Demographic Responses to Women's Poverty in Addis Ababa: The Case of Kolfe Keranio Sub-City (Kebe/e 02 and 03)
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Date
2005-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Poverty in Ethiopia has been gendered phenomena that women were hardest hit
by the problem oJpoverty. Various researches attempt to explain women's poverty
in ,'elation to economic situations. Nonetheless. there is no or Jew research
conducted on demographic responses oj women's poverty. ThereJore. this paper
attempted to fill the gap considering the demographic responses in terms oj Jamily
size. intention to migration. morbidity. marital status and Jamily planning. The
data were collected from 422 women in Koife- Keranio sub city. Kebele 02/03 on
the bases oj purposive and random sampling techniques. According to the
descriptive analysis. most (68.5%) women have low monthly income less than 260
Bi'T. which is below poverty line based on the current exchange rate. Moreover.
majority oj them live in poor housing conditions that were constructed Jrom poor
materials. In addition to that. 2.7 %oj women experienced an early marriage and
22.3 % postponed marriage as result oj poverty. Further more. Chi square test oj
indep endency was administered in order to identiJy any association that might
exist between poverty status oj women and various ranges oj demographic
responses to poverty. According to the Chi square test. morbidity. Jamily size and
intention to move were Jound to have significant associations with poverty level oj
women. The multivariate log istic "egression model revealed that respondents with
better educational attainment have more intention to migrate as compared
respondents with low educational attainment. The result oj multivariate logis tic
regressionJor contraceptive use revealed that those respondents with educational
attainment oj primruy and secondary and above use contraceptives 1.902 and
3.851 times greater respectively as compared to respondents with out schooling.
In general. any poverty reduction strategy should take into account the
demographic chru'acteristics oj poor women accordingly; a progress can be made
to alleviate the women's poverty in particular and at societal level in general. In Ethiopia's tradition, the proper place women is said to be at home, and
husbands have more power than wives do in the control of family resource.
It is also observed that the members do not share the poverty of the poor
fa mily equally. In poor family women often have responsible for managing
the money wh ere men control the main source of income. Therefore, women
primarily bear the burden of family's poverty
On the other hand, poor women have highest fertility a t lower rate of caloIie
intake. At macro level interactions compIises the way in which households
respond to poverty. Family formations, migration strategies and the way in
which child beaIing, dependence of and hou sehold s ize all directly affect the
welfare (Rodger s, 1989).An important aspect of poverty may be reduced by
high fertility that large family s ize may facilitate labour market s trategy b ut
at the same time high fertility may be responsible for low incomes.
The poor woman usua lly lacks assets as well as income and household
mateIiais. Poor woman us ually live in shanty a ,'ea and have too many
children. The number of children they bear determines their status in
society, especially son s . Becau se of their social responsibilities and unequal
status, women are particularly dependent on their children for secuIity.
Poverty and low status of women are the pIimary cause of rapid population
growth (!USSP, 1994).
The present internal structure of urban poverty in Addis Ababa in particular
s hows the fact that economic base and infrastructure levels are not in
accordance with population size . Additional popula tion would not only
aggravate the a lready existed socio - economic problems such as
unemployment, housing, infrastructure, etc, but a lso rapid population
growth would raise a seIious problem to the city of Addis Ababa.
Among poor women especially women household heads seems to be the ones
that are the most serious ly affected by the problem in the city la rge number
of woman a re concentrated in the vaIious resource poor categoIies of urban population with out property and wealth. Gender based poverty assessments
have found that women hit hardest by the problem of the problem of the city.
The general fact shows that women earn low income. They are uneducated,
malnourished and over burdened with difficult tasks. Most of these women
get their income from working in inf01111al sector. These activities hinder
them from saving and investing in the ways that they can improve their lives.
Many of them live in squatter and slum areas of the city with low facilities
(eRDA, 1997). The present study attempts to analyse this situation focusing
on the demographic response of women's poverty in Addis Ababa.
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Keywords
Women's Poverty