GENDER AND HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN THE LOW INCOME SUBURBS OF JINJA MUNICIPALITY, UGANDA
Abstract: This study attempted to determine the nature and relative importance of the socio-cultural and economic factors that facilitated or impeded men and women's engagement in urban housing development. It also attempted to determine the differences between the factors that posed obstacles to men's and women's engagement in the development and how gender interacted with other socio-institutional phenomena, especially ethnicity, marital status, age and education in influencing women's capacity to engage in urban housing development. Finally, the study tried to identify the adaptive strategies adopted by men and women to facilitate their participation in urban housing development. The study used primary and secondary data as well as quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
The findings of the study revealed that urban housing development is as much an economic as it is a social process with a complex set of values, traditions, norms and beliefs governing engagement therein, especially by women. The social process part permeated the interrelated economic components of housing such as land, finance, building materials, construction technology and labour. Although the proportion of men to women house owners who had inherited and purchased land on which they had built was nearly similar, there were gender differences in the modes of inheritance and obstacles met in purchasing. Men inherited largely by virtue of birthright while women inherited more through participation in the social institutions of marriage and through working unpaid mostly for female relatives who later rewarded them with land. The mode of inheritance notwithstanding, the women's ability to inherit land was facilitated in the Soga and Ganda cultures, which are less resistant to the institution of women's inheritance.
Some women who purchased land met resistance from spouses who felt their masculine identity threatened by the women's supposed assertion of independence - epitomized by buying land. Other women were also discouraged from purchasing urban land by friends and kin who used discouraging techniques such as labelling women who purchase land as prostitutes who had broken off their rural roots. Both men and women relied heavily on personal savings for the acquisition of building materials and labour, but a larger proportion of women relied on rentals and they built in phases, tending to occupy or rent out their houses when they were only partially completed. Women non-owners were less confident of their capacity to engage in urban housing development than their male counterparts. Women non-owners were also significantly less knowledgeable of housing development structures and processes, e.g., plots of land for sale and where to obtain building permits. Further, women significantly under-utilized housing development institutions such as the Housing Finance Co. (U) Ltd. although statistics showed that these institutions did not discriminate against women.
Both the house owners and the non-owners cited finance as a major obstacle in urban housing development. However, the gendered social structures, processes and relations embedded in housing development and the wider socio-economy gave rise to women's lack of housing finance and other resources, e.g., determination, knowledge and contacts requisite for participation therein, and posed further obstacles even when the women had assembled those resources. Hence, new approaches that could increase women's engagement in urban housing development are needed. Raising the consciousness of the public to the gender inequities and their socio-institutional roots would be a key step in the right direction. Initiating public debate through the print and electronic media and through community and family initiatives is recommended. The government should purchase land and sell it to the urban poor at favourable prices with long-term repayment conditions. Subsidized interest rate housing finance should also be arranged and channelled through Community Based Organizations and NGOs targeting the poor, especially women. Finally, legal advice and housing construction support services should be initiated and provided to women who seek to engage in urban housing development.
1.1 Background
Owner occupation and ownership of rental houses in Jinja Municipality appears to be male dominated. However, the prevalence of the local concept "Nakyeyombekedde", which implies a female proprietor, denotes that women too have played an active, albeit less visible and more resisted, role in housing development. The concept "Nakyeyombekedde" is a form of societal resistance to female ownership of houses for it has a derogatory connotation of unattached urban women who have their own sources of income, raise children without a resident male partner, and are free of male control and surveillance, hence "can engage in unsanctioned, illicit and casual sexual liaisons"! So detested is female ownership of houses that among the Bagisu of Eastern Uganda the equivalent term for "Nakyeyombekedde" is "Nakyombe", which implies "the terrible one"! The concept is promoted and sanctioned by men and some women whose conception of masculinity and femininity conforms with the societal norms that link "real" femininity to the "dependant" status of women. Women that own houses assume an independent status that challenges the traditional norms.
Possibly, the fear of being labelled "Nakyeyombekedde" has deterred some women who had an interest and capacity to develop their own houses, or had the property registered in spouses' or male relatives' names. Besides, the societal resistance could be permeating establishments associated with urban housing development, e.g., banks and building societies that offer housing finance, Jinja Municipal Council that allocates urban plots within its geographical jurisdiction and approves building plans, the Uganda Electricity Board that supplies power, and the National Water and Sewerage Corporation that connects water. The societal resistance like most gender related resistance could be subtle, thereby placing not easily noticeable obstacles to women's pursuit of engaging in housing development.
However, women are not a homogeneous category, hence the effects of the societal resistance in placing obstacles will vary with a host of socio-institutional phenomena. These include age, marital status, educational level, employment status, income level, household structure and family connections, all of which influence women's social contacts, economic capacities, culturally determined levels of resistance and political connections required to engage in urban housing development. However, it is important to note that men too face obstacles in engaging in urban housing development. These may include lack of economic resources, poor social connections, and at times, cultural resistance especially if they are from ethnic backgrounds that believe in setting up residential houses and farms in villages. The study, therefore, aims at investigating the gender differential challenges faced by men and women in their quest of engaging in urban housing development. Further, it aims at determine the differential strategies designed by men and women among varying social, economic and cultural categories within each gender.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Although men undoubtedly dominate in housing development in Jinja Municipality, some women do engage in the development. Conversely, many men and the majority of women do not participate in urban housing development. Engagement in urban housing development could therefore be influenced by several factors not least of which is gender although gender may singularly or in varying combinations interact with other socio-institutional phenomena such as ethnicity, marital status, age, income, educational level and household structure in influencing the extent of men's and women's engagement in urban housing development. Similarly, gender and other socio-institutional phenomena may be critical in influencing men's and women's family connections, social contacts, economic capacities, culturally determined levels of support and political connections requisite for engagement in urban housing development. Gender and other socio-institutional phenomena give rise to various social structures, processes and relations that determine men's and women's access to resources (material, political, financial and psycho-social), all of which influence their engagement in urban housing development. Considering the heterogeneity between men and women, the nature of the obstacles to urban housing development and the differential strategies designed to overcome these obstacles may vary between men and women, and within each gender. It is in this regard that the following research questions are posed to address the problem.
a) What is the nature and relative importance of the socio-cultural, economic and political factors that facilitated or impeded men's and women's engagement in urban housing development?
b) How different from men's are the factors that pose obstacles to women's engagement in urban housing development?
c) What is the nature of gendered social structures, processes and relations that give rise to women's lack of resources and pose further obstacles to their engagement in urban housing development?
d) How does gender interact with other socio-institutional phenomena, including ethnicity, marital status, age, income, education and household structure, in influencing women's capacity to engage in urban housing development?
e) What adaptive strategies are designed by men and women to facilitate their participation in urban housing development?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The study has the following specific objectives.
a) To identify the nature and relative importance of factors facilitating or impeding men's and women's engagement in urban housing development;
b) To establish the differences between the factors that pose obstacles to men's and women's engagement in urban housing development;
c) To determine how gender interacts with other socio-institutional phenomena in influencing women's capacity to engage in urban housing development;
d) To determine the adaptive strategies adopted by men and women to facilitate their participation in urban housing development.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The expense of engaging in housing development usually comes out most prominently as the major obstacle affecting both men's and women's participation therein. Coupled with the subtle manifestations of gender related obstacles, women's lesser involvement in housing development has been largely explained in terms of lack of resources, hence the sponsoring of women's low-cost housing projects, which are not accessible to most women. This is the classical Women in Development (WID) approach. While acknowledging lack of resources as an important factor impeding women's participation in housing development, as a point of departure, the study contends that gendered social structures, processes and relations give rise to women's lack of resources, and pose further obstacles to women's participation in housing development. The study therefore attempts to isolate other factors embedded in society or institutions, and within and among the women themselves, which determine the extent of women's participation in housing development. Theoretically, the findings of the study may contribute to the social relations and differentiation analysis championed by the gender approach to development practice while practically, the findings offer insights to urban planners, authorities and policy makers that could be relevant for enhancing women's participation in the urbanisation processes, especially with regard to involvement in urban housing development.
1.5 Literature Review
A series of studies have been conducted on the factors influencing participation in housing development in general and urban housing development in particular (Larson 1991; Macaloo 1990 & 1994; Ntege 1992; Obbo 1976, 1984; Republic of Uganda 1992a; Rondinelli 1990). Most studies investigated the economically facilitating and/ or impeding factors; others highlighted the socio-cultural and political environments influencing participation in urban housing development. In addition, most of them were gender neutral, some focused on women and only a few addressed both men and women.
Republic of Uganda (1992a) notes that Uganda's housing sector in general and urban housing in particular has been severely hit by the general economic decline experienced from the 1970s to the late 1980s. The economic decline led to over-dependence of construction materials on imports (60%), poor distribution, lack of local skills and equipment, lack of standardisation of both locally manufactured and imported materials and equipment and low production capacities in factories, all of which resulted in high construction costs (Republic of Uganda 1992a). Thus, because of the economic decline and the political insecurity in the same period, there was little increase in housing stock especially in urban areas while the existing stock continued to deteriorate due to lack of proper maintenance. The housing situation was so bleak that the 1991 population and housing census revealed that with a population of about 16.5 million people and an average household size of 5.7, there was an estimated stock of 2,690,000 units and a backlog of 235,904 units in the country (Republic of Uganda 1992b).
Besides the obstacles posed by the bleak economy specific to Uganda until the late 1980s, Sanders (1983) cites other related obstacles to housing development. He notes that exploitation of the poor by merchants and the expense of transportation drove up the costs of building materials and became serious obstacles to self-help efforts in poorer neighbourhoods in Cacel, Cali and Columbia. However, the Coruajal Foundation in Cali provided warehouses for storing building materials in the poor neighbourhoods. The warehouses sold construction materials to poorer neighbourhood residents at market prices rather than at the inflated prices of private merchants. Competition from the warehouses forced local merchants to also sell at market prices thereby increasing the quantity of building materials available to poorer neighbourhood residents. Nonetheless, Larson (1991) reports that even when building materials were available and affordable, the construction process was bedevilled with constant theft of materials lack of funds, lack of time to supervise builders and lack of authority over contractors. These problems were reported to be experienced more by women than men putting up urban houses in Gaborone, Botswana.
Besides problems faced in procuring and utilising building materials, acquisition of urban land was another cited economic obstacle to urban housing development. Kwado (1990) adds that land speculation coupled with low income levels and absence of any effective housing finance mechanisms in West African cities has pushed affordability of urban land beyond the reach of all but a few affluent men who could combine personal savings with extra income (illegally) from other sources especially from the informal sector.
With regard to the social aspects of housing development, Sengendo (1992) describes housing as an expression of ways life; a process by which people express themselves, their status, aspirations and social relations. In this respect, Peil (1976) and O'Connor (1983) point out that most African urban dwellers prefer owning homes in their villages to ownership in towns/cities, since most do not consider themselves permanent urban dwellers. Even then, house ownership in Ugandan society is largely construed as a male preserve (Obbo 1976). Female ownership of land in Uganda is only 7% (World Bank 1993), pointing to the male bias in land inheritance systems in much of Uganda, which further influences the gendered patterns in housing development in general, and urban housing development in particular.
Nevertheless, Obbo (1976, 1984) notes that the Ganda (an ethnic group in central Uganda) culture is not only more supportive of female inheritance and acquisition of land through purchase but is also less resistant to female ownership of houses and other property compared to other ethnic groups. Among the other ethnic groups in Uganda, female ownership of land or its inheritance is less tolerated. Among the Konjo ethnic group of Western Uganda, the norms and beliefs against women's ownership of land are so high that landowners may refuse to sell land to a female even if she has ready cash (Manyire 1993). It is argued among the Konjo that selling land to a female amounts to encouraging "prostitution", which sets a bad precedent for their (Konjo) girls and women. Ntege (1992) similarly notes that young women are often threatened that if they "go too far" in education, owned property or accumulated "too much' money, they will jeopardise their chances of marriage. As far as women are concerned, house ownership is for the hopeless, those who will never marry, i.e., widows, prostitutes, senior spinsters, the frustrated and the divorced. Ntege (1992) adds that these social tactics not only prevent women from purchasing land or pursuing their inheritance rights where they existed, but also discourage them from optimally utilising these resources. It is probably in this context that Berry (1989) states people's ability to increase their assets depends not only on their access to productive resources, but also on their ability to control and use them effectively. Berry (1989) cautions that this ability depends in turn on participation in a variety of social institutions. In the case of women's engagement in urban housing development, the social institutions discourage women's utilisation of resources to develop their own houses.
Societal especially men's disdain for women's ownership of houses and other property is not totally unfounded, for female house owners are less likely to be totally dependent on men. Lee Smith (1995) reports that studies of Ganda women in urban transition showed that when women found they could be economically self-supporting, they asserted their rights to sex, motherhood and marriage. Some women especially second wives leave their husbands when they acquire land as they consider it unnecessary to work on someone else's land at the same time being responsible for dressing and feeding themselves and their children. Specifically, Ganda women gain independence by having children outside wedlock to avoid male lineage controls. This was the aetiology of construing women's house ownership as a harbinger of broken marriages and women's independence including the right to decide which men to date as well as how, when, where and for how long.
Lee Smith (1997) adds that with economic independence provided by income from various potential sources and access to property, marriage is seen by some women as superfluous except for male companionship. Quoting Bujra (1976), Lee Smith (1997) cites a woman who was heard saying, "My house is my husband". Implicitly, the marital contract entails men's provisioning of property. Hence, if a woman could acquire her own property, the acquisition through the husband (marital bond) may become nullified thereby reducing the necessity of having a resident, full-time husband.
Elliot (1975) argues that men tend to have better social, economic and political contacts and connections that enable them to secure influence in institutions that sell or lease land, provide loans, process building plans and permits and connect utilities such as water and electricity. Schuller (1990) adds that in some Southern African countries such as Lesotho, Angola and Namibia, women are required to obtain a signed consent from their husbands or male kin before entering into transactions with banks. However, in Uganda, Basirika and Balagadde (1997) point out that women receive affirmative action in politics, local government and academics and to some extent in business. Even where affirmative action is not necessarily implemented, for instance, in financial institutions, bias against women is subsiding.
All the same, some women in Uganda have been reported to utilise their femininity in acquiring urban houses. Obbo (1984) reports that women use their traditional virtues of submission and service and their roles as mothers and wives as strategies for survival including obtaining resources needed to engage in urban housing development. Exemplifying this, Obbo (1984) reports that some women in Wabigalo and Namuwongo slums in Kampala who dated married men and bore them children could threaten to leak the information to get the men to find them jobs, loan them housing finance or even build them houses. In fact, some women who were mistresses or unofficial wives to men of means persuaded their partners to build them houses without even resorting to "blackmail".
The above reviewed literature offers useful insights into understanding the nature of the factors that influence men and women's participation in urban housing development. However, a major gap in the literature is the inability to explain why some men and some women participate in urban housing development while many men and the majority of women do not. No data collection and analysis efforts were geared towards investigating both the male and female participants and non-participants in urban housing development. Studies that came close to explaining the gender variations in participation in urban housing development drew data from respondents who already owned urban houses. Further, most studies concentrated on obstacles to participation in urban housing development without due focus on strategies to overcome the obstacles. We therefore could not discern the differences between the participants and non-participants in urban housing development. Neither could we point out the nature of the differences between the obstacles faced by male and female participants nor the gender differential strategies designed to overcome these obstacles. Further, variations between male and female non-participants were still largely unknown.
As a point of departure, the study intends to compare the experiences undergone, the obstacles faced and the strategies designed to overcome these obstacles by both the male and female participants in urban housing development. The study also examines both the male and female non-participants to ascertain the nature of factors, structures, processes and relations that facilitate or impede their participation in urban housing development.
1.6 Theoretical Framework
The study was conceived within the socio-institutional theoretical framework that is cognizant of the crucial role of the social identity of an economic agent in determining resource exchange in the (housing) markets (Granovetter 1985; Van Arkadie 1989). The socio-institutional theoretical framework transcends the neo-Marxist theoretical framework that analyses housing production through assessing who produces each type of housing, how the construction process is organized and financed and what production constraints are experienced by various categories of producers (Burgess 1978). The neo-Marxist theoretical framework is useful in accounting for class-based differences in the organisation and financing of the housing construction process especially in developed countries. However, the framework does not capture the subtlety of the gender variable which does not renders itself easily amenable to casual observations, sharply contrasting with the clarity and visibility of the class variable.
Van Arkadie (1989) defines institutions as the "rules of the game" that provide the context - such as markets - in which actors make decisions. These rules define private property rights and their allocation, and the conventions governing the relationships between participants in the economic process (for example, those affecting the operation of the urban housing development markets). Van Arkadie (1989) adds that property rights determining access to urban land, for instance, are part of a complex of institutional arrangements providing the context of the entire urban housing development process. These include the institutional arrangements determining the procedures for obtaining land, plans, building permits, building materials, housing construction labour and building finance.
The socio-institutional model therefore focuses on the influence of social relations and social structure on economic behaviour. The relations may be determined by gender, social status, ethnicity, religion, class and, power (Razavi and Miller 1995). The model subsequently allows for the examination of economic and social structures, which are conventionally treated as "givens" (that is, exogenous) or as non-economic, that is, social or cultural factors (Evans 1993). For instance, the socio-institutional model accounts for women's under-representation in land ownership considering men largely inherit land. That inheritance is culturally a reserve for men implicitly suggests that land acquisition through other means such as purchasing is largely also a male entitlement. Denying women the right to inheritance is part of the wider socio-structure that denies them the right to ownership of resources including education, skills, employment opportunities, acquisitive behaviour and attitudes, etc. In some cultures such as those of the Konjo and Kasese Districts of Uganda, even where women could have the economic resources to purchase land, they may not do so because land ownership is considered a male norm (Manyire 1993). Hence, the social structure and relations constrain women's acquisition and ownership of land on both the supply and demand side. It is in this regard that Ruttan and Hayami (1984) observe that in the area of economic relations, institutions play a crucial role in establishing expectations about the rights to use resources in economic activities and about partitioning of income streams resulting from the economic activities.
The socio-institutional model is therefore applicable to gender, which is a socially constructed identity that determines not only the relations between men and women but also the entitlements of men and women both within the household and in the wider socio-economy. The model is also applicable to engagement in the urban housing development process as an aspect of economic behaviour since besides offering status, security, prestige and emotional satisfaction not gained from the renting alternative, home ownership in urban areas also represents a sound investment. Money that would have been paid as rent is saved by owner-occupiers, and owners of rental houses get a steady income (Kwado 1990). The model is therefore relevant in examining the factors that facilitate or impede men's and women's engagement in urban housing development. It guides the assessment of the interaction of the social construction of the masculine and feminine (gender) identity on the one hand, and the socio-structural and institutional variables such as marriage, age and ethnicity on the other in determining the terms and conditions under which men and women exchange resources that facilitate housing development in urban areas.
1.7 Methodology
1.7.1 Study Design
The study was designed to be comparative and cross-sectional, involving both male and female owner-occupiers/owners of rental houses, and male and female non-owners. The aim was to compare the experiences and challenges that faced male and female owner-occupiers/owners of rental houses while developing their houses with the experiences, challenges and obstacles that are impeding male and female non-owners from engaging in urban housing development.
1.7.2 Study Location
Two largely medium and low-cost housing suburbs in Jinja Municipality were purposely selected. These were Mpumudde and Bugembe. The choice of these two suburbs was influenced by the fact that many new houses have been constructed therein under individual initiative in the last ten years. Further, the houses therein are comparatively cheaper both in terms of putting up and in terms of the monthly rent (the majority may range between US $30 and US $50 per month), hence more women were likely to be found there. Besides, the land tenure system in these suburbs is the mailo land system of freehold which is not under the jurisdiction of Jinja Municipal Council, i.e., the land is not allocated by Jinja Municipality but is purchased and sold by the buyer and owner (seller), respectively, on mutually agreeable terms and costs. Further, due to the mailo system of tenure, some landlords/landladies construct houses on land which they do not legally own, (i.e., they have no land titles in their names) but are merely tenants at will, whose costs are cheaper than entirely purchasing a piece of land, which encourages the development of low-cost urban housing.
Mpumudde has 14 zones (Local Councils) while Bugembe has 19. Zones CA, BD and EF with 104, 93 and 128 households, respectively, were selected from Mpumudde suburb. In Bugembe, Upper Bugembe and Market Zones with 202 and 147 households, respectively, were randomly selected. (Local Councils are political/administrative units with Local Council 1 comprising one village. All residents in the village are members of LC 1. The LC executive committee consists of nine members headed by the chairman.)
1.7.3 Sampling Procedures
With the assistance of Local Council officials, owner-occupiers/owners of rental houses and non-owners were identified and separately listed and their names rearranged in alphabetical order. Fifty male and 50 female house owners and 50 male and 50 female non-owners were selected using a systematic sampling technique. Twenty male and 20 female house owners and 20 male and 20 female non-owners were purposively revisited for follow-up probing on specific questions to gain a better understanding of the gendered social relations, structures and processes that facilitated or impeded men and women's engagement in urban housing development. Respondents who were revisited were selected based on having given data that are more informative in the open-ended questions during the quantitative data collection phase.
1.7.4 Data Collection
Quantitative data collection was conducted from 27th December 1999 to 29th January 2000. Qualitative data was gathered from 27th March to 14th April 2000.
1.7.5 Data Analysis
The quantitative data was entered into computer using the Epi-Info software. The data obtained from the house owners and the tenants was entered and analysed separately. Using the SPSS PC, univariate, bi-variate and multi-variate analyses were generated. The tests of significance of the correlations were the p.values.
The qualitative data was analysed by content analysis along the following key variables: gendered social relations, structures and processes inherent in land acquisition and housing construction; and the gendered experiences, perceptions and attitudes relating to housing development. Broad categories were later developed to differentiate and describe the ideas expressed by the respondents. These broad categories were further broken down to indicate the directions of attitudes, perceptions, experiences, challenges and adaptive strategies.
