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Population in ECOSORN’s Target Provinces in
Terms of Gender Focus

Available Data per province / district
See tables on gender ref. commune database
Summary table

	Total population	Number of male	Number of female	Ratio of male/ female 2005
Total Population in Target Provinces	2,401,147	1,175,633	1,225,614	95.9/100
Total population in Battambang	948,706	465,746	482,960	96.4/100
Total population in target communes in Battambang	184,151	90,738	93,413	97.1/100
Total population in Siem Reap	776,978	377,962	399,116	94.6/100
Total population in target communes in Siem Reap	94,290	46,100	48,190	95.6/100
Total Banteay Manchey	675,463	331,925	343,538	96.6/100
Total population in target communes in Banteay Manchey	124,770	61,460	63,310	97/100
Total Population in the Total Target Communes	403,211	198,298	204,913	96.7/100

Family Status

On average 19.2% of the household heads are female in the project area. It is particularly high in Banteay Meanchey (30.4%) and low in Battambang (12.0%). The result for Banteay Meanchey is in line with the national statistics, which shows a high percentage of women headed households at 31% (NSO, 1999). The reasons could be given to a high number of widow or single households, or the habits of particular households or areas, which have given the priority to women to be household heads. 

Gender of HH head per province

		Province			Total
		Banteay Meanchey	Battambang	Siem Reap
Gender	Male	69,6%	88,0%	82,2%	80,8%
	Female	30,4%	12,0%	17,7%	19,2%
		100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

On a district basis, the maximum proportion of female heads is in Thma Puok with 43.5% and the lowest one in Sampov Lun with 8.7%. On average, 10.9% of the household heads in the project area are widow(er)s and 87.1% are married. The rate of widow(er)s is particularly high in Siem Reap with 13.8% against 8.4% in Batambang and 9.9 % in Banteay Meanchey. The cause of this high percentage is undoubtly related to the Khmer Rouge period and ensuing civil war. Gender-wise, only 2.1% of male household heads are widowers while 48% of female household heads are widows. This rate for females reaches 66.7% in Siem Reap.

 

On average, the age of the heads of hh is 43.64 years. This varies from a minimum of 19 to a maximum of 90 with the youngest population in Banteay Meanchey and the oldest one in Siem Reap.

Age of hh head

Sex		Province
		Banteay Meanchey	Battambang	Siem Reap
Male	Minimum	23	21	20
	Maximum	68	84	90
	Average	43.93	43.93	43.04
Female	Minimum	19	25	25
	Maximum	74	74	83
	Average	40.47	47.78	48.56
Total	Minimum	19	21	20
	Maximum	74	84	90
	Average	42.88	43.61	44.20

Women heads of hh appear older than men heads of hh with on average age of 48.6 years against 43.3 years, except in Banteay Meanchey where they are younger than male heads.

Education

Education influences a person’s ability to search for and to open avenues for earning & income opportunities, and is therefore significant in the improvement of living standards. For the project area, only 49.7% of the hh heads have a primary school education and above. In particular, 30.6% cannot read or write.
Siem Reap presents the worst record in terms of level of education with only 37.4% having a primary school education and above and Battambang the best with 60.1%. As far as gender is concerned, 27.4% of male hh heads are illiterate and 44.1% of female HH. 53.8% of male hh heads have reached primary school level and above, while only 32.3% of the female hh heads have done so.

Education level of HH head 'Province and gender'

Sex of HH head			Province			Total
			Banteay Meanchey	Battambang	Siem Reap
Male	Education level of HH Head       Total	Cannot read & Write Can read, but can't Write Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary	34,1% 7,9% 45,2% 9,5% 3,2% 100,0%	21,2% 16,2% 45,5% 13,1% 4,0% 100,0%	29,2% 27,8% 34,0% 7,7% 1,4% 100,0%	27,4% 18,8% 40,9% 10,1% 2,8% 100,0%
Female	Education level of HH Head       Total	Cannot read & Write Can read, but can't Write Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary	41,8% 17,7% 40,0% 3,6% 1,8% 100,0%	25,9% 33,3% 40,7%     100,0%	57,8% 31,1% 11,1%     100,0%	44,1% 23,6% 29,9% 1,6% 0,8% 100,0%

Main occupation

Over the ECOSORN area, the main occupation is rice farming for 79.5% followed by wage labour with 12.0% and cash crop growing (3.2%) and fishing (3.0%). Province-wide, Siem Reap looks more diversified with a noticeable percentage of fishing (7.9%) while cash crop growing is significant (8%) in Battambang, while Banteay Meanchey relies significantly on wage labour (21.0%). With respect to gender, women are less involved in cash cropping but they are more involved in handicraft and trade.

Household Assets

There is no significant difference (Chi-square test, p=0.188) in relation to gender of household heads and the size of houses. This means that the house size for female headed households is similar to the house size of male headed households.

House size by Sex
Female headed hh tend to have a smaller house.

There is no significant differnce (Chi-square test, p=0.232) regarding house ownership among female and male-headed households.
Therefore, there is no relationship between the conditions of houses and the gender of the household head. Thus the house condition of male-headed households is no better than the house condition of female-headed households.

Wealth Ranking

There is no significant difference (Chi-square test, p=0.177) in relation to wealth ranking among female and male-headed households.

Gender-wise, female heads of hh are less optimistic than male (with 3.9% against 9.0% of Much and Very much) and more uncertain about the future.

Rice Productivity

Gender-wise, on average the rice yield for rice producers is lower for female heads with 1.22T/ha against 1.46T/ha for male heads.

Furthermore, 49.6% of female heads get less than 1T / ha while only 29.3% of male get this level. On the contrary, only 23.3% of the female-headed households get more than 1.5 T /ha, while 40.2% reach this level.

Off farm labour

On average, 47.9% of the households have a member of the family working outside the farm. Gender-wise, the recourse to off-farm labour is higher among the female-headed households with 57.5%, against 45.6% for the male. In Battambang, 77.8% of the female-headed hh resort to off-farm labour.

Credit Status

On average, more than three out of four respondents declared to be indebted with no significant difference among the provinces.

There is no significant difference per gender.

Gender

On average, 23.6% of the respondents are aware of gender-related activities with a slightly better level of information in Banteay Meanchey.

There is no significant difference (Chi-square test, p=0.428) among the declarations of male and female-headed households in relation to gender activities in the areas. Regarding the decentralised process, 26.4% of the women (women head or spouse of male head) were consulted for the CDP with the best level in Banteay Meanchey (33.1%). When consulted, 90.9% of the male-headed hh and 97.4% of the female-headed hh consider that the women’ proposals were taken into consideration into the CDP.

Female heads of hh with 61.4% seem to be slightly more aware of the CDP than male heads of hh (only 58.7%).