Gender Difference and Women's. Quality of Life in Maroua-Cameroon
| Autor | Nanche Billa Robert |
| Páginas | 201-208 |
— 201—
GENDER DIFFERENCE AND WOMEN'S QUALITY OF LIFE IN MAROUA-CAMEROON!
Nanche Billa Robert
University of Maroua, Cameroon
DOI: 10.14679/1257
1.!INTRODUCTION
This work examines the rate of domination and power in gender relationship especially the production
and consumption of family wealth in the Far North Region of Cameroon. It further examines whether family
wealth affects the well-being of individuals and the role that each individual plays in the production of
wealth.
It is worth-noting that the Far North Region of Cameroon is a region tha t has multiple crises with a high
social climate of gender inequality which questions the gender relatio nship in family in relation to the pro-
duction and consumption of wealth. About 35% of women have contra cted polygamy marriages because
about 41% of the population of Maroua are Muslims.
Nanche (2014) states that although men dominate women in owning durable goods, there is statistically
no feminisation of poverty in Douala because women participate as much as men in the desired predomi-
nant values of Douala: domestic comfort, health seeking behaviour, good feeding habit and leisure activities.
This is because more women stay under someone and live in a family house than men. Amin (2001) affirms
that households headed by men have a relatively higher prevalence of poverty (40.6 percent) than house-
holds headed by women (38.7 percent). Poverty is 1.5 percent higher among men’s households than wom-
en’s household. Total expenditures per day adult equivalent of households headed by women are 2.1 per-
cent higher in relative value than those headed by men. Nana-Fabu (2009) states that the feminisation of
poverty in Cameroon simply refers to the increasing proportion of the poor in Cameroon who are women.
According to her, women of late in Cameroon have been over-represented among the poor. They lack the
skills and socio- economic opportunities to empowe r them fight against poverty. Their work is isolated and
devalued. As a result, they are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and misery: low income, low savings,
low investment and low productivity despite their hard work. Is there really a feminisation of poverty in
Maroua-Cameroon when Amin (2001) and Baye (2004) say poverty is higher in households headed by men
than those headed by women? This paper examines gender difference in the production and cons umption of
goods and women’s contribution to household wealth.
2.! METHODOLOGY
!
We used the quota sampling method, by so doing we administered questionnaire to men and women
ensuring that the percentage of female equal that of male as much as possible for easy comparison. We used
the students who were doing the course called Data Collection in the department of Sociology, Anthropolo-
gy and Social Sciences for Development at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences at the Universi ty of
Maroua to administer the data. We identified all the neighborhoods in Maroua and the number of question-
naire administered in each quarter was determined by its size. That is more questionnai res were adminis-
tered in bigger quarters than in smaller ones. They started from a particular household and then skip five
households before selecting the next household. They either gave the respondents the questionnaire to fill
for those who were literate or fill it for them for those who could neither read nor write.
They administered questionnaire to 849 individuals:432 men (50.9%) and 412 women (49.1%) and we
ensured that the main ethnic groups living in Maroua wer e represented in our sample: the peulh (19.1%), the
guiziga (15 .1%), the Moundang (12.7%), the Tupuri (12.7%), the Mafa (7.5%), the Mofou (5.8%),and other
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