Migration and changing divisions of labour: gender relations and economic change in Koguta, Western Kenya
Francis, E.
Africa London 65(2): 197-216
1995
DOI: 10.2307/1161190Document Number: 313135
A case study from Kisumu District, western Kenya, is used to explore the links between labour migration, rural economic decline and changes in key domestic relationships. Twentieth century transformations in the regional political economy, together with processes of differentiation, have been closely bound up with changes and continuities, in relationships within households, and in the ideologies which justify them. Events which have occurred since the beginning of colonial rule, such as mass labour migration, economic decline and the impact of the crisis in the urban labour market, have resulted in changes in many aspects of the division of labour changing. Smallholders increasingly have to find off-farm employment in rural areas to supplement remittances from migrant spouses; men who are unable to fulfil their role as 'breadwinner' are increasingly allowing their wives to become traders. Ultimately, women are shouldering responsibility for household reproduction. When considering differentiation, the paper notes that for some rural women, the process of impoverishment and accumulation at the household level has meant that they are now more dependent on their husbands and have lost control of their decision making. Other women have been cut off from access to male incomes and have become substantially independent of male authority. In some households, where men are still resident, they have appropriated their wives' farm labour power; in others, the woman works the farm on her own account; and in yet others a division of gardens, crops and crop income has been negotiated.