Income Differentials & Gender Inequality

Wives Earning More than their Husbands in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The subordination of women to men in Africa is widespread; and yet: there are women living in this environment who are challenging the social order, defying stereotypes, framing their economic initiatives and demands for democracy, achieving autonomy, and defining their own truths and morality.

This study focuses on women living in Dar es Salaam who have higher incomes than their husbands. The research exposes the social construction of gender in everyday life, pointing to the contradictory nature of gender relations in a dynamic urban and social context in a developing country, which is continually transforming itself. The study contests that gender determinants are some of the most crucial factors to an understanding not only of the social and political tissue of the urban environment in question, but also of the urbanisation process itself in Africa which though still in an exponential phase, is one of the most crucial development issues of our time. The voices of individual women and men from different social classes are included, as well as institutional viewpoints.

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