Question

Discuss the position of women in urban areas and how they contribute to family earnings.​

Answer 1

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• Employment is often discussed as contributing to gender equality, and the importance of income for women has been highlighted in a number of development initiatives, particularly within Women in Development and, more recently, World Bank gender initiatives. The Millennium Development Goals include “non-agricultural employment” as a measure of women’s “empowerment”, which suggests off-farm income generation is considered somehow better on this front than farm work. This implies that urban areas, with their increased options for diverse employment opportunities, should have more potential to bring improvements to women’s position and situation. The idea is that improving women’s access to financial resources will empower them within their own homes, and this “private” economic empowerment will in turn allow women to challenge more public gender stereotypes. The ability to participate in decision-making is one measure of women’s relative power within the household. Blumberg’s Gender Stratification Theory suggests the greater women’s relative economic power, the greater their control over their own lives. Drawing on a variety of secondary sources, she suggests that economic power is related not only to overall household authority and input into household decisions, but also to control over fertility and “life options” such as sexuality. While models of household functioning have placed economic resources, generally equated to income, central to improved decision-making, other factors are also accepted as being important. These include other assets such as property but also less tangible assets such as social relations and self-confidence. If aspects such as social norms and self-perception are important, then access to income alone may not lead to improved decision-making ability. A focus on income generation alone suggests economic inequality to be the cause of wider inequalities rather than a symptom of unequal power relations inside and outside the home, and this is a view increasingly being questioned even by some mainstream economists. For many, gender ideology is of greater importance than income in explaining women’s position and situation. At the very least, if not challenged, it may be a limiting factor in terms of the extent to which a change in gender relations can be an expected outcome of changing gender roles.