Intra-household decision-making and perceived climate change resilience among smallholder farmers in semi-arid northern Ghana

Climate change vulnerability remains a major challenge for smallholder farmers. There is consensus that the climate change resilience of smallholder farming households could be enhanced if agricultural decision-making incorporates the perspectives of all household members. Yet in smallholder farming communities such as northern Ghana, deep-seated socio-cultural and intra-household structures continue to influence joint decision-making. Although smallholder climate resilience has received enormous research attention, the role of household decision-making arrangements on climate resilience remains underexplored. Using cross-sectional data (n = 1100) from the Upper West Region of Ghana (UWR), we examined the relationship between smallholder household decision-making arrangements and their perceived resilience to climate change impacts. Findings from a regression analysis indicate that households practicing joint decision-making were more likely (β = 1.11, p ≤ 0.001) to report good resilience compared to households with only male head decision-makers. Moderately food insecure (β 0.74 = , p ≤ 0.01) households were also significantly more likely to report good resilience. In contrast, households with primary farmers aged between 46 to 59 (β = -0.82, p ≤ 0.05) and formally educated (β = -0.63, p ≤ 0.01) were significantly less likely to report good resilience. In a context with age-long sociocultural beliefs and structures, our findings highlight the importance of joint decision-making to smallholder resilience and the need for practical programs aimed at encouraging intra-household decision-making toward climate change resilience.