Gender Disparities in Expenditure of Income from Tobacco in Urambo District, Tanzania

Abstract

In Tanzania, gender education has been being provided through various mass media. Therefore, it was expected that family resources would be equitably, if not equally, utilized. However, incidents of men squandering income from tobacco and denying their wives of benefiting from the income are common in Urambo District where the most important cash crop is tobacco. The reasons for this problem are not clear. Thus, the research from which this paper has emanated was conducted in the district during the agricultural season 2009/10 to determine gender-based factors for equitable and inequitable expenditure of income from tobacco. It was found that men’s proportion of expenditures (35.2%) and that of women (12.1%) of the household income were significantly different at the 0.1% level of significance (p = 0.000). Ten percent (10.0%) was spent by children, and 42.7% was spent by whole households, i.e. family-wide expenditures. This implies great disparity in expenditure of tobacco income as men spend disproportionately higher than women and children. Patriarchy, women’s humility and fear of being divorced appeared to be among the main factors for the disproportional expenditures. The results substantiate the need for more efforts in provision of gender education through mass media and training on financial management among tobacco farmers.

Key words: gender, expenditure of income from tobacco, equity, equality