Who claims the rights to livestock? Gendered patterns of asset holdings in smallholder households in Uganda

Hillesland, Marya; Doss, Cheryl; Slavchevska, Vanya; and Querejeta, Martina. 2023. Who claims the rights to livestock? Gendered patterns of asset holdings in smallholder households in Uganda. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 2023, 21(1): 2220929. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2023.2220929

Although data on livestock ownership are often collected at the household level, not all household members have the same rights over the livestock. In this paper, we investigate the gendered patterns of livestock ownership in smallholder households in Uganda using a unique data set with information on ownership, management, and decision-making across different types of livestock. Drawing on the bundle of rights frameworks, the analysis demonstrates the importance of going beyond analyses of ownership to also consider these other rights. We find that people who claim to be owners may not have the management or fructus rights. People also may have these latter rights without claiming ownership. We also find discrepancies in the responses from spouses; they provide different answers regarding who owns and has the rights over livestock. This suggests patterns of asymmetric information and potentially the hiding of animals from one’s spouse.