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Beating the zero-sum game: Women and nutrition in the third world. Part 1

Judith McGuire and Barry M. Popkin

Editor's note

Because this article looks at the constraints on women in the lower socio-economic groups in developing countries from a new perspective and has valuable examples and references, it has been accepted for publication despite its length. It has been necessary, however, to divide it into two parts.

Part 1, presented here, examines women's resources and roles in relation to nutrition and the limitations on their participation in intervention programmes. Part 2, to be published in volume 12, number 1, will consider programme and policy options and further research needs.

Introduction

What if we launched a programme and our key target group was so physically overworked, so over committed with time demands, and so poor that the intended beneficiaries could not participate without sacrificing some other essential function? In agriculture, education, health, nutrition, and family planning, that constrained and neglected target group is women. If only a small proportion of the population were excluded from participation, we might shift our focus to slightly better-off groups. But if, as is the case here, those left out represent 50%-100% of the population needing the programme, we must address ourselves to the obstacles to effective participation as part of programme implementation.

Third-world women are, in essence, involved in a zero-sum game - a closed system in which time or energy devoted to any new effort must be diverted from their other activities. This situation is particularly true for poor women. To take advantage of new technology, market opportunities, or even social services - benefits we associate with economic development and improvements in the quality of life - often requires an initial investment of women's time, energy, or income, which may not be available without sacrificing their own health or the health and economic security of their families. And it goes beyond "programmes": women's participation and productivity in the economic system are also adversely affected by their own malnutrition and their demanding household and mothering responsibilities for which acceptable purchased replacements are beyond their limited economic means.

The challenge before individuals and institutions promoting economic development is to help women overcome resource constraints that limit their participation in the development process and stymie fulfillment of their economic, biological, and cultural roles. A review of statistical evidence, economic analysis, and programme experience suggests that interventions in four broad areas are needed to create a positive-sum game for women:

- increasing women's income and control over it,
- improving women's access to affordable, good quality child care,
- increasing women's efficiency in production of goods and services for household consumption, - improving women's health and nutrition.

Achieving these goals requires policies and projects sensitive and responsive to women's needs, constraints, and resources.

Part 1 of this paper reviews women's resources and contributions to family resources, then examines the biological, economic, and cultural roles in women's lives that pertain to nutrition, human growth, and household food security. We discuss ways that role conflicts and resource constraints act together to affect nutrition adversely and decrease women's participation in intervention programmes. Part 2 will present programme and policy options for addressing these conflicts and conclude with an overview of research needs and a summary.

Gender and development

Since the mid-1920s much attention has been given to the role of gender - allocation of roles and responsibilities between men and women - in economic and social change. As the analytical framework shifted from welfare or equity to economic efficiency, it became apparent that the exclusion of women from development policies and programmes was counterproductive. Women now constitute one-quarter of industrial workers and 40% of agricultural and service workers [1]. Moreover, women are the major actors in human-resource development - assuring the proper nutrition, health, and cognitive development of children during their crucial pre-school years.

Recent analysis suggests that women are over represented among the poor [2] because of their reproductive roles, the cultural expectations of them, and their lack of access to economically productive assets. Hard data are lacking, however, because of the failure of most cross-sectional socio-economic surveys to disaggregate demographic, income, and employment data by sex. Although we know that women as a group are not homogeneous, it is difficult to disaggregate the scant data even further by class, urbanization, age, or ethnic group. Hence, impressionistic and anecdotal data predominate in the literature. We don't know, for instance, whether the recent economic recession and attendant policy reforms have created a new group of poor women with needs different from those of chronically poor women. Implementing agencies urgently need such data.

For poor women as well as poor men, income and material resources are inadequate. Food, water, clothing, housing, and social services are insufficient to guarantee an adequate quality of life. Women's economic, biological, and social roles present conflicts when resources are inadequate. Women usually live in families with parents, in-laws, husband, or just with their own children and in such circumstances they must balance their own needs and desires against those of higher-status household members, nutritionally vulnerable children, guests, and so forth. In most societies, food carries with it social and religious values that transcend nutrient composition in determining how it is divided within the household.

Women head nearly one-third of the households in low-income countries, de facto or de jure [3]. Dissolution of marital or consensual units accounts for some of this phenomenon, but short-term and long-term migration and improverishment represent growing sources of de facto female headship [4]. Female heads of households are more prevalent among the poor in urban and rural areas [5; 6]. Data for five Latin American cities show that, except in Bogota, households headed by women are much more prevalent among lower than higher income groups (see FIG. 1. Percentages of households headed by women in five Latin American cities (Source: Ref. 7, table 10)) [7]. In lower income groups, the percentage of households headed by women ranges from 22% for San Jose, Costa Rica, to 38% for Lima and Callao, Peru, a phenomenon common to all of Latin America. Studies in five African countries (Botswana! Ghana, Kenya! Lesotho, and Sierra Leone) found over 40% of rural households headed by women [4]. Youssef and Hetler feel there may be a recent increase in the rate of women heading households in rural areas.

Time allocation

Poor women lack many resources, but one that stands out in nutrition studies is time. The overall level of active work of low-income women is tremendous. In general, studies find that women in low-income countries have much less leisure time than men, manage most home activities, and also are active in economic work.

TABLE 1. Time allocations of women and men

M = men; W = women.

a. All studies were in rural areas except as indicated under Bangladesh.
b. Number of households.
c. Joint activities were measured separately: thus total daily activities may exceed 24 hours.
d. Modernized village (in terms of agricultural technology and other signs of modernity).
e. Traditional village.

Time-allocation studies have been conducted around the world. In table 1 we present the overall pattern of time spent in market and home activities and the ratio of these activities for women and men.' These studies focus on rural women. Little is known about relative urban/rural differences in women's and men's absolute time commitments.

Women spend more time in total productive work than men do. Although the amount of time spent in paid activities is less for women - sometimes considerably less - women spend a disproportionately large amount of time in home production relative to men. Studies that examine men and women separately find that employed women often spend the same amount of time as men at "work" outside the home in addition to time spent on household work [17; 18]. When women increase market work, loss of leisure and less time for domestic work are the main changes in their time-allocation patterns. In Argentina employed housewives spent about 17 hours less a week in domestic work than unemployed housewives [19]. Much of the domestic work load is determined by the life-cycle stage of the family. In Chile, domestic work varies by employment status and the presence of children under the age of six in the home. Employed women spent 57 hours a week in domestic work if they had children under six but only 29 hours a week if they did not. Unemployed women spent 100 and 49 hours respectively in domestic work [19].

TABLE 2. Rural women's daily work patterns (in hours)

a. All studies were in rural areas except as indicated under Bangladesh.
b. Number of households.
c. "Housework": includes other housework activities in addition to cooking.
d. Data are averages from eight villages.

When we disaggregate women's activities, we find that the largest and most invariant category relates to food preparation . In all cases women spend at least two hours a day preparing food for themselves and their families. Child care consumes much less time than would be thought if we based our conclusions on studies from higher-income countries [see, e.g., 24, 25]. Women often view child care as a residual (or leisure) activity. Time studies systematically underestimate child care because it is usually simultaneous with other household activities (those recorded in studies). Only prolonged, exclusive attention to children (understandably rare) is of adequate duration and intensity to be recorded as "child care."

Theoretically, it is possible to increase overall efficiency of time use - to "gain" time - but women's home responsibilities (particularly where small children are present) involve short periods of time devoted to a large number of activities, many of which are carried out simultaneously. Moreover, efficiency and concentration are limited by the intermittent and insistent demands of children.

TABLE 3. Work input by women and men in African agriculture

Source: Ref. 26, table 1.

Note: Some of the sources from which the information was collected failed to specify the length of the workday. or the type of activities classified as agricultural (for instance. it was sometimes not clear whether threshing and transport to and from the field were included). Where workdays per year were given without specification of their length. the total number of hours worked per year was calculated on the assumption of a six-hour day, and this figure was then divided by 52 to give the average number of hours worked per week. The assumption of a six-hour day may well be on the high side. since shorter hours were recorded in many of the samples, and days of more than six hours were recorded in only a few cases and then in the busiest seasons only. For these reasons, the figures in the table can convey only a broad picture of the input of work in African farming, and it must not be assumed that the table gives a satisfactory picture of differences in work input between the localities mentioned.

a. Percentage of women in family labour force in agriculture
b. Average hours worked per week on own farm by active family members.
c. Hours worked on farm by females as percentage of those worked by males.
d. Percentage of work on farm performed by active family members.
e. The A sample refers to a village where traditional methods are applied: the B sample to a village where improved techiques are used.
f. In the Congo F and Uganda l-L samples respectively, 31%, 11%. 14%. and 9% of the work was done by children who were not classified by sex.
g. The two samples refer to the same village in the years 1949 and 1962 respectively.

Women's economic contributions

On a global basis 42% of women over the age of 15 make up more than one-third of the total labour force [1]. African women's contribution to the family farm as well as their hired agricultural labour is well documented [26]. Holmboe-Ottesen et al. [27] cite evidence of women's high work load in the Middle East (table 4) and Asia, where women's work outside the household is not held in high regard.

TABLE 4. Percentage of female labour by agricultural activity in Jordan

Source: Ref. 27. table 4.2

Women contribute more than 40% of agricultural labour in 52 developing countries and more than 50% in 24 of them [27]. A significant prtion of women's high work load relates to unpaid household production [12;19; 28-31].

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