Livelihood strategies of rural women with emphasis on income diversification and demographic adjustment: the case of wolonkomi, Oromia region

What are the livelihood strategies of rural women in Wolonkomi locality, Ethiopia, in the context of rapid population growth? What impact do these strategies have? The author examines this question with emphasis on income diversification and demographic adjustment.

Findings include:

• diversifying household income sources are one of the coping strategies in the area. Women are involved in casual, informal and unregulated labour in income generating activities such as processing local beverages, selling fire wood, and handcraft work, due to lack of resources (land, labour and oxen) and services (credit) 
• women, especially female-headed households, have diversified their income sources as a survival strategy 
• fertility has shown a declining trend, though the change was not very significant. The change has emanated from the fact that c.27% of the rural female respondents have began to limit the number of children they can bear during their reproductive years (aged 15–49) 
• landless young people, especially females, move away from home to look for employment opportunities. However, migration could not bring significant change to the livelihood conditions of the people 
• some of the rural households send grains to support some of the migrants

The author suggests that the rural livelihood conditions can be improved and changed when there is a government policy conducive to environment, and there are interventions that can bring about better access to resources and services to create an environment conducive to commercialisation and livelihood diversification. Thus, facilitating access to institutionalised safety nets and family planning programmes are recommended to be developed in the area and other areas of similar socio-economic and cultural settings.