• Gender impacts

Gender impacts of trade liberalisation

This study attempts to assess the different impacts of structural changes in Uganda during the 1980s and 1990s on men and women. It draws on quantitative data from interviews conducted in 100 households in Kabale district, on women’s, men’s and children’s performance of various tasks, time use, resource allocation and income levels. It also uses qualitative data from interviews conducted using thematic checklists and from focus group discussions.

Its findings include that:

• the prices of important household items and foodstuffs rose without a corresponding rise in incomes, leading to changes in household diet, reduced intake per meal, and fewer meals per day
• in turn this led to a decline in the nutritional status of households, which particularly affected children and lactating and expectant mothers
• unemployment and the consequent fall in real income affected women more than men
• changes in public expenditure have led to a decline in the quality of health and education service provision, and this has resulted in households paying for services that were previously offered free of charge
• this has affected women more than men because women have spent more time working in order to pay for such services, and because women have special needs for health services due to their childbearing and rearing roles
• women are also more likely to be deprived of health and education services when they are in short supply
• the decline in real wages led women (more than men) to increase the hours spent in agriculture and other income-generating activities in order to sustain household consumption levels.

Policy recommendations include that:

• new economic policies need to be subjected to socio-economic and gender analysis, and to be evaluated in terms of their impact on human development and gender equity
• this should be done in collaboration with women’s organisations, gender experts, and international organisations involved in economic reforms
• programmes administered by social funds should have a gender dimension, be monitored for gender equity, and provide women with productive employment and not only social assistance
• barriers to women’s access to markets, credit, land, training, and better employment opportunities, should be removed
• women’s productivity needs to be raised through credit and extension so that shifts of their labour into export production does not imply reduction of food or women’s incomes labour
• continued improvements in educational provision for girls are required in order to counteract forces that tend to pull down girls’ school attendance.

Summary originally provided by GDNet, an Eldis content partner

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