Drawing on mixed methods research from rural Kenya, Marya Hillesland (gender advisor at KIT institute and visiting fellow at the University of Oxford) highlighted how traditional empowerment measures may underestimate agency when presenting the virtual seminar Deciding Not to Decide: When Is There Power in Not Deciding? on April 25, 2025. Opening remarks by Clara Delavallade (Senior Economist, Africa GIL) and a discussion led by Erin Lentz (Professor, University of Texas, Austin) sparked a rich conversation on how to better capture complex forms of agency in research and practice. The Kenyan dataset used is unique, as it allows to examine decision-making across various family relationships. The module was administered to all adults in the household, so going beyond the usual focus of just the husband and wife.
The authors defined two separate expressions of effective power when people are not participating in the decision directly: effective power by proxy, and effective power through influence or persuasion. Effective power by proxy is when respondents prefer not to be directly involved, knowing that their preferred outcome is likely to be attained without their involvement, and would prefer to free up time or mental space for something else. Effective power through influence or persuasion is used when one fears that direct involvement would not be appropriate within the socialized norms, and therefore fears backlash or social and economic penalties.
When not decisionmakers, men had effective power in 22% if the decisions, compared to 13% in women. In households where the couple lives with the husband’s parents, women tend to be directly involved in a lesser share of the decisions, but exercise more effective power. Wives who live in households with other co-wives are involved directly in more decisions than wives who live with their in-laws, but exercise less effective power than wives who live alone with their husbands. Overall, unmarried young men and women who still live with their parents are the least likely to be directly involved in decision-making.
The primary takeaway from the results presented was that traditional attempts at measuring women’s power in decision-making might be missing key aspects of their agency when they are not directly involved in the decisions. Marya Hillesland’s presentation was followed by an open discussion.
International Food Policy Research Institute