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Women and self-employment in Urban Tanzania

  • Published:
The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

This study examines the employment and earnings of self-employed women in urban Tanzania. Most of the empirical evidence comes from a household survey that interviewed 5,543 adults in seven mainland towns during 1971. Although women represent almost 28% of all urban self-employed, they are clustered into a few low-income activities. Women’s involvement in household and subsistence production leads them to work fewer hours in market activities, but their lower earnings are mostly due to their restricted access to education and capital.

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Notes

  1. The National Urban Mobility, Employment and Income Survey of Tanzania (NUMEIST, 1971). The 5,543 individuals surveyed in 1971 represented a random sample of the adult urban population of seven towns in mainland Tanzania. Of those interviewed, 48.1% were women. The survey contains detailed questions on education, migration, and labor force experience. NUMEIST has been a rich source of information on urban labor markets and has been the data base for several studies of rural-urban migration and urban unemployment.

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  12. Mbilinyi, 1972, p. 67.

  13. The United Republic of Tanzania,Law of Marriage, Act No. 5, 1971.

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Johnson, W.A. Women and self-employment in Urban Tanzania. The Review of Black Political Economy 14, 245–257 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689892

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689892

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