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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Gender division of labour and women's decision-making power in rural households in Cameroon |
Author: | Sikod, Fondo |
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] |