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Studies rarely examine the differential impact of policies on the sexes or draw implications about differentiation for the productivity of sex groups. Social scientists typically treat women's interests as automatically tied to those of men by utilizing the family as a unit of analysis.' The failure to recognize women's interests in, for example, societies with separate spouse economic activities or separate spouse residences as a result of migration (and thus female-headed households), significantly clouds our understanding of the government distributive process.It is widely recognized that in many parts of Africa women are important contributors to the agricultural economy. In addition to their domestic labour contributions, women plant, weed, harvest and trade crops.' Boserup has designated certain parts of Africa as 'female farming systems', where a large part of agricultural work is done by women.3 This economic participation, often combined with female control over the fruits of their labour, may account for the economic autonomy of many African women, the extensive contribution they make to household maintenance, and their relatively high statusa4Yet changes in technology appear to be associated with decreasing participation by women in agriculture and their productivity is alleged to decline in relation to that of men.5 A result is a widened gap in productivity between the sexes, and a tendency toward female economic dependency on men. Although this tendency appears to be borne out in general historical perspective and in cross-sectional aggregate analyses of women's participation in various stages of economic technology,6 there is very little evidence on specific factors which contribute to declining productivity by women.

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