Unveiling the Realities of Women's Economic Empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa
In 2022, Kore Global and Euromonitor International embarked on a journey to shed light on an often-overlooked aspect of economic development: women's economic empowerment (WEE) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The overall aim of the "Pathways to Inclusive Economic Growth" study was to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by women in the region, and to provide recommendations for key stakeholders looking to break down barriers to WEE. Drawing upon a wealth of secondary research, the partnership produced 13 comprehensive country reports, delving into 19 sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa.
As the dust settles on this ambitious project, we wanted to share just a few of our main takeaways from this landmark research initiative.
1. Unpaid Care and Domestic Work: One of the biggest constraints to women’s (paid) work
One resounding finding was the profound impact of unpaid care and domestic work on women's economic engagement. Across sectors and countries, women bear the brunt of unpaid care and domestic responsibilities, often in addition to unpaid labour like food production on land they don't own. The stark reality? Women spend 2-4 times more time on unpaid work than men. However, in many countries and contexts, women’s unpaid care work is often hidden, absent from national data sets, research agendas and economic and sectoral analysis. This invisible responsibility serves as a significant constraint to women's participation in and benefit from paid work. The first step toward change is recognising this hidden work, making it visible, and counting it.
2. Rethinking the Paid vs. Unpaid Work Divide
Traditional notions of paid versus unpaid work fail to capture the complex reality for most women in Sub-Saharan Africa. They often straddle both categories simultaneously, blurring the lines. Gender plays a pivotal role in defining both the nature of women’s labour, but also whether they are paid. For instance, women's contributions to sectors like Uganda's coffee industry and Tanzania's livestock farming - unlike men’s - often go unpaid, hindering their economic progress. Furthermore, in many rural areas across the region, women are compelled to provide unpaid labour on their husbands' plots before tending to their own economic activities. The quest for flexibility to manage caregiving duties further pushes women into underpaid and unregulated sectors. This striking gender inequality needs to be called out and directly challenged if women are to be given anywhere near a level playing field.
3. Gender-Based Violence: A Crippling Barrier
The persistence of high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) is a major obstacle to women's economic empowerment. Approximately one-third of women in the region experience intimate-partner violence, upwards to 38% in Angola, 39% in Cameroon, and 45% in Uganda. GBV, including economic violence and workplace harassment, restricts women's economic engagement by instilling fear, causing injuries, and impeding control over earnings. Addressing GBV is a critical step toward empowering women economically. Within this context, investing in economic empowerment initiatives coupled with gender transformative interventions is one promising strategy to tackle the complex interplay between WEE and GBV.
4. The Hidden Contributions of Women in Various Sectors
Perhaps the most striking finding was the scarcity of evidence and research on women's economic participation at the sectoral level. From fisheries to specific agricultural value chains, this lack of gender analysis and sex-disaggregated data in national-level sectoral policies and plans perpetuates the invisibility of women's contributions, and means women are often being left behind from national economic growth plans and agendas. A significant factor exacerbating this invisibility is the persistent reliance on data that primarily focuses on (typically male) household heads, leaving women, especially spouses, unnoticed.
Our call to action
The Pathways Study findings highlight the urgency of recognising and addressing the challenges faced by women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women's economic contributions are often hidden, and significant individual, normative and structural gender-related barriers persist, hindering economic justice for women. It's essential to re-evaluate economic development approaches and consider the dynamics of entire households and communities in policy and programme design. To truly achieve gender equality and empower women, we must dismantle the barriers that have long held them back. After all, any programme focused on improving outcomes for people must, by default, be a women's empowerment programme, and failing to acknowledge this perpetuates a system harmful to women. It's time to recognise that women are at the forefront of economic progress in Sub-Saharan Africa, and take steps to ensure a truly gender-inclusive economy.
To read more about barriers and enablers to WEE in Sub-Saharan Africa, please check out our latest publications in collaboration with Euromonitor International:
