Urban-Rural Divide Deepens Inequality For African Women – Afrobarometer
A woman in a rural community Rural women across Africa face a double disadvantage as the urban-rural divide compounds gender gaps in education, employment, asset ownership, and access to Read More... The post Urban-Rural Divide Deepens Inequality For African Women – Afrobarometer appeared first on DailyGuide Network .
A recent study by Afrobarometer reveals that women in rural Africa face a significant double disadvantage, particularly when it comes to education, employment, asset ownership, and access to financial and digital resources. The report, based on interviews with 50,961 people across 38 African countries, highlights that women are less likely than men to have completed secondary or post-secondary education and to hold paid employment.
Furthermore, they are less likely to own key assets such as vehicles, bank accounts, mobile-money accounts, mobile phones, and computers. In comparison to urban women, rural women experience even larger gaps in these areas.
The digital and financial resource gap between urban and rural women is particularly stark. While 54% of women in Africa have secondary or post-secondary education, only 39% of rural women have reached the same level of qualification. Similarly, rural women are more than twice as likely as urban women to have no formal education (26% versus 12%).
In the workforce, 25% of working-age women are employed, compared to 39% of men. Rural women lag behind urban women in this regard as well, with only 19% employed, compared to 30% of urban women. The urban-rural divide is even wider when it comes to asset ownership. Rural women are less likely to own vehicles (16% versus 35%), bank accounts (33% versus 43%), mobile-money accounts (56% versus 64%), mobile phones (82% versus 89%), and computers (16% versus 22%).
The ownership gap is most pronounced in phone ownership, where rural women are 17 percentage points less likely to own a phone compared to urban women (73% versus 90%).
Despite these challenges, rural women display a stronger level of political participation compared to their urban counterparts. While women's overall political participation rates are lower than men's, rural women outpace urban women in several forms of engagement, including voting and political party affiliation. This suggests that there may be opportunities to strengthen women's voice and representation in rural communities.
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