Who Does What? Analysing Gender Division of Labour in Cocoa Households in the Asante Akim North Municipality, Ghana

Who Does What? Analysing Gender Division of Labour in Cocoa Households in the Asante Akim North Municipality, Ghana

Rubaba Mohammed, Esther Owusu-Mensah, Enoch Kwame Tham-Agyekum, Fred Ankuyi & John-Eudes Andivi Bakang

Issue: Vol.4 No.4 April 2023 Article 5 pp.426-441
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20234415 | Published online 6th April, 2023
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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ABSTRACT

In a typical cocoa farming household, the question of who among the different genders does what needs to be assessed. This is because it is often thought that males do the majority of work in the household. In bringing balance to this argument, this study used the Caroline Moser framework to assess the gender division of labour in cocoa households in the Asante Akim North Municipality in Ghana. In using a mixed methods approach, questionnaires were administered to three hundred (300) respondents and a focus group discussion was organized for a group of 12 (six males and six females) in the Municipality. The study found that most of the women were responsible for performing the reproductive roles whilst the males performed the majority of the productive roles and the community management roles. Limiting women to the performance of reproductive roles can be detrimental to the development of society at large, most especially in a situation where few women take part in productive and communal developmental. Women should therefore be encouraged and allowed to partake in all community activities and decision-making procedures to ensure there is no gender inequality.

Keywords: Cocoa Farmers, Community Managing Roles, Gender Division of Labour, Productive Roles, Reproductive Roles, Households

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AUTHOR(S)

Rubaba Mohammed is an MPhil student in Agricultural Extension and Development Communication at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Esther Owusu-Mensah Rubaba Mohammed is an MPhil student in Agricultural Extension and Development Communication at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Enoch Kwame Tham-Agyekum (PhD) is a lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. His areas of expertise are development communication and media studies, rural development, extension education, management of organisations in development, gender studies, programme planning, monitoring and evaluation.

Fred Ankuyi holds an MPhil in Agricultural Extension and Development Communication from the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He currently works with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Legon, Accra, Ghana.

John-Eudes Andivi Bakang (PhD) is an associate professor with over 25 years of experience in the field of agricultural extension. He works with the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. His areas of expertise are development sociology, extension education, programme planning, monitoring and evaluation and rural development.

TO CITE ARTICLE

Mohammed, R., Owusu-Mensah, E., Tham-Agyekum, E.K., Ankuyi, F. & Bakang, J.A. “Who Does What? Analysing Gender Division of Labour in Cocoa Households in the Asante Akim North Municipality, Ghana,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 4, no.4 (2023): 426-441. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20234415