Women and African Economic Development
Contents |
Overview
Women are a cornerstone of African economic development. According to recent estimates, they provide approximately 70 per cent of agricultural labour and produce about 90 per cent of all food. Women’s economic activity rate, which measures the percentage of people who furnish the supply of labour for the production of economic goods, ranks highest compared to other regions of the world (including the OECD countries) with a value of 61.9. However, women are predominantly employed in the informal sector or they occupy low-skill jobs. This can be illustrated by considering the percentage of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, which scores lowest among all regions of the world with a value of only 8.5 per cent.
Access to resources
Inequalities based on social institutions
The Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base (GID-DB)
Apart from these relatively obvious factors, the GID-DB also helps to identify and understand more hidden reasons that obstruct the socio-economic development of women. The comprehensive data base compiles for the first time in a coherent and systematic fashion information on inequalities that are based on social norms and traditions. The prevailing family code in many African countries, for example, discriminates against women in preventing daughters from having an equal share of inheritance or parental authority over their children after a marriage is broken. Similar to South Asian countries, girls often find themselves in arranged or even forced marriages, into which they enter at very young ages. Compared to an OECD average of 27.4 years, girls in Africa get married at only 21.3 years. What is more, 28 per cent of all girls before the age of 20 have been married at least once in their life.
Polygamy is pervasive in many African countries and property rights over land are not granted equally to men and women. Although women may have the right to obtain a bank loan on paper, customs still prevent females to have equal access to credit in many rural areas in Africa. Other traditions such as female genital mutilation - which in some countries are reported to affect more than 95 per cent of all women (e.g. in Guinea, Mali, Egypt, Somalia and Eritrea) – are not only a violation against women’s basic human rights but also a heavy burden for their health status and consequent chances in the labour market. Highlighting the important impact of social norms and traditions may help to design better policies that can improve the socio-economic status of women in the long-run.
But there are positive examples as well. Especially North African countries have made some progress in reducing the impact of discriminatory social institutions and improving the status of women. Tunisia in the 1960s opened to the West and abolished many traditional practices under the presidency of the charismatic Habib Bourguiba. A similar movement has recently begun in Morocco with King Mohammed VI who changed the prevailing family code to allow more rights to women.
Note: averages in this text apply to sub-Saharan Africa
The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)
The text below is taken from the "Atlas of Gender and Development: how social norms affect gender equality in non-oecd countries". For more information on the Atlas, please click on the cover of the Atlas below.
Overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
Gender discrimination in social institutions is very high in the 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. Of the ranked countries, all except six are in the bottom half of the SIGI. Just one – Mauritius – is in the top 20. Overall, the main regional concerns relate to ownership rights, physical integrity and family code.
Most Sub-Saharan African countries operate under a dual or tripartite system of law – civil, traditional or customary, and religious – making it difficult to harmonise legislation and remove discriminatory practices. In many countries, continuing civil wars have further affected the lives of many women. Much discrimination is related to inheritance and ownership rights, since husbands are often considered to be heads of households and women remain dependent on them for financial matters.
There have been isolated improvements with regards to women’s financial independence. In Mali, women’s access to bank loans has improved since a law was passed in 1994 to strengthen micro-credit programmes; similar progress has been made in other countries, mainly thanks to grassroots organisations. Women are increasingly active in starting up and running small businesses.
Female genital mutilation remains a key challenge. Government efforts coupled with NGO-led educational programmes have gone some way to increasing awareness of the health risks: in Senegal, for instance, more than half of women support the abandonment of the practice. Despite these efforts, and the introduction of laws criminalising it in some countries, the practice remains prevalent in rural areas and among illiterate women.
Key issue: Access to land
Legal protection may exist in theory, but in practice women’s ownership rights remain highly restricted in Sub-Saharan Africa. Discrimination is clearest in access to land, where traditional law often prevails. In Rwanda and Ethiopia, land is transferred from father to son and women can only access it through marriage. This is despite the fact that women often make up a sizeable proportion of farm workers. In Congo, women account for 60% of the agricultural workforce, but own only 25% of agricultural land; in Kenya, women only own 4% of land.
This phenomenon has a knock-on effect when it comes to bank lending. As banks often demand land as a guarantee, women can find it hard to access loans. Finally, access to property other than land often depends on whether a woman is married and under which legal regime her marriage is recognised.
