This paper examines whether agricultural productivity can improve the condition of women’s empowerment in rural Indonesia. We combined two unique datasets that, IDHS (Indonesian Demographic Health Survey) and PODES (village potential survey), for the year 2002. We employed Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to gauge the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and applied several regression models to explore causality between agricultural productivity and the WEAI. Results reveal that agricultural productivity has no significant effect on empowering women in rural agriculture. The women’s acceptance of violence against women is the source of their disempowerment. Subgroup analysis suggests government programs for improving farmer productivity have often ignored the involvement of women.

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