Livelihoods Of Women Research Articles

Urban flooding in Lagos, Nigeria: Patterns of vulnerability and resilience among women

We report findings from a mixed method study of women's gendered experiences with flash floods in the coastal city of Lagos, Nigeria. Drawing on narrative accounts from 36 interviews, a survey (n=453) and 6 focus group discussions, we investigate the impacts of floods in general and specifically the July 2011 flood event on women's lives, livelihoods, and health. We draw on complementary perspectives from feminist political ecology and social vulnerability theory to understand the ways in which such events are perceived, experienced and managed by women of different socio-economic classes, households, and geographic locations. Thematic and content analyses were used to examine women's perceptions of floods, while descriptive statistical analysis and chi-square test were employed to compare actual impacts. Results show that women in general expressed no concern about gendered vulnerability to flooding as most believed flood impacts were gender neutral. This dominant view however, was not supported by evidence in the post-July 2011 flooding as impacts varied among income groups and neighbourhoods, and gender differences were apparent. Women in the low-income neighbourhood recorded higher impacts and slower recovery compared to other social categories of women and men. All impacts reported were statistically significant between women in low and high income neighbourhoods but most were not significant between women in middle and high income neighbourhoods. Gender relations and roles intersecting with place, class, employment status, and healthcare, were mediating factors that placed low-income women at greater risk of impacts than others. With climate change likely to induce more extreme events, a case is made for collaborative and institutional efforts to systematically boost urban poor women's adaptive capacity through targeted programmes aimed at alleviating poverty and improving women's access to housing, health care and alternative sources of livelihoods.

Enhancement of Women's Livelihoods and Group Solidarity - An Appraisal of Post Tsunami Women Centered Initiatives in Pondicherry, India

The paper examines the impact of post tsunami initiatives on the expansion of women's livelihood and their group solidarity. It also seeks to establish the linkage between relief, rehabilitation and development; and the concomitant necessity to locate post disaster interventions in the broader framework of LRRD (linking relief, rehabilitation and development). The paper specifically considers Swiss Red Cross (SRC) supported interventions in South Indian State of Pondicherry where it partnered with a local NGO - SNEHA for some of its post tsunami initiatives. The paper highlights the focus of programmatic interventions at, broadly speaking, three levels: addressing the immediate need to re-establish livelihoods of fisher women, and creating demand driven fisheries’ infrastructure with a view to strengthening existing livelihood base, introducing new modes of income generation, and taking measures to consolidate community based organisations in the project villages through capacity building inputs and exposure visits.

Gender, Poverty and Old-Age Livelihoods in Urban South India in an Era of Globalisation

This article examines how older women's work in the informal economy contributes to family, national and global economies. It is argued here that protecting and promoting older women's livelihoods will not only serve the interests of older women, but will also have much wider social and economic significance. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken over the past two decades in urban South India, this article demonstrates that among the poorest families, rather than being dependent on spouse or family, older women are often self-supporting, support husbands and subsidise the incomes of younger relatives. Older women's work not only helps reduce family poverty, but is also critical to the distribution of agricultural produce in urban areas and supports India's global competitiveness. This article identifies how state and market responses to liberalisation and globalisation are threatening older women's livelihoods while failing to provide adequate safety nets for older women or their families.

Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches for Exploring Smallholder Agricultural Programs Targeted at Women: Examples from South Africa

Smallholder farming can play a crucial role in contributing to food supplies and autonomy at the household and community level in rural areas, yet this has been challenging to evaluate. In South Africa, smallholder agriculture faces multiple challenges due to historical injustices regarding access to land and resources and to post-apartheid policies that failed to promote rural development. Drawing on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and employing a mixed methods approach, we explore through participant observation and interviews the prospects of smallholder agricultural programs for establishing sustainable livelihoods, facilitated by civil society organizations and targeted at rural black and colored South African women. Participation in these programs enabled women access to various livelihoods assets: education and capacity-building (human assets); land (natural assets); tools and infrastructure (physical assets); stipends and income from selling their produce (financial assets); and networking (social assets). Operational challenges included divergent expectations on the side of project facilitators and participants; lack of communication; participant dependency on the organizations; lack of access to markets; and programs' lack of financial sustainability. Our findings suggest that, while these programs are not yet sustainable, they stimulate an awareness of possibilities, visions, ownership, and rights that can have a long-term effect on the livelihoods of these women. In evaluating program success, especially in the initiation phases, it must be remembered that structural barriers to the improvement of rural women's livelihoods are formidable, and few South African models or alternatives are presently available to help civil society organizations formulate new opportunities.

Microcredit and Women's Empowerment: Through the Lens of Time‐Use Data from Rural India

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of microcredit on male and female time use, and draws on this analysis to explore the linkages between credit and women's empowerment. A study of time use can help understand these linkages, because if credit is intended to improve women's livelihoods, it can also be expected to influence the way women allocate their time. Its other advantages are that it does not suffer from much time lag and can be objectively measured. Using household survey data from rural India, the findings show that while microcredit has little impact on women's time use, it helps their husbands move away from wage work (associated with bad pay and low status) to self‐employment. This is because women's loans are typically used to enhance male ownership of the household's productive assets. Further, it is found that it is only women who use loans in self‐managed enterprises who are able to allocate more time to self‐employment. If credit is intended to increase the value of women's work time, it follows that it is not access to loans but use of loans that matters. Ensuring women's control over loan‐created assets must therefore be a critical policy objective.

How has the rural farming woman progressed since the setting up of the Millennium Development Goals for eradication of poverty and hunger?

abstract The Global Hunger Index indicates that the level of poverty and hunger in sub-Saharan African countries has not improved, and in some countries levels of poverty and hunger have deepened. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for hunger and poverty to be reduced is seen as a challenge, one in which women need to be situated in the centre of rural development and not marginalised further. An analysis of rural women's role in agriculture and women's livelihoods reflects that although their contribution to rural livelihoods and household food security is well substantiated by research, their attempt to uplift themselves out of poverty in the second economy are contingent upon engendered access to markets, supportive institutions and engendered policies and programmes and not least of all, secure access to land for cultivation. The discussion of rural women's poverty and livelihoods is elaborated further in research which involved interviews with a group of 15 women in a rural district of KwaZulu-Natal. The women have decided to use their traditional status as chiefs’ wives to support the initiatives by women in the rural areas where they live to develop rural livelihoods. The interviews reflect that while rural women provide food for their households, they also contend with structural, institutional and cultural barriers. Contradictions in customary and statutory laws impede their efforts to build rural livelihoods for income generation. The research confirms the broader concern that poverty alleviation and hunger must be addressed by gender enlightened policies to support women's rural livelihoods development in order for the MDGs to be met.

A human rights-based approach: A gate to development of African women's land rights?

The global competition for African land is at a historical peak. Local effects of large-scale land acquisitions depend on multiple factors, but women's rights and livelihoods are generally very fragile due to historical and contemporary injustices. Good land governance is important for turning the land acquisitions into equal and equitable development opportunities. The human rights-based approach promotes good governance by adding strength and legal substance to the principles of participation and inclusion, openness and transparency, accountability and the rule of law, and equality and nondiscrimination. By empowering rights-holders and enhancing duty-bearers' capacity, international development cooperation can lead to wider and more gender-balanced inclusion of civil society in negotiations of large-scale land acquisitions and greater adherence of duty-bearers to the rule of law. This is especially important in African countries with large amounts of land and weak legal and institutional frameworks to protect rights, especially those of women.

Gendered Entrepreneurship in Rural Latvia: Exploring Femininities, Work, and Livelihood Within Rural Tourism

This article explores different geographies of tourism, femininities and livelihood in post-socialist rural Latvia, with a focus on women's entrepreneurship within rural tourism. Based on a case study in the Cēsis district, its aim is to analyze women's livelihood strategies, including both economic and lifestyle-oriented motives behind entrepreneurship within tourism. The study illustrates women's day-to-day livelihood practices and how they organize their lives in time and space. The article reveals how women negotiate their ‘livelihood action space’, which includes a number of paradoxes between the quest for independence while facing both economic and social restrictions.

‘Resting’, AIDS-affliction and marital constraints: Engendered livelihood issues in the aftermath of Lesotho mineworker retrenchments

Since the late 1990s retrenched Basotho mineworkers have been returning in steady numbers to the rural areas of Lesotho. While marital and household relations have been rekindled in the process, there is currently much curiosity about how the large-scale presence of men in rural areas is reconfiguring married women's livelihood strategies and their striving for financial autonomy. The Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act of 2006 has been celebrated as a victory for married women, but customary practice and societal perceptions of the legitimacy of men's marital powers continue to restrict women's activities and livelihood efforts. This reflection on ethnographic research in Mafeteng, Lesotho, illustrates key constraints, in particular gender ideologies and debilitating health conditions that aggravate rural households' economic crises. It is argued that more institutional interventions are required in order to socialise the values and promote the cause of gender equality between married partners and to tackle persisting familial and cultural impediments affecting women's lives.

Women, empowerment and development in Arab Gulf States: a critical appraisal of governance, culture and national human resource development (HRD) frameworks

Current literature has not examined gender issues nor considered the governance regimes and institution cultures that shape national human resource development (HRD) systems. This is a key knowledge gap as many developing countries target women's learning in national HRD planning. This article addresses the following questions: what are the social and cultural factors that shape gender and HRD systems in three Arab Gulf States (Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia), and how are they linked to women's current social and economic status in the Gulf? In addition, how can national and institutional HRD frameworks support women's empowerment and education development? The findings of the investigation lead to a new framework for conceptualizing a gender and national HRD model that facilitates women's empowerment. I discuss how the model can guide government national HRD skills strategies and empowerment for women. In contributing to new knowledge on gender and HRD, I suggest that national HRD interventions improve women's livelihoods, but that partnership with civil society will be necessary to facilitate long-lasting social change. However, I also maintain that Arab women should be supported to develop feminist agency and create their own versions of Islamic feminism, relevant to their own empowerment agendas.

Women, poverty and adverse maternal outcomes in Nairobi, Kenya

BackgroundThe link between poverty and adverse maternal outcomes has been studied largely by means of quantitative data. We explore poor urban Kenyan women's views and lived experiences of the relationship between economic disadvantage and unpleasant maternal outcomes.MethodSecondary analysis of focus group discussions and in-depth individual interviews data with women in two slums in Nairobi, Kenya.ResultsUrban poor women in Nairobi associate poverty with adverse maternal outcomes. However, their accounts and lived experiences of the impact of poverty on maternal outcomes underscore dynamics other than those typically stressed in the extant literature. To them, poverty primarily generates adverse maternal outcomes by exposing women to exceedingly hard and heavy workloads during pregnancy and the period surrounding it; to intimate partner violence; as well as to inhospitable and unpleasant treatment by service providers.ConclusionsPoverty has wider and more intricate implications for maternal outcomes than are acknowledged in extant research. To deliver their expected impact, current efforts to promote better maternal outcomes must be guided by a more thorough perspective of the link between women's livelihoods and their health and wellbeing.

Agricultural livelihoods and nutrition – exploring the links with women in Zambia

This article examines food security, nutrition, and women's agricultural livelihoods in Western Province, Zambia. It draws on data from field research supported by Concern Worldwide UK. The research aimed to explore links between food procurement, livelihoods and care at the household level, and recognises the role of institutions and access to assets in shaping livelihood choices by women. Women describe agriculture as the principal route out of food insecurity, and also as a means to a stable livelihood. However, more support is required for women's livelihood activities including agriculture, to enable women to produce enough food to feed themselves and their families.

Sustaining Women's and Community's Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania

Mwajuma Masaiganah looks at activities done by Bagamoyo Women Development Network linking the social and care economy. Her article is based on her work and involvement with women in these rural communities. She explains why the care and social economy should be supported as a third system of economic model that can sustain women's and community's livelihoods.

The Role of Women in Traditional Farming Systems as Practiced in Homegardens: A Case Study in Sylhet Sadar Upazila, Bangladesh

Forests cover only 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Bangladesh. While agricultural expansion continues to massively deplete the natural forests, a well-managed homegarden practice is vital for reversing the existing trend and promoting the ecological balance of the country. An understanding of the role of women in homegarden management within a traditional farming system is important in expanding and improving the practice. This paper seeks to explore the participation of women in homegarden management activities, understanding the impact of homegardens on women's income and livelihoods and assessing women's awareness of homegarden-oriented activities that support forest conservation. The study demonstrates a number of important conclusions: (1) women are mostly involved in homegarden management-related activities (2) women are interested in conserving homegardens because they obtain such substantial benefits as food security, income, health care, and environmental benefits (3) women were found to be aware of home-garden conservation and tuned to motivating husbands, children, and neighbors to conserve the agro-biodiversity of homegardens. Findings suggest that increased involvement of women in a broad range of homegarden management activities is not only beneficial for their own socio-economic well-being, but also imperative for sustaining the livelihoods of their communities and for preserving the agro-biodiversity in homegardens.

Is the South African land reform programme gender sensitive to women's food security and livelihood efforts?

abstract Complexities created by the dichotomy between statutory and customary land laws and practices are proving to have an impact on women's efforts at deriving land-based livelihoods and food security. Water is required for sustained land-based livelihoods. This focus aims to provide insight into challenges of land-based livelihoods in two research sites in rural KwaZulu-Natal by considering questions around gender sensitivity of land reform and access to water for land-based livelihoods. Purposive sampling was used to select female land reform beneficiaries and those residing in communal areas. Focus group discussions complemented by a structured questionnaire were used for data collection. The results indicated the complexity in understanding, perception and values of land straddling the statutory and customary land laws and practice landscape. Women continue to be disenfranchised by the two systems, and their efforts at a land-based livelihood are undermined. A framework that allows functional elements of both land systems needs continued engagement and research to deal with this dichotomy. Ways to improve access to water should be sought, despite the challenges of the two land systems.

The role of microcredit in reducing women's vulnerabilities to multiple disasters

This article explores the relationship between microcredit and vulnerability reduction for women-headed households in'multiple disasters'. Here multiple disasters are understood as disasters that occur in one specific place and cause severe devastation. The case study covers the super-cyclone in 1999, floods in 2001 and 2003, and drought in 2002 in Orissa, India. The study entailed eight months fieldwork and interviews with several governmental and non-governmental officials and 12 women-headed households from different social castes. The findings suggest that microcredit is a useful tool to replace women's livelihood assets that have been lost in multiple disasters. But inefficient microcredit delivery can cause microdebts and exacerbate caste, class and gender inequalities. It is posited that microcredit delivery cannot achieve vulnerability reduction for women in multiple disasters unless it is complemented by effective financial services, integrated policy planning and disaster management between government, non-governmental organisations and the community.

Women's Livelihoods, Global Markets and Citizenship

SummaryThe underlying assumption of the economic integration epitomised by globalisation was that it would lead to greater economic participation and an enhancement of livelihood opportunities, which in turn would have positive impacts on citizens and their practice of citizenship. This integration would open new spaces and create new mechanisms for interaction between various actors in governance processes. Economic participation in the global economy manifests in two principal ways: the export of local products for global marketing through multinational corporations (MNCs), or the local marketing of goods that are globally produced by MNCs. Both models have the potential to increase livelihood opportunities for the poor and those hitherto excluded from the market. If the second model is followed, what avenues for market integration might create more sustainable livelihoods for rural women? Can this model provide a sustainable source of income for such women? As rural women are integrated into global markets, what are the implications for their identities? Do they see themselves as an integral part of the global marketplace, with important links to the global economy? Or do they continue to maintain local, regional or maybe national identities? When these women claim rights, to whom do they turn? Do they ask governments to mediate on their behalf? Do they consider the medium of their integration, the MNCs, as their obligator? What kinds of organising efforts evolve for such claim‐making purposes? This paper attempts to answer these questions through an analysis of Project Shakti, an initiative of Hindustan Unilever Limited, promoted by the Indian government.

IDS Working Paper Research Summary 336: Women's Livelihoods, Global Markets and Citizenship

IDS Working Paper Research Summary 336: Women's Livelihoods, Global Markets and Citizenship

Reclaiming endangered livelihoods: untold stories of indigenous women and backyard poultry

Indigenous women of East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India are unique in that they have over generations protected and bred the world-famous Aseel poultry and other local varieties. Birds managed under backyard systems contribute crucially to women's livelihood, and are of critical cultural importance in the lives of indigenous communities. A combination of factors has resulted in the fast decline of Aseel poultry populations in their traditional locations in the early 1990s. In the past decade, women have responded through multiple collective actions: to re-establish ecological and diverse cropping, which have provided vital by-products for feed for the poultry; apply modern and indigenous health care and management practices to prevent and control diseases; and innovate with traditional systems of asset building. All of these have helped to restore and sustain the breed, maintain livelihoods, and re-establish biological and cultural diversity.

Equality for women: where do we stand on Millennium Development Goal 3?

There is compelling evidence of the importance of gender equality for poverty reduction and sustainable growth. So it should come as no surprise that most development actors-international agencies, bilateral donors, and most developing countries, have an official policy for promoting gender equality. Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG3) on gender equality and women's empowerment is shared global commitment. With only seven years remaining until the end date for the MDGs, it is an opportune time to take stock of where the world stands in terms of progress toward gender equality. This volume documents trends both on the official MDG3 indicators and on an expanded set of indicators that provide a more complete measure of gender equality, especially in the area of women's economic empowerment. The message that emerges is both hopeful and sobering: progress toward equality in capabilities has been considerable, but progress toward equality of opportunities for women's economic livelihoods leaves much to be desired. Beyond tracking trends toward gender equality, the volume reviews different measures of gender equality and estimates the financial resources required to achieve this objective. While necessarily imprecise, such estimates can provide a rough guide as to whether the level of effort devoted by international donors and developing countries is adequate in the area of women's economic empowerment.