Do men and women compete or cooperate in the threat of hunger
... The issue of gender, it should be noted, has become one of the most important aspects of development and should be considered as a significant variable when analysing the threat of hunger. It is also important to consider whether men and women compete or cooperate during famines. ... This paper will stress that coping strategies are not uniform and will analyse such coping strategies used in the past and argue that it is more insightful to disaggregate households further and look at the roles played by men and women in times of famines. ... Swift (1989) supports the above stage by stating that physical assets are sold first as a way to try and cope in the threat of hunger. ... Gender aspect: It is more insightful to disaggregate households further and look at the roles played by men and women in times of famines. ... In most cases men take the role of the head and have better “bundles” of assets and entitlements while women occupy the weaker position. Within some households, where men and women cooperate in times of famine, there is need to consider the gender division of labour within the household. ... It is important also to note that ignoring the differences between men and women’s roles in coping can be a reason for ineffective policy making. For the purposes of this paper it is more insightful to use Bina Agarwal’s(1990) five categories of coping strategies so as to understand the different roles played by men and women within the household. ... Agarwal points out that women are differently placed to men in the adoption of coping strategies. ... She draws data from a number of countries in India and shows that mostly men are involved in waged labour. ... She states that in South India women’s agricultural roles have a greater task specificity and their jobs are normally lower paid. Barbara Harris(1990) concurs with this argument stating that female disadvantage in waged labour is evident in many parts of Central and South India where women and men work almost the same but men are paid more. Agarwal goes on to state illustrate the point further by showing that even though women earn less they contribute more to the household that the men as they bring in 90-100 per cent of their earning while men rarely gave over 60-70 percent of their income as they kept the rest for personal use. ... Longhurst goes on to say women are often secluded yet they contribute by trade and loans in an attempt to overcome seasonal shortages of food. ... Agarwal states that it is often women and children who play the primary role in collecting common property resources and forest produce as they have the detailed knowledge of which foods to collect. Thus in so stating she suggests that there is a need to consider the significant role women play to prolong survival of both themselves and their families during famine.