Single women household heads in Dakar and Ouagadougou: material - PDF document

Single women household heads in Dakar and Ouagadougou: material conditions and subjective experience of an atypical situation Laure Moguérou (UPO/IRD), Madeleine Wayack-Pambè (Université Ouaga I Pr Joseph KISSP) and Madon Awissi-Sall (ANSD) In many West African countries, the economic crisis of the1990s was reflected in a shift to more diverse family models, one of the main shifts being an increase in the number of households headed by women, especially in the capital cities (Pilon et al., 1997; Bisilliat, 1996). In Dakar, Senegal, the 2013 population census recorded 28.9% of households as being headed by women, as against 25% in 2001 and 16% in 1989 according to biographical surveys conducted there (Adjamagbo et al, 2004). Similar trends were found in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, where the proportion of urban households headed by women doubled between 1975 and 2006, from 8.2% to 15%. Research into the feminization of household heads has been guided by two major questions. As with studies of single-parent families in Western countries (Sechet et al., 2003), some have set out to measure the links between family configuration and poverty. Others, considering that these women are acquiring prerogatives that usually fell to men, wondered whether the situation of women household heads and the increase in their numbers were driving social change in terms of gender relations and the definition of family roles (Pilon, 1996; Adjamagbo et al., 2004.) The research reveals a wide variety of situations. In West Africa, the incidence of poverty does not seem to be routinely higher among women household heads than among men in that role. There are wide differences according to the age and marital status of the women. In a recent study based on the Burkina Faso census of 2006, Wayack-Pambè and Moussa (2014) showed that in Ouagadougou, households headed by widows and the oldest women were in far more unfavourable conditions than those headed by men or other categories women. However, the youngest and best-educated women household heads were invariably the best-off. Household composition also has an impact on living conditions: on average, women household heads have more dependents and in that regard seem more vulnerable that male household heads (Bop, 1996; Kébé and Charbit, 2007). The research has also demolished the idea that women household heads are always women liberated from " the oppressive structures that perpetuate male domination " (Adjamagbo & Calvès, 2012). Mondain et al (2012) showed that in Senegal, migrants' left-behind wives were very often economically dependent on the migrant's mother or brothers. In Senegal and Burkina Faso alike, widows are often placed under the responsibility of another male member of the family-in-law and sometimes forced to marry one of them (Enel & Pison, 2007; Taverne, 1996; Ouedraogo,1998). In Senegal, divorce leads to a transitory period, an interlude in marital life: rates of remarriage are very high (Dial, 2008). Opinion is divided over situations where a woman is not cohabiting with her polygamous husband: it is certainly an aspect of "the modern side of marriage" (Locoh, 2002), but it can hardly be considered a liberation from male dominance. These studies have addressed the situation of married or formerly married women but have ignored that of single women who are household heads. These women are still a minority, certainly, but their numbers are growing in West Africa's capital cities. In this paper we look at the material conditions and subjective experience of single female household heads, whose situation is a particularly marginal one. After a brief review of the literature on single women in sub-Saharan Africa we describe the profiles of single women who declared themselves to be household heads in the 1

most recent population censuses in Dakar (2013) and Ouagadougou (2006). We then take a closer look by analyzing in-depth interviews that were conducted with a few of these particularly atypical women. Single women household heads: a neglected aspect of the new family dynamics in West Africa Reading the literature on family systems in sub-Saharan Africa, the first thing we notice is that there is almost no mention of single women, or of single women household heads in particular. This is hardly surprising when we consider how strongly the roles of wife and mother are prescribed for women in African societies, and most especially in Sahelian societies. As marriage plays a central role in determining the social status of both men and women, permanently singlehood is an extremely marginal phenomenon. Unmarried status is thought of as a temporary, transitory condition, especially for women, so it has remained a fringe issue in studies of family dynamics in West Africa. However, the process of union formation had undergone some profound upheavals in West Africa in the past 30 years, in Burkina Faso and Senegal particularly. These changes, reflecting the evolution of gender relations as a result of increased female education and high urbanization rates in these countries, include a trend towards marrying at a later age. In less than 20 years, between 1993 and 2010, the proportion of single women in the 20-24 age group almost tripled in Burkina Faso, from 6.4% to 17.1%, while in Senegal in 2010-2011 more than a third (38%) of women in that age group were not yet married (Marcoux & Antoine, 2014). The more highly educated the women, the greater the increase. These trends point to a need for a closer look at the condition of single women, whether household heads or not. Being a single woman beyond a certain age is still not well accepted socially and being a never-married female household head is even more of a challenge to West African social norms. Whether the household head is defined as the person who "has authority over the running of the household and holds decision-making power on issues concerning household members" (Wayack-Pambé, 2012: 94) or the one who "provides the bulk of the household's resources" , it is a status rarely granted to women and still less to young, single women. In societies where there is a strict division of roles by generation and by genders, such women are socially disqualified from the role both by their age and by their marital status. In practice, women are generally only household heads as substitutes for husbands who have died, migrated or are otherwise absent. Even where the husband is absent and the women is providing for the family and managing it day to day, many still refuse to call themselves the head of the household and attribute that role to a male household member. Also, for a young single woman to have authority over the household she must have residential independence, and in Senegal this is rare because women's sexuality is still kept under firm social control owing to the ideal of virginity at marriage (Adjamagbo et al, 2004). And finally, because of the low status of the unmarried and the stigma against women living alone, single women who are household heads may hesitate of say so when questioned for surveys or censuses (Hertrich & Lardoux,2014). There has been little research into these situations, probably because they have been so marginal. But their incidence is increasing fast and this raises some questions. According to the latest censuses in Burkina Faso (2006) and Senegal (2013), the percentages of female household heads who were single were 8.1% and 2