The main barriers to women’s economic inclusion in Tanzania are: time poverty (because women have to spend so much time on household chores); lack of education; reproductive health pressures; lack of assets and access to financial services; in the case of agriculture – lack of access to male labour and inputs such as fertiliser; in the case of entrepreneurship – a difficult legal and regulatory framework and lack of access to business development services; and cultural norms which see women’s role as carrying out household chores and caring for children.
This report follows on from one mapping women’s economic exclusion in Tanzania1 and focuses on the barriers women face in labour force participation. The review draws on a mixture of academic and grey literature. The key findings are as follows:
- Women are time-poor – women spend more time on household chores than men. In particular, they have primary responsibility for the strenuous and time-consuming tasks of water collection and fuel (firewood) collection. These household duties mean women have limited time and opportunities to engage in productive (as in paid) work.
- Gender disparities in education – Tanzania has largely achieved gender parity in primary level education, but at secondary level girls lag behind boys and this gap widens in tertiary education. This means that women enter the labour force less educated than men – and thus with fewer opportunities, in particular for waged employment.
- Reproductive health pressures – Tanzania has high rates of early marriage among females and early pregnancy (e.g. adolescent birth rate in 2016 was 118.6) (UNDP, 2016: 6), as well as high birth and maternal mortality rates. Marrying and having children at an early age reduces females’ education and employment opportunities.
- The gender gap in agricultural productivity – stems from differential access to male labour, differential returns on the use of fertiliser and pesticides (stemming from women’s comparative lack of knowledge), and restrictions on women’s land rights (despite provision for this in-law).
- Limited access to financial services – hampers women in agriculture as well as in business. On the supply side, there are few gender-sensitive financial services and, on the demand side, lack of information and awareness among women. The gender gap in financial inclusion is narrowing, largely because of the growth of mobile money.
- Additional barriers to entrepreneurship – for women include a challenging legal and regulatory framework, lack of access to business development services as well as to markets and technology.
- Traditional gender roles – unpaid care work/household chores are seen as predominantly female activities; this perception, along with cultural norms and religious values which can impose restrictions on women’s interactions in wider society, hamper women’s engagement in productive (paid) work.
