There is a growing interest in investigating gender-based farm productivity and efficiency issues
across Africa. Maize is a staple food crop not only in Americas but also in sub-Saharan Africa.
Using the third Integrated Household Survey data from Malawi and stochastic frontier
production function estimation approach, we estimate maize productivity and technical
efficiency in Malawi for male-headed and female-headed households, separately. Result shows
that, contrary to expectations; technical efficiency is 15 percent higher for female-headed
households compared to male-headed households.