Rawlsian land reform with human capital an empirical investigation taking into account the gender

Abstract

It is argued that land reform, consisting on the transformation of latifundia to mesofundia or microfundia, can be welfare improving, from a Rawlsian point of view, as it generates a superior situation, in terms of equity. Having this in mind, this (short) paper intends to be an empirical investigation of the possession rights and, in particular the agricultural holdings, of the land, differentiated by gender. This unveils that, even if land reform is put in practice, it generally remains a problem of inequality, in terms of land rights (ownership and/or holding), by gender.