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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Urbanisation in Swaziland: a post-independence assessment of its implications on the changing role of women
Author:Miles, Miranda
Year:2000
Periodical:Urban Forum
Volume:11
Issue:1
Pages:103-118
Language:English
Geographic term:Swaziland - Eswatini
Subjects:urbanization
women
Labor and Employment
External link:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03036833
Abstract:Postcolonial urbanization in Swaziland has played a major role in influencing the migration and employment patterns of Swazi women. Their upward social mobility has meant that as women have joined the ranks of wage labour, employment opportunities have opened up for a contigent of 'invisible' women in domestic service. The need for domestic helpers has generated a wave of migration of women to town from rural areas. How gendered dimensions of Swaziland's urbanization process have occurred brings to light the need to recognize women's roles, particularly in the labour market. This paper highlights the migration experiences of women in Swaziland and explores the issues that have made them migrants and members of a labour force in an economy that has not recognized certain aspects of women's work, such as domestic work, or the implications of their work on women's family life. Special attention is given to agrarian transformation and the role of education. Female migration has acted as a barometer of social change within Swazi society and of economic restructuring within the regional economy of Southern Africa. The changing balance between rural and urban production and between subsistence and commercial sectors has given rise to gender-selective rural-urban migration. Bibliogr.
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