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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Gender division of labour and women's decision-making power in rural households in Cameroon
Author:Sikod, FondoISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:Africa Development: A Quarterly Journal of CODESRIA (ISSN 0850-3907)
Volume:32
Issue:3
Pages:58-71
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs., ills.
Geographic terms:Cameroon
West Africa
Subjects:gender division of labour
women farmers
rural households
social status
rural development
Sexual division of labor
Decision making
women
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483895
Abstract:In most rural areas of Cameroon, women are incorporating a market-oriented dimension to their farming activities. This is an improvement from years before when food crop farming was almost exclusively for household consumption. This additional focus on food crop farming is mainly a result of the need to supplement household incomes following the drop in salaries due to the economic crisis Cameroon has been facing since the 1980s. The agricultural sector was not spared either. The burden of making up for this shortfall within households was placed on the backs of women. Considering that decisionmaking seems to be based on, among other factors, economic power, income earnings are likely to confer a certain degree of decisionmaking power on women. This paper looks at how change in the gender division of labour impacts on women's decisionmaking power, and whether the traditional division of labour, which gives women very little access to labour-augmenting resources, leads to an inefficient allocation of resources that retard development. The paper concludes that changes are occurring in women's economic status, and these changes are impacting on their decisionmaking power within the household. The intra-household relationships are being reshaped and gender roles within the household redefined. Nevertheless, men are still the heads of households and the major decisionmakers. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract, edited]
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