Gender Analysis of Fish Production in Gambela Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Women’s access to and control over productive resources is highly constrained in most of the developing world. These constraints are usually overlooked. Gender analysis is very crucial to unpack the existing constraints and see the gap that affects technology transfer among men and women. The Objective of this study is to conduct gender analysis of capture fishery in selected woredas in Gambela region. The study was conducted in four purposively selected woredas of Anua Zone, Gambela region. Sample selection was done on household bases. Out of the 520 fisher households in the woredas, 10% of them are taken based on the minimum standard sample size requirements for social sciences. Among these, 190 were female (FHHHs) while 330 were male headed households (MHHHs). The determination of sample size is based on PPS to the size of the overall population engaged in fisheries. As a result, 19 FHHHs and 33MHHHs were included in the research. Quantitative data was collected using structured questionnaire from 52 households. In addition, a focus group discussion was made to elicit more information on gender roles and relationships. The output of the study indicated that, men in MHHHs are entirely responsible for the fishing activity. In addition, women & youth in MHHHs have a significant role in maintaining the daily harvest of fish. Women in  FHHHs are traditionally represented for collecting, processing, cooking and selling the catch. Though decision on selling the catch is mainly carried out by men, women were also found to have a say. Despite women’s involvement in value adding processes of capture fishery, a significant gap was observed between men and women headed households in accessing extension services. Thus, there is a significant difference in volume of fish harvested per fish type per day which was 10.5 and 7.5 kilograms per day for Male headed household and female headed household respectively. Daily fish catch of women headed household should be increased by offering improved fishing equipments.

Keywords: Gender analysis, MHHHs, FHHHs, Capture fishery, Gambella region

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/12-19-03

Publication date:October 31^st 2021