Economic Vulnerability

In the fields, in the home, and in the marketplaces throughout Africa, women workers reign. Although ‘household activities' are not calculated into the national income, we all know how invaluable their work, while sometimes invisible and nearly always undercompensated, can be.

Linda Fuller, 2008

Even though African women produce three-quarters of the continent's food, they are still amongst the poorest of the poor. Despite the fact that women do the majority of the informal work within the economy, they are still heavily dependent on men due to the lack of access to capital or credit or control over household resources and due also to patriarchal practices and traditions including those that relate to the economic position of women. These practices and traditions extend into the ownership of land or property. In many cases, women are restricted in owning or inheriting land or wealth. Lacking power or control over household or communal resources makes women subservient to men and relatively powerless in negotiating, including in the realm of sexual relations, thus increasing their vulnerability to infection.

Only 10% of economically active women earn wages in the formal economy and are likely to earn the least amount in the informal sector. Due to the informal nature of the majority of their work, women's vulnerability is heightened by the fact that if they or a family member becomes ill, they do not get paid for days missed while caring for themselves or a family member.

It is for reasons such as these that many women are often forced into prostitution or ‘transactional sex' (or risky sexual relationships with, for example, older men or ‘sugar daddies') as an economic necessity in order to provide for their families, despite knowing that this may lead to the transmission of HIV. It is a survival strategy for many as they are sometimes left with few other options.

Many girls are taken out of school early in order to help at home or to provide care for sick family members and are subsequently deprived of education, thus reinforcing their subordination, vulnerability and disempowerment.

Global evidence suggests that the relationship between poverty and HIV risk is complex, and that poverty on its own cannot be viewed simplistically as a driver of the HIV epidemic. Rather, its' role appears to be multi-dimensional, and to interact with a range of other factors - such as mobility, social and economic inequalities, and social capital - which converge in a particularly potent way for young women living in southern Africa.

Julia Kim, Paul Pronyk, Tony Barnett and Charlotte Watts 2008