Evolution of Gender and Poverty Dynamics in Tanzania

Flora KessyConference on Lessons from a Decade’s Research on

PovertyPretoria, South Africa

16-18 March 2016

Introduction• In 1999, Deborah Bryceson argued:

“Liberalisation and de-agrarianisation have led to a ‘scramble of non farm work’ and process of individualisation of economic activity, dissolving traditional gendered roles, economic rights, and maintenance responsibilities within rural households.”

Poverty Dynamics• There is more than 10 years of attempt to

reduce poverty in the context of relatively high growth rate - 6% - 8% (which is higher for Africa)

• Despite a series of poverty reduction strategies (PRSP, MKUKUTA I, MKUKUTA II) there is minimal reduction of level of poverty - fell only from 39% (2001) to 38% (2007) and 33% (2012) in rural areas.

Main Question • Why didn’t fairly healthy growth in Tanzania

corresponds to a fall in poverty?• We look at the effects of the recent decade of

poverty reduction on women’s rights on:– Evolving roles of men and women (livelihoods)– Rights and responsibilities of rural men and

women (the change in conjugal rights).

The Argument • Persistence of poverty is the effect of unequal

rural growth and the scramble for jobs among poor men and women on the norms governing traditional gender roles, responsibilities and rights (gender dynamics)– Changing gender dynamics in the context of

‘hardship of life’ contributes in deepening poor people’s inability to move out of poverty.

Defining Gender Dynamics

• Gender dynamics are defined as:– Who does what work (family/household division of labour)?

How much?– How is responsibility for family maintenance (including

education and health care costs) shared between men and women?

– Who has what rights—freedom to be employed, mobility and control over earned and joint income—to family assets?

– Who has power over people: (1) power in the household or clan and (2) enforcing legal rights within the larger community?

Methods• The paper draws from approximately 120 case

studies interview, focus group discussions, and and 60 key informant interviews as part of Qunt-Qual (Q2) Chronic Poverty Research Center (CPRC) study in Tanzania

• Conducted in 3 districts in rural Tanzania• Household were drawn from a Sub-sample of

the Tanzania National Panel Survey.

Contesting Gender Dynamics in the Context of ‘the Hardship of Life’

• Traditional gender relations are being contested fiercely in the context of a scramble for jobs, increasing land scarcity and rising costs—what study participants often refer to as ‘the hardship of life’.

• Men and women are contesting on who does what work, who has what share of the responsibility for family maintenance and who has what rights over assets, power and social protection in kin networks.

• A shift in responsibility for family provisioning onto women in the context of rapidly rising costs relative to earnings and their falling rights over assets and to kin social protection is intensifying their own poverty and that of their dependants.

De-masculinisation of Traditionally Male Rural Livelihoods

• Reduction in the farming of traditional agricultural exports has led to movement into other crops - paddy, maize, cassava, pulses etc. (traditionally women crops).

• Decline in income from cash-cropping has also been replaced by a rise in income from local off-farm employment and men migration

• Fall in support for local cash-cropping has resulted to a rise in men’s migration in search of work (reverse gender division of labour)– Men’s migration can become permanent as they find new

wives and fail to return home.

The Rise of “Effectively” Female-Headed Households

• Female headedness is rather difficult to capture given its fluidity: women drift in and out of marriage through successive divorces and widowhood. – However, their responsibility for provisioning is constant (supplying food and

clothing, primary school educational costs, health costs for themselves in pregnancy and for young children and water costs).

• Three key drivers are behind the rise of “effectively” female-headed households.– Male chronic illness, usually resulting from HIV and AIDS-related diseases– Male despair/giving up resulting from chronic underemployment and from

rising barriers to escape from poverty (despair can promote refuge in alcohol and mistresses)

– Semi-permanent migration – no remittances are sent home (preceding abandonment).

The Rise of Fully Female-Headed Households

• Permanent migration: men are leaving women to farm and bring up dependants on their own in a context of rapidly rising costs.

• Platteau et al. (2005) argument for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole applies here:

“The management of agricultural households in sub-Saharan Africa has progressively become women’s responsibility as men migrate to other regions for better economic opportunities, and as the HIV & AIDS pandemic takes its toll. Land becomes even more important for women to be able to provide a living to their families, especially when the husband and the other male members of the family die; and other opportunities for income are scarce,” p.1

• Another key factor promoting the rise of fully female-headed households is widowhood and gender based violence.

Other Forces Rallying Against Women’s Ability to Provide for their Households

• Dispossession of productive capital and other property (farms, homes, livestock, etc.) – some women are serially dispossessed (divorced then widowed).

• Enforcement of women’s statutory rights to marital property is inadequate

• Women’s own traditional male sources of support are less dependable (fathers and brothers do not always welcome widows and divorcees back)– Traditional responsibilities to provide social protection are being

actively contested.• For the newly single mother, land is expensive and services

(especially education and water) are becoming unaffordable.

How Do Female-Headed Households Manage Poverty?

• Involvement in trade;– For most poor women their income is based on a

rise in casual farm labour and petty production and trade

• Organization into highly disciplined and largely female networks based on social support, credit, petty production and sale: – Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS)– Village Community Banks (VICOBA).

How Can Policy Expand on Women’s Efforts?

• Policy to promote women’s rights, knowledge, power and assets must be linked to a solution for poor men in form of employment creation– Explore employment avenues for rural households –

in and outside agriculture • Building the competences in SACCOS and VICOBA– Strengthening the functionality of various funds e.g.

the Presidential Trust Fund • Enforcement and expansion of women’s legal

rights to land.

Asanteni Sana!!Thanks!!