation in the South African economy despite gender equality being valued. Since the implementation of The Women Empowerment Project in 1999, the agricultural sector's contribution has not yet been fully quantified. Women’s opportunities, challenges, and roles in agriculture must be explored further by evaluating resource management strategies and policies. This study aimed to quantify women's empowerment in agriculture using descriptive research methodology. Data were collected and statistically analysed using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) to identify the origin and extent of female farmers' difficulties. Satisfactory outcomes in production, leadership, assets, income, and time usage were more strongly associated with empowerment than demographic variables, and time available contributed the most to women feeling disempowered. Overall, women reported feeling more empowered compared to men. Disempowerment in male respondents as the control group was attributed to time, workload, and resources. In future studies, gender policies should be further developed to incorporate gender dimension, gender budgeting and sex-disaggregated data administration.
21 pages, Women empowerment and gender equality have been found to be statistically significant and positive predictors of global agricultural development. Therefore, reducing gender disparities can encourage economic progress and growth in developing nations. As such, determining effective ways to stimulate social progress and women’s empowerment has emerged as a critical need. One strategy used to raise the public’s consciousness about gendered issues in Thailand has been through mass media. In response, this study aimed to (1) determine to what extent Thailand’s newspaper coverage focused on topics related to women and the agricultural industry; and (2) describe how women in agriculture have been portrayed in newspaper coverage since the introduction of Thailand 4.0’s policy in 2016. Using a qualitative content analysis of Thailand’s newspaper coverage of women in the agricultural sector, four themes emerged: (1) economic policy implications for Thailand’s agricultural system; (2) human rights; (3) women entrepreneurship and leadership; and (4) agricultural development. Therefore, this study concluded that newspaper coverage of women in agriculture was diverse and conflicting – a finding not previously reported. The findings also revealed that women in agriculture have been underrepresented in newspaper publications historically. Moving forward, we provided critical implications for how future research, theory, and practice can depict women in agriculture more positively in the newspaper media.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12540
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8 pages, The term “feminization of agriculture” is used to describe changing labor markets that pull men out of agriculture, increasing women's roles. However, simplified understandings of this feminization persist as myths in the literature, limiting our understanding of the broader changes that affect food security. Through a review of literature, this paper analyses four myths: 1) feminization of agriculture is the predominant global trend in global agriculture; 2) women left behind are passive victims and not farmers; 3) feminization is bad for agriculture; and 4) women farmers all face similar challenges. The paper unravels each myth, reveals the complexity of gendered power dynamics in feminization trends, and discusses the implications of these for global food security.
17 pages, This article draws upon research exploring a project that combines edutainment and participatory communication strategies as an approach to social change in Malawi. Throughout the research, I take a critical stance that seeks to uplift voices of an audience attending a radio listening club (RLC) and therefore utilize participatory methods to co-create the body of knowledge with study participants. In this article, I query RLC audience’s thoughts of the project’s relevance and influence in their daily lives. Oriented by Hall’s concepts of encoding and decoding, I analyse my data focusing on the dynamics between the objectives of the producers and the lived reality of the participants. Findings reveal that audience’s motivation for continued attendance of the RLC is different to that intended in the encoding process; rather audiences negotiate the relevance of messages to their own needs, those of their children and utilize the space to extend their social capital.
