Gender in niGeria report 2012 - Economic Commission for Africa

Gender in Nigeria Report 2012: Improving the Lives of Girls and Women in Nigeria 17
4 WHAT CONSTRAINS WOMEN
FROM MAKING A LIVING IN
NIGERIA?
Strategic Objective 55 of the Beijing Platform of Action calls for an
increase in the productive capacity of women by providing “access
to capital, resources, credit, land, technology, information, technical
assistance and training so as to raise their income and improve
nutrition, education, health care and status within the household”.
Much of the work women do is unpaid. Data from the Core Welfare
Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) show that, whereas one in every
two men spends time doing pursuits that earn them an income, one
in every two women spends time doing unpaid work (Angel-Urdinola
and Wodon, 2008: 381).
The implication is that many women rely on a male
breadwinner for survival, a factor that proponents of
the cooperative bargaining theory argue also limits
their ability to influence decisions at household level
(Manser and Brown, 1980). In trying to understand
how Nigerian women make a living, we have
analysed how women’s ability to make a living is
constrained by lack of access to the six key assets
(human, natural, financial, physical, social and
political) which the livelihoods framework highlights.
Women’s struggle for equal opportunities to earn
their living in Nigeria is fought in three interrelated
arenas, over land, access to finance, and decent
employment. We examine each of these and show
how constrained access to these key assets limits
the ability of rural and urban women to make a
living.
4.1 Women are
under represented
in formal sector
employment
Education prepares many Nigerians for formal
sector employment, although to make a living
they may end up by default in the informal sector
or straddling the two. Despite high unemployment,
wage employment still remains a significant source
of income and a privilege in Nigeria. Access to