The impact of women's economic participation on grassland protection

Studies on the influencing factors of herders' overgrazing behaviors have made considerable theoretical and empirical progress. However, little is known about the potential impact of women's economic participation on overgrazing. Our study fills this research gap by employing a two-way fixed effects model to quantify the impact of women's economic participation on overgrazing behaviors based on a panel dataset of 711 herder households in Nei Mongol, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces of China between 2015 and 2017. The results show that households with women's participation in livestock grazing significantly reduce both grazing intensity and overgrazing, compared to those without such participation. An increase in the proportion of women's labor time devoted to livestock grazing relative to total household grazing time significantly leads to a reduction in grazing intensity and overgrazing. In contrast, women's participation in non-farm employment shows no significant impact. The primary mechanisms through which women's participation in livestock grazing promotes grassland protection are grassland transfer and supplementary feeding. The results also show that the interactions of women's participation in livestock grazing, informal institutions, and the Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy lead to increased grazing intensity and overgrazing. Our findings suggest that actively promoting women's participation in livestock production and strengthening their involvement in both formal and informal institutions are crucial for advancing sustainable grassland management.