There
are so many factors that lead women to the kind of occupation they undertake
and one of these, which is very visible in the developing countries especially
Nigeria is poverty. Although it is impossible to say precisely how much is the
disparity between men and women when analyzing the level of poverty along
gender lines, but it is an accepted fact that the imbalance is worsening
(United Nations, 1996). Throughout history, female poverty rates have surpassed
male poverty rates in virtually every
society (Casper, Mclanahan, and Garfinkel, 1994).
It is an often stated
statistics that women who are in poverty are up to 70 percent of the world’s
poor (Honeyman, 2000). Although some statisticians say it is closer to 55
percent or 60 percent, however, all agree that the figures for women’s poverty
are worsening (Triest, 1998).
Hence on account of poverty some women, start to
look for any type of job both formal and informal without properly considering
the consequences of their employment on themselves and family ( Ranchod, 2001).
Nigeria is a country rich in oil wealth, crude oil reserves were estimated at
24 billion barrels in 2001(IMF,2005). ln 1990, agriculture comprised 33 percent
of gross domestic product, mining and quarry 36 percent, By 2002, mining and
quarry comprised 37 percent of the GDP. Estimate indicates that around 52
percent of Nigerians live in poverty and around 70 million people are living on
less than one dollar a day(IMF,2005).This revelation shows that 68 percent of
households living in poverty were female headed. Nigeria also reports
significant inequalities in women’s labor market participation, remuneration,
health and human capital, with indicators for women being recorded as
substantially lower than those for men (
Hinton, 2003) . Women are likely to be poorer than men and have fewer options
for escaping poverty.
The
other factor that leads women to informal jobs especially mining is lack of formal education, which has
direct link with poverty. Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa
indicates that although there have been a reasonable improvement in
female participation in education, girls’ and women’s access to education
remains limited in several countries across the region. It is evident that,
once enrolled, girls are more likely to drop out of school than boys.
Interrelated school, socio-economic, socio-cultural (stereotyping), political
and institutional factors (like tuition fees) in Africa, that constrain female education are increasingly well
documented, much remains to be done to design and implement programmes to
increase female education in the region (Brock and Cammish 1991; Herz 1991;
king and Hill 1991; Tietyen and Prather 1991; Colclough and Lewin 1993).The
near exclusion of women from formal education during the colonial period is reflected
in the low levels of female participation in 1960. ln the early 1960s less than
20% of children in sub-Saharan Africa were in school.
Since then the proportion
of children in school have more than tripled to approximately 80 million in
1990 (Word Bank, 1994). But this growth however has not been maintained, as
adverse economic conditions and population growth led to stagnation in
enrollments and a decline in education quality. Comparative data from Latin
America, Asia and Middle East indicate that in 1990 both the gross primary and
secondary enrollment ratios were significantly lower in the sub-Saharan African
region than in other developing regions. And the net primary enrollment ratio
for the region has declined from 68-37 percent (World Bank, 1994), a clear
indication of the large number of children who remain outside the formal
education system. Indeed, about 36 million girls were out of school in the
sub-Saharan African region (UNESCO/UNICEF, 1993).
Sending girls to school
entails direct and opportunity costs
which are prohibitive to families, particularly, poor families and rural
families. Although, Anugwom (2009) accepted that there had been bias in
educating the female child in the Nigerian society, but that recent events
reveals a conquering of this deep-rooted prejudice. Enrollment figures
particularly in the last ten years show remarkable bridging of the gap between
the genders. Notwithstanding this achievement, women are still victims to a
social order that treats them largely as second position role players
especially in the rural areas where poverty prevents the majority of women from
obtaining the credit, education, training, health services, child care and
legal status needed to improve their prospects.
The
increasingly prohibitive cost of schooling is
the major reason parents give for not educating or for removing children
particularly girls, from school. This is not surprising given the prevailing
economic crisis in the region. Poverty is widespread and affects schools and
families alike; numerous studies
indicate the extent to which parents have to cover the shortfalls due to
fiscal crisis which have had a devastating impact on house hold incomes and
educational systems (Asomaning 1994; Graham- Brown 1992; Njeuma 1993; Palme
1999).
With
the rapid rate of growth in urbanization, the demand for domestic labour in
urban areas has also increased. Resource poor rural households have responded by sending their daughters into the
domestic labour market in exchange for a
regular cash income. Information from some empirical studies and equally from
the department of community development in Ghana indicates that rural young
girls are sent to urban areas to become domestic servants for kin and non kin
families. Such displacement often occur in their primary school years. Their
parents receive payment for their
services, but the girls have little or no opportunity to return to school
(Asomaning, 1994). And one outcome of the low level of female participation in education in
sub-Sahara Africa is an extremely high level of female illiteracy.
One
of the greatest disincentives to female education is the low level of female
participation in the formal labour force. The international labour organization
estimates that in 1990 the female labour force in sub-Sahara Africa was 73
million, 38 percent of the total labour force, a decrease from 40 percent of
the total labour force in 1970.Women are well represented in the informal
sector, where their level of participation has registered an annual growth rate
of 6 percent. But overall female employment in the modern sector remains low
(World Bank, 2007). Within the modern sector, women have been employed mainly
in the civil service, with their employment in parastatals and the private
sector remaining low. In the civil service, women tend to be located at the
lower end of the hierarchy, working mainly in community, social and personal
services. There are few women managers and administrators; for example in 1990,
women made up less than 1percent of managers in Ghana, Rwanda and Togo at the
upper end. ln Kenya and Uganda, the figures were 3.1 percent and 3.5 percent
respectively (ILO/JAPA 1991; Palmer 1991).
But then recent analysis in most of the
African countries on girls and women education has improved (UNICEF,2003).
UNICEF identified that with the awareness of formal education being the key
part of strategies to improve individuals’ well-being and societies economic
and social development ,access to education has improved dramatically over the
past few decades. And with this there have been a number of encouraging
trends in girls’ and women’s education,
showing that primary school enrollment is high or universal in most of the
developing countries, and gender gaps in secondary school enrollment have
already disappeared in several African countries. The observation equally
identified that women are also in most of these areas likely to enroll in
universities than they were in the past.
Although
UNESCO institute for statistics
(2008) identified that women still accounted for 64 percent of illiterate group
in the rural areas of South and West
Asia, the Arab states and Sub-Saharan Africa. UNESCO (2000) identified from its
framework for action meeting held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000; education
for all; that assessment demonstrates that there has been significant progress
in many countries. But that still it is unacceptable in the year 2000 that more
than 113 million children have no access to primary education , 880 million
adults are illiterate, gender discrimination continues to permeate education
systems, and the quality of learning and acquisition of human values and needs
of individuals and societies. The education for all ,2000 assessment highlights
that the challenge of education for all is greatest in Sub-Saharan Africa,
South Asia, and in the least developed countries.