Gender matters - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 89

married and widowed women, this shift towards more monetary-reliant
livelihoods has generally meant that female farmers today are financially
dependent on their husbands/fathers/brothers to secure cash to pay for
healthcare, basic household needs and school fees. Because of this inequality
in financial power, the women interviewed for this study say they have limited
opportunities to plan for the future, whether in terms of investment in their
children's education, in agricultural production or in business ventures. They
also claim that, compared to the past when domestic work could be shared by
men and women, the shift towards a more cash-based economy has increased
their labour burdens significantly. This leaves them with less time (if any) to rest
their bodies, nurture relationships with their children, friends and relatives, test
out new agricultural crops and techniques or start up small businesses. Further,
they hold, their male counterparts today have not only more time but also the
financial means to invest in diversifying activities to increase livelihood incomes
as well as intensify agricultural production and output. However, according
to many of the interviewed, men and women alike, few male farmers actually
engage in such activities. Instead they spend much of their time seeking paid
daily work in and around local market places, generally without success, while
drinking the local alcoholic beverages frequently and cheaply available there.
For many households this new livelihood situation has created instability within
the family, with frequent quarrels and domestic violence as a result. A majority
of the women interviewed argued that the disparity in financial power between
men and women, and the unequal work burdens put on women, are key
contributors to this instability, which in the longer term also affects the families'
possibilities to adapt to increased climate vulnerabilities.
Many of these families have managed to survive because they have been able
to lean on the economy of affection (see below), as a way of coping in times
of extreme hardship. However, with the new livelihood context characterized
by 'chronic livelihood stress', this strategy is becoming increasingly unreliable,
leaving women in particular with few or no alternatives for adapting to the
incremental climate-induced stressors affecting their lives.
The economy of affection
When farming households across rural SSA encounter hardships, whether
caused by disease, deaths, droughts or flooding, people manage to survive
and some even thrive by being able to draw on support from their nearest
kin or community. In practice this means that whenever people are in need
of assistance, financial or otherwise, 'structurally defined groups connected by
blood, kin, community or other affinities, such as religion' (Hydén 1983: 8)
will support one another through reciprocal exchange via informal agreements
based on mutual accountability and self-enforcement (Tsuruta 2008). These
informal institutions , legitimated by close emotional ties, enable people to meet
both basic survival needs, such as food, cash, clothing or childcare (ibid.) as well