Urban Livelihood Shifting Attitudes Towards the Working Women in Hargeisa

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UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA Faculty of Economics and Political Science

--- IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE HONOR OF

BACHELOR DEGR EE IN ECONOM ICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

URBAN LIVELIHOOD SHIFTING ATTITUDES TOWARDS

THE WORKING WOMEN(The case of Hargeisa)

A RESEARCH PAPER

By,

Kheyria Ismail Ahmed July, 2013

--------------------------------- B.A. in Arts

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA

---------------------------------------------------

Under the direction of,

Prof: Abdirahman Dirie Abdi

Urban Livelihood: Shifting Attitudes Towards the Working Women (The case of Hargeisa)

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URBAN LIVELIHOOD SHIFTING ATTITUDES TOWARDS

THE WORKING WOMEN(The case of Hargeisa)

A RESEARCH PAPER

By,

Kheyria Ismail Ahmed July, 2013

-------------------------------- B.A. in Arts

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA

---------------------------------------------------

Under the direction of,

Prof: Abdirahman Dirie Abdi

UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA Faculty of Economics and Political Science

--- IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE HONOR OF

BACHELOR DEGREE IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE


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UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that this thesis project has been done by Kheyria Ismail Ahmed who is one of the students that are graduating this academic year of 2013/2014 from the University of Hargeisa. And I, Kheyria Ismail Ahmed, am declaring here that this material is my original work and has not been presented before in anywhere.

This material is also supervised, edited and approved by my senior project supervisor, Mr. Abdirahman Dirie Abdi.

It satisfies the requirements for gaining the award of Bachelor degree in Arts (B.A. in Arts) for Economics and Political Science from the University of Hargeisa.

Regards,

Signature_____________________

Date__________________________

Name_________________________ Registration #_________________


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DEDICATION

I dedicate this material to my much-loved parents and siblings; to my two most adorable brothers of Samatar and Warsame in

particular

Dead or alive, and as long as I breath, I will stay a loving daughter for a mother and a father; that brought me to this world and that I know I had to work for them. A quote from a working woman I met

during the process of writing this thesis material.


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All thanks belong to the Almighty Allah, as nothing could have been done without Him in my life. And after that, lots of merits go to my infinitely adored, loved and unforgotten father and my always understanding mother. In addition I, Kheyria Ismail Ahmed as the researcher of this thesis material, want to show my gratitude and appreciation to all of my teachers, professors, and lecturers at University of Hargeisa who trained and skilled us for the past four years and shared their remarkable moments and stories with all of us by making our time at campus memorable.

At the University of Hargeisa we are taught by our tutors and gained not only academic qualifications but also being lively skillful, cooperative and rational with creative encouragements and motivations imparted to all of us by our professors who always offered us reasonableness and commitments to equip us to be an operative generation in favor for the entire society in the days to come Inshaa-Allah. I would also like to thank all my fellow friends at the University of Hargeisa and my very special classmates; along with all of those individuals who brought great joy of lifetime at campus. It really was wonderful to have had the chance to meet all those admirable friends, and teachers at the university; it was a great pleasure for me to have met them all.

Special thanks goes to the dean of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science Mr. professor Omar Yusuf Buh, Mr. Warsame, Mr. Alifow and my supervisor Mr. Abdirahman Dirie Abdi.

Nonetheless, much gratefulness and appreciation goes to my very dear lecturers of Mr. professor Ahmed Ismail Farah, professor Abdi Ali Jama, professor Muhammad Muhammoud Egeh, and many more folks that participated in my educational journey in a way or another for the past four years pursuing my dream of attaining B.A in Arts at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, from the University of Hargeisa.

.. Thank you so much my friend, Omaro Ahmed Hassan; for being a true friend with such a great, great sense of humor and for helping me catch up many lectures on time for four years with your marvelously speedy bus and passion for driving, I do appreciate it.

Kheyria Ismail Ahmed Economics and Political Science graduate

Academic year 2013/2014


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CONTENTS

Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 2

Background ............................................................................................................... 2 Problem Statement .................................................................................................... 6 The objective of the study ......................................................................................... 7 Research Questions: .................................................................................................. 7 Research hypothesis .................................................................................................. 8 Structure of the paper ................................................................................................ 8 The limitations of the study ...................................................................................... 8

LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................... 9

The Household economics and Women: An Overview .......................................... 16 The Urban Livelihood ............................................................................................. 19

RESEARCH METHODS ....................................................................................... 21

Research design ...................................................................................................... 21 Type of data ............................................................................................................ 22 Method of data collection ....................................................................................... 22

FINDINGS AND FACTS FOUND ........................................................................ 23

What made you go out for work as a woman? ....................................................... 23 The general livelihood impacts of working women-ship; ...................................... 29 The urban livelihood of the city of Hargeisa .......................................................... 30 The society is helpless and vulnerable .................................................................... 30 The businesspeople are heartless and cruel ............................................................ 31 The government is careless and inconsiderate ........................................................ 31

CLOSURE AND COMMENDATION .................................................................. 32

Appendices, a: bibliography ................................................................................... 33

Appendix b: data collection tool used..................................................................... 35


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URBAN LIVELIHOOD: Shifting Attitudes towards the Working Women.

(The Case of Hargeisa) _______________________________

KHEYRIA ISMAIL AHMEDKHEYRIA ISMAIL AHMEDKHEYRIA ISMAIL AHMEDKHEYRIA ISMAIL AHMED

July, 2013

B.A. in Arts UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Under the direction of Prof. Abdirahman Dirie Abdi

ABSTRACT

Every living individual being on this earth beholds of and belongs to a household that has a daily economic activities with a respective decisions to be made by, and have a different access to economic resources which is usually the single most important determinant of any living condition or livelihood; which is "The command of an individual, family, or other social group has over an income and/or bundles of resources that can be used or exchanged to satisfy its needs. This may involve information, cultural knowledge, social networks and legal rights as well as tools, land and other physical resources1. As defined by most social scientists, and moreover women, in particular who are my primary interrogatives to get to the reality about their being the working individuals in their households which determine their living, and what are incentives that cause them to seek out their livelihood by their own two hands to survive in the urban cities (In my case Hargeisa city). And in addition to that, this thesis tries to explore what is the working techniques those working women in Hargeisa use and why do they take such roles in the society. The situation of working women has always believed by so many to be an implication produced by tough and rough regular social livelihood and compulsion while others believe it to be a matter of choice; so to shift such incompatible attitudes and receive the real cause of the matter of these working women in the city of Hargeisa is what this inquiry researches about.

Key words: Working Women, Household Economics, Urban Livelihood, Social living.

1 Blaikie P., Cannon T., Davis I., Wisner B. At Risk: Natural Hazards, Peoples Vulnerability, and Disasters. New

York, NY: Routledge, 2004,


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|ONE|

INTRODUCTION

Background

Historically, this sociological situation of women working outside their homes and in the marketplaces is believed to have come into existence by post-war period in territory (Somaliland) starting from 1991 which developed currently and grew even more than previous decades as there are almost 80% of women in Hargeisa at marketplaces working. And one of the researchers hypothesis which is presuming the situation and illustrating the idea of working women argues that they took such roles absolutely because of compulsion all beget by the occurrence of hostile war in 1980s within Somaliland when almost all women in Hargeisa city lost their men; either their husbands, sons or brothers in the war and left all alone with or without children and elderly people who were fled to neighboring turfs to survive, while they left the men in cities to fight back against the enemy and stand up for their rights.

After the war has ended and they come back to their homes, all they found was corpses of their protectors and maintainers (Their men) along with shattered properties. So because these ladies cannot wake their men up to work and feed them and their children they started to live their lives for their own selves and for their children taking the working path as a way out, and began to rely upon their own two hands along with their children crying on their labs, and in a trial to handle the situation. These women have gone out to seek ways of living for their children. So instead of sitting alongside the streets by extending their hands out and begging, they had a better choice which is to go out and work out with integrity; keeping the names of their men alive and their children survive. They started to take and adopt every means of laborship that they could find; whether it is clothing, groceries, offices and etc.

To this day which we are living in a peace and quiet and on our independent home of Somaliland, those women are still in the marketplace working and make almost 70 or 80% of the laborforce, so what this thesis paper tries to discover is what made these woman take such hard step, made their fate this tragic and stop them to take a break in their sweet homes when there are a lot more men alive who are all hale and hearty and can fill their roles naturally and take care of both the economy and them as well? In


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world history are women who were strong enough and powerfully worked with a wide range of aspirations and achievements but all of them are believed to have had dreadful situations in their lives as the drive behind them. It is believed that a bad prior life is what taught these working women the struggling lessons of living. To others it is a matter of just a bad luck, and still it is believed by some other people as a matter of fun and merely pastimes. Based on this case in Hargeisa, the researcher tried to figure out some Somalilanders (Women) who can really be crowned as the most powerful and prestigious ladies in the country who are working and successful at the same time, at first it may seem simple but then not as simple or easy as thought before about it; because my mind went blank after just two names were called, they were Mrs. Adna Adam Ismail, who is one of the most spectacular ladies in Somalilands politics and societal affairs for the past decades and still holds that status and Mrs. Fadumo Saeed who is a social activist and a national goodwill ambassador in county; Hargeisa, and when these two personalities were found, I could not name any other woman who is to be taken as a powerful lady in the society who is successfully working so the need to clarify why all those working women are not any supportive in the society as a whole is another critical issue for the researcher.

Women and their societal livelihoods are always somewhat vulnerable beings to suffer most of the outcomes from any economic conditions such as the economic depressions or economics recessions in a way or another; at a time its them who will have to see their husbands jobless and their children being kicked out of the school or see them crying for starvation when the familys finances are undergoing some economic pressures; and nowadays a newer and heavier weight has emerged to lay upon the shoulders of such worried mothers at homes which are totally loaded by another worry which is to turn into a striving working mothers at the marketplace along with their domestic pressures at home. Such occasions of women seeking a solution to solve such problems in the family (household) is popular and common in the urban cities.

The rural livelihoods are much easier and less complicated as there are no living equality levels needed in the rural areas because they already live under the same survival circumstances. While in the urban, each household living in the cities has lot of things which are seen to be necessary for living, such as education, livelihood materials, luxurious things, and even prestige and status, which on the other hand may mean nothing to a rural household. And the access to such


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things/needs/wants are different for different social families with different urban livelihoods; which is a thing that these urban families/households always compete and fight for acquiring them by any means necessary either through the men of the family or the women and women in this case will definitely make any trial to retain good life for their offspring or overall household.

There are also other economic conditions which are somewhat positive upon women but might still and again cause them suffer from illusive and deceptive ways of living, behavioral aspects, manners or ethics which in the end of the day might lead some women to downhill and destroys them in every meaning of the word; this is the case of prestige searching womens paths which they practice and take by unethical actions which cause the society to denounce and criticize them naming the women in general which is a scar on the female populations because every woman is a female and shares the name similarly. They say that some women use their womanhood to gain salaries that are not even related to work compensation or in other words they receive wages without any laborship, or some other women they say divert the working opportunities paths by corrupt ways of application! Some others are also believed to be objected marrying and choose over their lifetime careers and are said to be satisfied to stay single as long as they can accumulate Shillings or Dollars which in return decreases the rate of population growth and slack the regular economic activities that could be attained if the appropriate individuals (Men) do the task; and so are said to have caused the everlasting recession that has always been existing in Somaliland.

One major problem with the idea of working women in general is that there are always regulations and rules laid for a woman in every society or religion and us (In Hargeisa) by our precious and blessed religion of Islam, and when women go out for work this definitely provokes the religious preachers who then proclaim them as disobedient and deviants, who deliberately come up against what was pre-set for them by their Almighty which was to stay back at their homes and keep their motherhood title instead of womanhood. Still the westerners who assigned some predefined evil rights and fake principles for the women, are not any different and oppose the idea of working-outdoor women and although they coined the wicked ideologies of feminism, the western world has got the yield of the reap from such ideologies and are now regretting their creation to such philosophy, as women took over and mixed up with men unimaginably. But with our valuable spiritual background here in Hargeisa, there should be a respect for the mothers, sisters, daughters or wives, they should be looked at by a much caring eye than those the west look at their woman who perceive them just to be competitors, challengers and sometimes a curse.


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And a lot of women do have justification for their working roles in the society no matter whether they are acceptable or not, but this inquiry apart from such pious boundaries for Muslim women, explores how these women who are already in business and in the urban marketplaces are able to work for their households and sustain their living having other major roles parallel such as being a mother, a sister, a daughter or a wives. Why they are the ones to be the familys financial protectors when the job already belongs to their men? This situation always occurs and is so popular only in the urban cities and in my case in Hargeisa, and usually cities are defined to be wherever a large numbers of different people from different households and under different livelihoods share, work and live in. The researcher wants to clarify if the role of a woman working for her household is a matter of choice or a matter of compulsion and obligation, if it is a matter of devotion and necessity, and again to examine how these women who are playing such roles in the society manage to sustain their livelihoods and that of their households at a survival level and how easy or difficult they make decisions for their household economics in the urban city of Hargeisa.

Extraordinary women either working outdoors or indoors in fact do exist for a reason or another but the problem is that no one appreciates what they do, did or would like to do, because our men who dominate over women as usual might not be ready to listen about the scrap of females. While there are other women of their times who are still known and can be perceived by their familial dedications and devotions, which their societal roles were on track, where they obeyed the rules and regulation of Muslim women who lived under the pure boundaries set and pre-defined by our precious religion. There are other women on the other side who do not realize their appreciative livelihood settings and would take the wrong path under the pretext of survival. These women are fairly well known for their misbehavior in the society but are covered up in times of specific euphoria for them which mainly comes from men themselves who praise and warmly welcome such immoral women and in the end of the day derived them out to seek more and more eminence by encouragements but unfortunately the fame has fades over time. A very good example to this might be the dozens of famous women in the showbiz whom are called celebrities and are so popular by their nudeness and rudeness.

These women claim to be working but all that they are doing is just a shame-ing, they erased and slaughtered the essence of womanhood; a woman who is, was and will always be known by bashfulness and laid-backness, the western ideologies of working women made the role of a female


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vogue and indefinite. But still these principles are admired by many and eulogized shockingly, and are given names as Miss Independent, hardworking, striving and single-lady.

While women who stayed at their homes, as they should are named by the society as oppressed and demoralized; and when gone outdoors to work are regarded as disobedient and deviants without giving them a chance to defend themselves against such rumors, which ends up to make the condition as let it be. In Hargeisa the women naturally make the largest portion of the population and at the same time have half of them in the working sector of the society, so in this study, its intended to investigate whether these working women chose such role by a need or whatsoever else it could be.

Problem Statement

As a community with all their basics and moralities pre-defined, women faces different conflicting views and attitudes about their livelihood setting; some say that a female could not get out of her house in any case even for survival while others argue that they could if the matter is do or die for her and her family. There are some premises which the community believes about each working woman no matter where she is at; they say that working women make their working choices by amusement or just to seek status and a name as they have their lives settled by their men, and that those working women take the working path just to pass by time and do not think of profit making and proceeding the yield from their businesses as much as any man in a similar field thinks of or works about. Whatever the reality, this thesis will explore some of the situations ideals which will be based on Hargeisa city, and will try to shift the negative attitudes about the working women.

At the end of the paper, lays several appended special date that is attached to this paper review including much detailed information about the trails to this inquiry. So with the assumption of rationality, the researcher would like to clarify what are some of the ideals of such working women, their realities, and consequences as well.


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The objective of the study

This paper has an objective of exploring the following: To clarify the reality about the working women to shift the attitudes of the society about

them. To identify how these working women in Hargeisa started to take the roles of laborship

under known urban economics conditions. To determine how these working women preserve themselves about those who are

against their scheme of working outdoors and argue to be misleading the morals. To affirm what influence do the societal expressions have on them and what kind of

impact such attitudes have on their work? To explore if these women would like to take a break and stop working if they are

offered a very easier way of living of much lavish and comfortable life? To relocate the perceptions and attitudes of the working women from the opposing and

contrasting societal and religious views about their status as workers. Or to discover what are the primary causes of their current situations in the urban city of

Hargeisa under the title of working women.

Research Questions:

The researcher will also examine these critical research questions which enclose; 1. What is the best way to provide women protect their living without the risk of losing their

roles in the family as mothers? 2. Do these working women maintain and uphold their urban living conditions as much as

their men would do or not. 3. What are the reactions of these working women to themselves about their roles in the

community to play as their major living sustainers and guards of their household economics to adjust in the urban cities?

4. What are the boundaries these women have to serve their household as being the always out head of their families working outdoors and leaving their basic roles back at their homes?

5. What impact the overall situation has on their familys moralities? And what will happen to these women or their families if for example such working ladies are stopped from being out working in the markets?

6. And would such working woman stop working outside if provided their livelihood sustenance and security?


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Research hypothesis

Most working women at marketplaces take such roles without a good reason of necessity and need.

These women have adopted outdoor behavioral adjustments and settings like men and absolutely forgot their familial roles and tasks of domestic living at their homes as mothers or women in general.

The working women employ and practice anything that it requires them to get jobs at marketplace.

Working women should be stopped and kept in their houses for better societal and economical living because men would improve the economy and make profits greater and easier than women.

Structure of the paper The paper has five sections in a technically thesis facilitated manner:

Section 1: Introduction Section 2: Literature Review Section 3: Research Methods Section 4: Findings and Facts found And section 5: Closure and Commendation

The limitations of the study To start with, some of the many limitations faced during the process of researching this case some of the major ones were as follows:

Time, as I was writing the document in the middle of the final exams for the honor. Thus there was a very restricted timeframe for me to have been conducting a good thesis based on reality and truthfulness, but I worked out at my best.

Sampling limitations as I was not capable for the limited time I had, to take a larger population number to have made the results more factual and leaning into the reality.

Literature, the past written sources for my case was too narrow and I could not find much literature review for better vision and overview.

Social, the society was not that responsive for me as I was dealing only with the women and I have received some gender based accusations and imbalances as I ignored working men in the places I was working on and regarded only the females.

Two questionnaires were not available back to me after the distribution so the rest will represent acting upon the normal sample size taken previously.

Some of the questions asked in the questionnaire were worthless as some respondents didnt get them answered and so the researcher has provided and independent comments about them.

Finally, at the end of these above written sections of the paper will be an appended data which is relevant with the study as attached appendices.


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|TWO|

LITERATURE REVIEW

Working-womens perception of their lifes difficulties was made and found that these women have areas of life struggles which may include: psychological, social, political and career aspects. Such difficulties are to be investigated across five variables of age, education, employment, years of experience and civil status within each society. Some research studies carried out in many countries indicate that women face problems, obstacles and inequalities from the society as working women. That is mainly within their education, career type, social life, and political involvements. And American women have been leaders in their efforts to advance women's rights and so engaged in every facet of national and international affairs, such as policymaking, decision-making, arms control, trade, courtrooms, and key positions in state departments. However, Harrison (1997) reported that the transformation to a society of complete equality has not yet been fully realized.

Bander (1997) documented that changes in law, politics and society have had significant impact on contemporary women's lives including their choice of careers. Yet, the battles of parity, equal opportunity and enlightened attitudes have not yet been completely won.

McGivrney (1993) found that for British women's participation in the development process, both as a beneficiary and partner, is designed to correct the demographic balance, through the provision of literacy and education program as well as family participation in household affairs. In general women predominantly work in the services sectors, but not in the commercial and productive sectors. This is explained by the interaction between cultural, social, economic and political variables as some editorial articles explain. This relationship is influenced by the prevalent value system, standards of education, social awareness, and economic factors; and so the active role of women is in the public sphere. (Abueita, Siham D., 2005)

Some common themes emerged including increasing rates of casualization of female workers, and trends such as home-working, outsourcing and sub-contracting within women's employment patterns. By prioritizing market interests over social claims, the


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use of labor flexibility matches working lives to market demands so as to maximize profitability by minimizing production costs associated with labor. Women delegates also told stories about increased frequency of ethical harassment at workplaces. Most of women in general are still paid lower wage rates than males, and work under sub-standard occupational health, safety and welfare standards, with the same backgrounds and skill. Nonetheless female workers have been growing fast for the past decades. Statistically, in Malaysia women's total workforce numbers increased from 1354.1 million in 1975 to 2244.6 million in 1990 (Yahya 1994: 39-41). (Caspersz, Donella, 2003)

Moreover the socio-economic status of working women in every society is the true index of its economic, social, cultural and spiritual levels. No doubt socio-economic and official background of working women play an important role in determining their decision making at home and interim their decision making at workplace. Generally it is expected that working women enjoy higher status and prestige in the society when compared to the housewives. And a socio-economic position is an indicator of social cultural advancement of societies. As today, working women can broadly be either:

Government servants,

Private servants and, Self-employed. (Sharma, Manjusha Pant, Garima, 2010).

In World War I era Britain believed the war would be a turning point for women. The war created a new image of the woman worker, who left to go to work for the first time and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the right to vote, and whose society recognized both her "hidden strengths" and the active role would continue to play in the workplace. The minister of munitions applauded the efforts of women workers in 1916, asking Parliament, "Where is the man who would now deny to women the civil rights which she has earned by her hard work?" And many historians have echoed his sentiment, concluding that women seized a range of new work opportunities, won political and legal rights. This view obscures the true effects of the war on women. Nearly a third of Britain's women were already working when the war broke out, and the nation admitted women to work after other alternatives had failed and above all, post-war Britain, far from showing working women gratitude, ignored their efforts and focused instead on women as mothers and nurturers. The status of working women before the war reflected the traditional view that women's work was of lesser value and therefore deserved lower pay. The image of women as the weaker gender, in need of male protection, prevailed at the workplace as well and so the society perceived women as not only


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helpless, but unwilling to help themselves also. Two separate but interrelated issues affected women in the workplace:

The belief that women were unsuited for wage-paying work, And the threat that their lower wages presented to male workers.

These issues above created a tension between male and female workers that was as old as industrialization. In the early 19th century, the brush-makers union declared that "poor women became the enemy of poor men." But unlike many male unionists, these brush-makers did not attack the women themselves, but the employer's "wickedness." The employer's payment of low wages not the women's acceptance of them lay at the heart of the problem. And these union men understood the relationship between women, work, and the home economy and observed that women took jobs outside the home because of the immediacy of their families' needs, because "bread was wanted on that day and that hour. And so some unions notably in the skilled trades and tried to solve the problem of what to do with female labor by refusing to admit women altogether. Other unions admitted women but with caution. One shoe-maker reminded his union to "stand first for the men". Women's lower wages at workplaces were at the heart of their problems initially as they did not only threaten many male workers but blocked the path to women's unionization. Mary Macarthur, founder of the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW), summed up the situation when she wrote, "While women are badly paid because of their unorganized condition, they may be unorganized mainly because they are badly paid.

In addition to low wages and male hostility, women lacked time (and often energy) because of the demands of domestic responsibilities parallel such as housework. Many other women were believed to be ineffective because they would held work only temporarily and later leave their jobs after marrying, and so many women's work was isolated in nature. (Pvecroft, Susan, 1994)

According to studies, Unites States labor force participation rate of women has decreased over 20 years period which is from 1990 to 2010 when compared to other countries. And you may be asking yourself why this has happened. Are U.S. women really working less? Are they choosing to stay home with their children? As by the Monthly Labor Review, who discussed the possibility that United States women are choosing to stay at home, calling it an "opt-out revolution". The researchers have analyzed the data from several angles. They looked at men and women's participation rates across 22 countries, the gender gap, and their family-friendly policies such as the parental leave, at-work childcare, part-time work or etc, over 10 years and examined how each of


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these may have affected the overall rate differences among the women and they found that only two of the countries had rates that increased marginally; the others' rates either decreased or stayed the same. The women's rates, on the other hand, increased considerably in most of the countries. Only five either decreased or increased marginally, with the United States increasing slightly. On these bases, Blau and Kahn pointed out that with the men's rates staying nearly the same and women's increasing dramatically, the gap between the number of men and women in the workforce narrowed. (Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn, 2013)

While the word worker appears not to exclude but simply to describe, the ideal of worker in the 19th century it was the male. In addition, it was often as workers that working-class people claimed access to the political process either through union representation or through the vote. As Judith Butler has argued, the dominant understanding of political action is that it requires a coherent and fixed identity already in place. Identity categories such as workers or women are necessarily based in exclusions; as they define the inside they also define the outside. Correspondingly, in 19th century, many leaders believed women lacked dedication to their jobs and desired only marriage. In other words, many people did not consider women as real workers, and they therefore did not expect political action from them or any other activities related to work and laborship. Working women's participation in consumer culture exacerbated the perception and attitudes of them as nonsense and their exclusion from the category of workers. As Tania Modleski argues, our ways of thinking about consumer culture are hardly connected to conceptions and attitudes of the females. A man's work boot is as much as a French heel! However, women workers in the early 20th century went on strike in very large numbers and took political action in their workplaces and on public streets. And when historians have interrogated the use of consumer culture in the lives of historical actors, they have found people using it to gain identity, dignity, resources, and justice. (Enstad, 1999)

In 2005 and 2006, the New York Times ran a number of articles about women's choices regarding motherhood, careers, and the balance between the two. Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood, claimed one article, citing a trend among female Ivy League students to say that they would rather be stay-at-home mothers than leaders in business, doctors, or other sectors. A history professor quoted in the publication noted that these young women were being realistic about the difficulty of combining motherhood and work. Others mentioned in the article doubted the judgment of high-powered career women with children. One young woman


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commented, I see a lot of women in their thirties who have full-time nannies, and I just question if their kids are getting the best. (Seedfelt, 2008)

Cultural ideologies about women's roles and the material conditions of daily life did not readily support the conception of leisure. In the immigrant cultures that dominated the urban working class at a time, young women were to be dutiful daughters who helped with the housework after their day of wage labor, turned over their pay envelopes unopened, and followed Old World traditions about women's social participation that in some cases, were highly restrictive. At the same time, other

dynamics in young women's lives encouraged an orientation toward leisure. As wage-earners and workers, they experienced rhythms of time and labor more similar to men's than married women's, and reinforced the notion that leisure was a distinct realm of activity to which working women could demand access. However, young women's pursuit of pleasure did not lead them to the traditional domain of working men, but to emergent forms of commercialized recreation, such as dance halls, amusement parks, and movie theaters. Women's movement into employment, higher education, and political activism expanded the notion of women's working places. In popular culture, the emergent ideal of the "New Woman" imbued women's activity in the public sphere with a new sense of female self and perception, a woman who was independent, athletic, and modern. (Peiss, 1986)

As ever increasing numbers of women with young children have entered the labor force in the 1980s, little by way of government resources has been dedicated to solve the growing child care problems that has emerged. However, during the same period an increasing number of employers have become involved in providing child care benefits and services to their employees. As ever increasing numbers of women with young children enter the labor force, child care has become a salient problem for parents attempting to balance work and family life. Not only is child care an individual family problem, it is also a social one because the total need and demand for services are growing one but the supply lags far behind. This disparity has implications for children, parents, women, employers, and society as a whole. And given the salience of child care in the contemporary period especially in the lives of working women it is surprising that it has received relatively little attention in sociological literature. With few exceptions, child care has not been addressed as a subject in its own right; and it has been given only brief attention in discussions of working mothers, the household division of labor, or childhood.


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In any society, it is important to ask who has primary responsibility for taking care of children, and why. If we assume the significance of early childhood experiences for both the developmental needs of individuals and the socialization requirements of communities, this question is paramount. Indeed, in early sociological literature of the family, child care actually child nurturing is discussed in the context of "role allocation" within the modern American nuclear family. Functionalist sociologists use physiological distinctions between women and men to explain why the "expressive" role which includes the caring for and nurturance of children is allocated just to women. It is argued that a woman's natural capacity to give birth and to nurse a child makes her the logical one, in an efficient division of labor, to take on this role (Blood and Wolfe 1960; Parsons and Bales 1955). Child care can thus be seen as one element of family role sets that evolve for the performance of necessary tasks both inside and outside the household (Ericksen et al. 1979). (Auerbach, 1988)

By the 1820s, an increased demand for manufactured goods and industrial advances in mechanization led to the creation of factories, making the short-lived putting-out system obsolete. The decline of household manufacturing had enormous implications for the evolution of women's work. Factories flooded markets with cheap goods previously the preserve of domestic industry so that women's role in the household economy became devalued and over time unseen or invisible and virtually ignored. Meanwhile, rural industries came to rely on female laborship whose wage work was increasingly construed as a dependent and hence an inferior form of employment. Manhood by contrast was increasingly associated with economic independence and agency. The devaluation of women's work, whether paid or unpaid, continued unabated throughout the antebellum era. While women's visibility in the capitalist economy was increasing, their contributions to America's economic growth and development were undervalued, if not outright ignored. (Susanna Delfino, Michele Gillespie, 2002)

Women still continue to enter the workplace in increasing numbers in all developed countries. Several factors account for this trend while an increasing number of economies have become industrialized, the service sector has grown opening up positions for women, and growth in public and not-for-profit sectors have created opportunities for them. Finally, attitudes towards working women and particularly women with children have supported this trend. And in many cases these women have invested in preparation for careers by undertaking higher education, with the proportion of women in university now equal to or greater than that of men. Women tend to enter


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the workplace at levels similar to men, with similar credentials and expectations, but their career paths quickly begin to diverge. (Burke and Mattis, 2005; Burke and Nelson, 2002).

Morrison, White and Van Velsor (1987) reported that women having difficulties fitting into their organizations culture were seen by men as wanting too much for themselves or for other women, or even had performance difficulties by themselves. We (Davidson and Burke, 2004) asked to describe the status of women in management in each of their countries in common areas such as women in education, country legislatives supporting womens advancement and the proportion of women in the paid workforces in all except two countries of China and Turkey increased, particularly among married women with children. Women in all countries still get paid less than men, often working in the same jobs. There is also continued gender segregation with more men working in engineering, construction, mining and manufacturing and more women working in human resources, marketing and public relations. (Marilyn J.Davidson, Ronald J.Burke, 2011)

To summarize some of the overall findings which is representing 20 countries are:

Childcare was an important concern for women in almost all countries. Women had increased their participation rates in university education,

equaling or exceeding that of men in most cases. The proportion of women in management has increased but still remained

very low at the higher levels of organizations particularly at board level. There was also considerable variability among countries in the percentage of women in management.

Women increasingly moved into small business and entrepreneurship in most countries to earn income.

An increasing number of countries developed legislation to support women at work and women in management. Unfortunately it seemed as if these initiatives lacked teeth in many cases.

There were only a few countries in which employing organizations

developed initiatives to specifically support the development and advancement of women (for example, Canada, United Kingdom and United States).


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The data indicated some positive developments in several countries for example, more women in education, higher levels of country support for women in the workplace, changing family roles and responsibilities, improved employment (Jones, Burke and Westman, 2006, and labor market conditions).

Percentage of women legislators, senior government officials and managers 2007 Country % (Of women worked as managers, legislators, or senior govt officials) China 16.5 Argentina 23.2 Mexico 27.3

Spain 31.7 Norway 32.9 United kingdom 34.5 Canada 36.2 France 36.9 Australia 37.6 Russia 38.9 New Zealand 39.6 United states 41.8 Source: Adapted from Catalyst (2007) Women in Management, Global Comparison.

The Household economics and Women: An Overview

The household economics is related more to the basic livelihood of any society or family and would link us to the point of the study which is to shift the attitudes about working women who basically took the roles of securing and maintaining it for their families outdoors. And so the household economics is a subject that covers all basics of the overall economic decision to be made in every household and so the livelihood depends upon such decisions or the decisions that are to be made by the household head or members; the decisions to be made include the households consumption and saving methods, allocation of time to household production and leisure, child related topics of fertility and parental investments in childrens wellbeing, health demanding issues, intergenerational relations including care of the elderly relatives, household formation of marriages or independent living or even mate selection, divorce and separation, pride price and

Photo courtesy: Muna Abu-Suleiman


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dowry issues or child related support, financial relations among partners and spouses and sometimes this subject of household economics might include wider portions of economic development but in this case it will review some of the issues mentioned above and how the women who are the household head to make such decisions for sustaining their urban livelihood.

The household may be conceived as a small factory or firm, (Becker 1981). According to Becker the household produces household commodities, which are non-market goods such as children, prestige, envy, health, and pleasure. And as Becker stated, these final products produced by that small factory or firm the household need ways and techniques to keep living and to go by which is usually by the men who are to do such task, but some women happen to be the determinants of the task, where much of those needs and decision above are applied by the households women.

To describe and understand the household economics in a comprehensive way, it requires the need to distinguish between a three vital elements of:

i. A household income, which is the combined income of all household members from all sources, including wages, commissions, bonuses, social security and other retirement benefits, unemployment compensation, disability, interest, and dividends or cash government transfers like food stamps, and investment gains. (Tax-lawandaccounting) (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

ii. A household expenditure which is defined as the sum of household consumption expenditure and the non-consumption expenditures of the household. The latter are those expenditures incurred by a household as transfers made to government, non-profit institutions and other households, without acquiring any goods or services in return for the satisfaction of the needs of its members. Household expenditure represents the total outlay that a household has to make to satisfy its needs and meet its "legal" commitments. (spc.int)

iii. And the household savings which is the portion of the disposable income (or adjusted disposable income) of households that is not used for final consumption expenditure (or effective final consumption) constitutes their savings.


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Household income, expenditure and saving determinants and decision makers might be of:

The household men (Father, Son, Brother, or Husband) The household women (Mother, Daughter, Sister or Wife) or Both of households men and women, and sometimes all together.

But of course along with children or receiving other financial assistance from relatives or friends, the household incomes determination relates directly to the household size and prior resources available for example, household income suffocation will occur if the couple of the household haves new child because a newer individuals expenses will immediately be added into the account that also need attention and should take a share from the previously sufficient income which will now be a definite insufficient. A similar situation happens when the son gets marries and the new daughter-in-law moves in, and the couple get children later on, which add to the household size and so may lead to the exploitation of the familys wealth so that the new wide family now gets by living and survive. Moreover, some households are large because the nuclear household members decide to incorporate family members who are not able to care for themselves, such as old, sick and disabled persons of grandparents and relatives.

Are Female headed households livelihoods worse off?

Over the last years, much attention has been given to female headed households, which have always been identified as a particularly vulnerable group, and it was known before that the female headed families are worse off than male headed families as working women were usually paid less than the working men, but nowadays women have followed tracks of knowledge and have full access to the skill and schooling needed to perform whatsoever task at the workplace and these female headed households are contented economically similar to male headed households and sometimes are noted to be even better off. Some argue that the households headed by the women are worse off than those who are headed by men, only with one important exception which is namely in the situations of where the female head of a households is unmarried. In contrast, households headed by married women who have their partners working as well are better off than men headed households who have their wives at home.


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The Urban Livelihood

A livelihood in general compromises the capabilities, assets including both material and social resources; and activities required for means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and manage to enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base (Chambers and Conway, 1992). There is a basic similarity in terms of the principles underlying the livelihood approaches in rural and urban areas. However there are contextual differences of social, economic, governance and environmental between rural and urban areas livelihood, as well as among urban areas themselves. These differences affect the specifics of both the nature of the poors, wealthys, and how they can make a living. And understanding the particular nature of the urban context is therefore critical when examining the specifics of urban sustainable livelihoods. A key example of such a difference is the greater influence of the cash economy on the lives of the urban compared with the rural poor (Wratten, 1995, Satterthwaite, 1997, Beall, 1997, de Haan, 1997).

However, the cities or urban areas represent opportunities, as well as costs, housing, basic infrastructure and other needs, such as food and clothing, which are all more expensive, appreciative, competitive and less accessible in urban areas. Usually the migrants who come from the rural areas experience the burdens as well as the rewards of the urban city life as they can compare both livelihoods in definite way. In many countries for example Egypt or Tanzania, government employees commonly undertake a variety of additional jobs and activities to supplement their income. Informal activities generally but not always, provide poor men and women with low cash incomes. And the urban economy does not function in isolation and is affected by national and international macro policy (Douglass, 1988). Such policies and global forces frequently have mixed impacts on poor households and in particular the condition of women (Elson, 1995 cited in Katepa-Kalala, 1997, Beall and Kanji, 1999 Moser, 1998). Previously, under policies of modernization, formal employment was increased as a result of growth in manufacturing industry. However, since the 1980s, policies such as structural adjustment have affected employment in some areas. Losses of formal manufacturing jobs in some countries and sectors, as well as down-sizing in the public sector have resulted in a large number of men and women looking for jobs in other areas such as part time service sector employment or the informal sector (Potter and Lloyd, 1998, UNCHS, 1996).


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Therefore most working women in the urban cities make up large part of the workforce and often face great risks and marginalization both as workers and as women. And in addition to that economic deprivation, women struggle with prejudice and ethical faults, which maintain their vulnerable position in society and uplift the negative attitudes about them. As a result of all these on-going trends, women may lack spaces to support their selves or that of the society as well as their voices may not be heard. Typically, women workers value chains tend to be either young, underage, single mothers or with dependents/relatives who are all working in unstable casual employment.

Researches on womens working conditions have highlighted several issues and disadvantages faced by women such as:

Casualization2. Low wages and long hours Purchasing power practices unfairness Childcare and familial management Lack of empowerment and Weak social safety nets.

2 The altering of working practices so that regular workers are re-employed on a casual or short-term basis.


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|THREE|

RESEARCH METHODS

This study is a qualitative research paper which employs a descriptive strategy with a distinctive objective of unfolding and presenting a comprehensive summarization in every day terms of a case study regarding Somalilands working women and how to shift the attitudes that the society believes about them.

The data will be collected by a well-known data collection tool which is a questionnaire along with one-on-one interviewing methods as well in some times so as to collect the most rigid and exact details and information of this case study which is changing the attitudes about the working women through finding out why and how these female guide and guard ways of their livelihoods in the urban city of Hargeisa, and what kind of challenges or consequences these women face in the process. This case study has significant objective that came up of a need from the society within and so under the direction of a long-stood schooling in the faculty of Economics and attending many courses of research subjects besides, the researcher have successfully chosen to distribute a questionnaire to alleviate the exploration in more details to find out a detailed facts and in trial to shift the attitudes of our society towards the working women.

Research design

As an undergraduate social scientist, the researcher will employ a varied dimensional research tool questionnaire for the purpose of data generation and attempt to provide conceptual summary of the reality existing. The researcher will search of many

realistic and accurate responses with the case studys setting. I began my task of collecting data right after I found my research problem or the core of my problem statement and defined my research design which as I mention above is designated as a descriptive research.


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Type of data

The data type of this study is a typical primary data because re-searching through previously written out sources of similar topics are few. Also the researcher will use some closely related or correlated secondary data with the core of the case as it will simplify the work and examining the truth about the issue. Also since the inquiry is a descriptive research form and the heart of the case data is a primary, obtaining the detailed information through both observational personal interview in which the researcher will directly meet and sit with the respondents and question them lively will be needed.

Method of data collection

The questionnaire is really so important for the inquiry because of its enlarged enclosure of cases that are needed to be explored. To some of the respondents, the questionnaires will be emailed to, and will send back again by the email. To other respondents, the questionnaires would be dropped by their offices or working centres directly be interviewed on spot. The questions that form my questionnaire are a set of pre- defined questions meaning a typical structured interview, which would either be written down on the paper or would be asked directly to the respondent.

This project lays down some sample respondents, actually the point of this qualitative case is discover what is the shields, ways, challenges, thoughts, believes of a woman to a head in a household and guard their economics as the major one. The case is to uncover the reasons of such working women for their households may or may not be satisfied with their new roles in the society. The various challenges and consequences those women may experience with such lifestyles and out in the labour market, and such kind of insights.

The key in the inquirys respondents is to assure that it is so likely to hear from almost all the different working women in different working sectors in Hargeisa, whether is the clothing market, cosmetics, supermarkets, or even offices and entirely everywhere a woman might be working in this urban city of Hargeisa.


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|FOUR|

FINDINGS AND FACTS FOUND

This study had a major objective of shifting the attitudes towards the working women in the city of Hargeisa and after very widespread investigative methods used by the past three months, the researcher has acquired a very convincing facts about the working women and their case on basis of their urban livelihoods.

To start with, the working women in Hargeisa realize how the entire society thinks

about them and so they commented about the reality by expressing a deep disappointment for it. And almost all of the working women interviewed were absolutely bothered and provoked by the question of; why did you have to go out to work as a woman? And each of these working women disheartenedly and sometimes astonishingly replied that no woman would ever choose to keep standing up or sitting down for hours and hours daily, or would exhaust herself with very frustrating workloads everyday along with many other problems and struggles within, without a great need or a compulsion to do such sacrifice.

The key question that mostly represented the overall objective of the case study was;

What made you go out for work as a woman?

And the working women questioned and interviewed replies were as follows:

Figure 1: The working womens replies of, what made you go out for work as a woman?


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A working women interviewed quoted If I did not need this job, I would have definitely stayed back at my home and would have taken a rest. Nevertheless, the working women in general accused men to have totally neglected their responsibilities of securing their families urban livelihoods. These women also complained about being in this hardship and complications victims twice, as they are both the mothers for their children and families at home and at the same time the fathers outside for working. Apart from that though, these working women admit the difficulty for them to play the role of a working women and reckoned to reason it by not having an alternative. Meaning that the working women in Hargeisa are mostly taken such roles because of a need as the data in figure 1 above shows in which the largest portion of the chart is that of respondents or for the working women who said they are out working in marketplaces or similar sectors because of compulsion and sufferings met from living under the hard urban conditions which eventually forced them to go out and work for their selves and families.

Also, it is observed that women are abundant in the marketplace and in every industry in the market as well, and after the researcher has asked about why it is so, most of the respondents replied that it is natural as the number of women normally exceeds that of men and when compared the number of men and women working out the answer turns out to be that the women are in a greater number naturally. And still from that nature of number of women being greater, there is another reality that is of unemployment dilemma at hand or in other words, a widespread idleness from the men in this territory (Somaliland) as a lot of men live simply a harsh and impractical lives under the guise and excuse of being unemployed and they dont make efforts to make the living conditions of their families get better off but live as a burden on those suffering families on top.

Many women interviewed were reasoning the causes that forced them to go out of their houses to work by their mens total carelessness of their families and they upsetly said that they even had to work for their men as well who are currently living and depending on their wages and so they said that their men are just making their families situation worse as there will be no progress in their livelihoods because they are the only working factors and had to suffer paying every penny of life costs while the chance of enlightening is lost in their point of views. Some of the working women argued that they dont have someone else to play the role for the family by simply naming their men as nonworkers, reckless, irresponsible, and Shoomeers.


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The researcher has found out that the working females in the labor market lack the age group of between 15 yrs to 20 yrs currently and it is because that our society dont use the wicked tradition of child laborship and in other words, based on the fact that we are a Muslim community; our people respect the essence of children and their childhood means so we let our children be free of responsibilities while they are still young and by so we are letting them to grow up in a much better way by freshly adopting their educational fundamentals first and giving them mercy, love and life before assigning life based tasks for them. Also by our long stood Somali tradition which favors bringing up the children with simpler values and good manners by putting all the complications upon the parents other than the offspring, and by so we just train our children to be good in the future but dont steal their childhood from them. On the other hand, the women who responded to be compelled working out were mostly aged of 36 to 40+ , these women are either married to an apathetic husband, lost their men and have orphaned children, or are the only household head that are capable of supporting the family in just that way. Also the women aged 26 to 35 were in the labor market doing a variety of works and some of these young women reasoned their situation as being entrepreneurs and that causes/forces them to work and utilize out of their assets, or because they are skilled they tend to work on what they know/learned practically and financially make use of it to pay back. These category of women aged 26 to 35 reasoned their cases as being invested by their families who enrolled them into schools and facilitated their educational journeys for long until they have attained degrees out of universities and colleges, so these women respond that to sit in a house and holding a degree is really nonsense. So working is a normal thing to pay off the efforts that has been put into these young ladies before.

Most of the working womens age group regarding the case study:

Figure 2: Working womens age groups.


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The researcher has discovered that there is no working woman who has a real man in her life who is out for work at the same time. This means, that the working women who are struggling and striving through the urban living hardships and complications are all left alone by their men by either death or idleness.

All of the women interviewed claimed to be single but all have defined what they meant a single to be one of these:

Single- bachelorettes who are still waiting for Mr. Right. Single- widowed who are left with orphaned children to take care of alone. Single- divorced because of the intolerably problematic urban living that lead to the

separation from her husband and resulted the collapse of her family. Or single- the worst of all, which is that these women are really married but just because

their husbands are idle and careless all the time, their lives has turned upside down as they are the only ones to represent every role for their families and society as well, so these women ignore the fact that they are married to men and call themselves as just being single.

One of the ideals explored from this case study was that it is always believed that Somalilanders who live within borders depend mostly on more than one or several sources, in other words it is believed that they receive a very generous hand and get financial support from their survived connections or familial links in the Diasporas, but the reality unfolded by these working women met by the researcher clarified a lot of misunderstandings about this case. They almost all said that they dont receive any help or support other than their wages from far or close because whenever people see you going out for work for oneday; then all that they would think of is getting something out from you and forget about giving you a hand.

Be that as it may, some of the working women interviewed admit that it is only possible to receive a startup capital from familial connections but in the end of the day no one will live fighting for your bread unless they see a benefit in you. And they also said that it is possible to allot you the task of handover startup capital to you for starting a small business for them; therefore they would just send their money so that you can work for them and you will get a salary doing the work for them, and they can work as leads to careers sometimes which may help you somewhat but not more than that. Next on, working women in Hargeisa generally take on the low scale working sectors such as the


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shops, groceries, or garment retailings, and all because of their unfortunate illiteracy. And so far most of the working women in the capital city of Hargeisa tend to work in the lower domestic life careers for survival, for example they go for milk markets, meat butchering, and vegetables/green groceries which are all settled and vigorous.

But on nowadays things are getting to change for better as younger generations grow and new world living standards emerged, by which girls and females are introduced to the schools and tend to adopt newer skills. There are many activists now that work as an advocates for gender and female issues that urge the society to educate women and convince parents to send their daughters to the schools in which we can say they have succeeded in that mission.

Some of the occupations that those working women take on: Boutiques, Groceries, Headquarter assistants, Managers (Sometimes), Multiservices, Office workers, And small scale shops.

Photos courtesy: Hodan and Nuura Boutique.


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So far, after a lot of reasons women of this century are starting to be more educated and knowledgeable than the women before in many aspects, which resulted that women today participate even in the simple white collar careers and work in the offices as they now have the skill that it takes to be working at an office. Women has really proved that they are a very energetic and dynamic role in the livelihood of the society in many ways and as a working women they had to cope with many problems and take on many roles together which they represent simultaneously for example being working in 8 or plus hours daily and then being mothers, students, daughters and wives at their home at the same time which is in reality a huge mission.

With that being said, most working woman has someone else to trust and leave on their belongings at home and sit the children or do the housework for them. This is so because Somalis are a homogenous community, and has a tradition of having extended families which simplifies and facilitates the work for these dedicated working women. These family members let the working women worriless by taking care of their children and houseworks while they are fighting to win bread for them. So with the help of many technological innovations and facilitators available now, everyone can take care of the house. The working women bargain with their other family members through the labor specialization technique as they are to get out and get the financial support back to family while leaving home with the others loosely and the link of the telephones which facilitates work for the working women. By the telephone, every working woman can know what specifically

goes on at her house with her family. It is also turned out in this study that the cost of living in Hargeisa is actually so high, as the rent or the price of land is really greater than the profits of the business people sometimes, because the best place to lease is at $200, and that of the somewhat normal areas is leased at $250 or $300+.

Finally the findings in this case study show that our women or the working women in particular are really so ambitious because they are not just out in the markets aimless they show a lot of enthusiasm to develop to a better livelihoods and keeping on their work.


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Working womens average future thoughts are:

Figure 3: Working womens average future thoughts.

Some comparisons for the roles women do:

Domestic woman:

Cooking for family members as a mother, daughter, or wives.

Doing the laundry as a housewife.

Teaching her children and helping them comprehend their homework.

Doing the housework for free at her

home.

Working woman:

Does the cooking in the marketplace

for wages as a worker.

Does the laundry as a career for a pay.

Taking a remuneration to teach the

children in general as a school teacher.

Does the housework and get wages as a nanny or even as an office worker.

The general livelihood impacts of working women-ship;

Children carelessness alone at homes,

Housework negligence,

Responsibilities confusion,

Loss of the values,

Loss of the ever lasted premises of womanhood,

Religion violation,

Formal abuses, etc.


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The urban livelihood of the city of Hargeisa is found to be that:

It is known that the livelihood in each society is the basis of their existence and when that livelihood is missing then the life in that territory is definitely impossible to exist as well. So through this thesis material the researcher has found out many vital deficiencies as a nation, and also many dangerous problems that need to be acknowledged or else the society will be at a real threat of loss, so;

In this thesis it is revealed that, The society is helpless and vulnerable, The businesspeople are heartless and cruel, And the government is careless and inconsiderate!

The society is helpless and vulnerable because;

There are very high living costs in this urban city as women cannot afford to secure the daily living activities for their households such as the food, schooling or even the medications when ill health is there; because everything is priced high and is too expensive.

There is no food security for the needy families that are headed by the females and the working women in such families are the only ones to provide food and the other securities for their families in a way or another.

Small business owners (Women) are all at risk of losing their capital assets in the business they have invested as there are no consumers in the markets because these women always tend to start up on the same industry such as boutiques, cosmetics, apparels, groceries and in fact these are very competitive industries which has a lot of participants and the consumers are rare or occasional so the chance to pay back is narrow, and the probability to have a customers come in daily and buy stuff is too low.

Access to markets and resources is restricted as only those who have previous connections to the market itself can enter into the market with the help of information from these connections they have and every woman who tries to start up without a link suffers a lot.

The displaced/special needed women have one alternative to survive and that is just to beg as there are no protection policies or provisions for the displaced communities in general.

There is a widespread alteration of religious values and principles that lead to the emergence of many young women into the streets aimless and shameless which is showing the risk of total negligence of morals and values for the generations to come.

There is unemployment or low wage employments for women who as a result end up dependent on the furthest societal or familial individuals and are then seen as a real burden.


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The businesspeople are heartless and cruel because:

They dont care if or if not the public suffer by pricing their consumer items expensively. They rate their society as objects and dont give the consideration they need as human

beings because for example, the core items for living or the fundamental human needs that are vital for life and human beings wellbeing are known to be the:

Food: This is expensive in Hargeisa as average income families have to assign $5or more for food every day, which makes the task of the working women more complicated and problematic as they are to deal with both earning the money in terms and working it out practically through their households. Specifically,

Meat= $8-10 per basket Milk= $2 per litter Water is not adequate through the city districts where some regions

have access to drinking and having clean water in their houses while others dont although they locate in the same city of Hargeisa.

Shelter: The land is very costly for all and no one can buy a piece of land unless leased or rented, and the lease is self is expensive as tenants have to pay $80 for just the small scale shops made of metal and that are even located in an areas that are that good or productive, and the normal brick-blocked houses are rented $150 minimum if the areas are normal and $300 or plus for those that are located in a good and productive locations.

Clothing: Most of the people in this urban city of Hargeisa are all low income earners so the only market to go for shopping nowadays is happened to be the second hand materials market (Huudheydhlayaasha) as no-one can afford shopping at Dollar Store or similar malls in the city.

And last but not least, The government is careless and inconsiderate because:

They dont regulate the animal spirit popularized businessmen at markets. They dont make speeches about improving the livelihoods of the public and create a sense

of hope in the minds of the masses so that they survive in the short-run. They dont assign liberational policies for their people and society. And on top of all that, each person who lives in this urban city of Hargeisa has to pay taxes

and other duties that are levied upon them on legal basis.


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|FIVE|

CLOSURE AND COMMENDATION

In Hargeisa, most of workers are women as mentioned in the previous chapters of the study but after the clarification of that our women need go out for work to survive, the society also should be much more compassionate with these women as their intentions are not like the ill-mattered attitudes that is spread out in the society. And the country religious preachers should stop spreading the extreme Fatwas against the working women as no woman would really choose working outside her home if she is not needy, no woman would even choose the tiresome and irritating life of being a working person to life of indulgence, ease and luxury at her sweet home.

The main objective of working womens is to improve their lives and if there are the responsible men to adopt that mission and accomplish their duties, only then these women will totally be turned to their houses. Also the working womens biggest fear is to see their families suffer and by this, the study explored that these women deliberately take on every way that is possible to secure a better livelihood for their families and households basic needs. So by having their families either of their children, parents or siblings, the working women keep on struggling and striving as working women, along with the merciless accusations of being immoral from the surrounding society.

Also the working women have gained greatly self-confidence and self-esteem through their working process as they know that they dont have to ask anyone a help since they can handle their needs for themselves and their families together. And in the process of preparing this thesis material, one of the female respondents interviewed quoted a phrase that touched me personally which was when I asked her what other role she does other than being the working women in my case, and she simply replied that;

Dead or alive, and as long as I breath, I will stay a loving daughter for a mother and a father that brought me to this world and that I know I had to work for

them.

And by here I, the researcher of this material finalize my work.


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APPENDICES, A: BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abueita, Siham D. (2005, 11 15). Jordanian Working Women's Perception of Life Difficulties. Journal of International Women's Studies, pp. Vol.5, No. 2. (1988). In J. D. Auerbach, In the Business of Child Care: Employer Initiatives and Working Women. (pp. 1-8). New York: Praeger Publishers. Basu, S. N. (2001, 4). Mountain Research and Development (MRD). Womens Contribution to Household Food and Economic Security: A Study in the Garhwal Himalayas, India. India: www.mrd-journal.org. Retrieved from www.mrd-journal.org Caspersz, Donella. (2003, 6). Asian Working Women and Agency: Their Voices. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, pp. Vol. 14, No. 1. Council, N. E. (2010, 10). National Economic Council. Job s and Economic Security for Americas Women. Washington DC: National Economic Council. David Beede, D. B. (n.d.). Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation. U.S. Department of Commerce; Economics and Statistics Administration. (1999). In N. Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women ... (pp. 1-6). New York: Columbia University Press. Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn. (2013, 3). U.S Working Women-Are They Falling Behind in the Labor Force Race? Monthly Labor Review, pp. Vol. 136, No. 3. Graff, E. J. (2008). Do Women Count? Brandeis University Magazine. Kaufmann, S. W. (2008, 4). Center for the Education of Women University of Michigan. Michigan Women and The High-Tech Knowledge Economy. University of Michigan. Marilyn J.Davidson, Ronald J.Burke. (2011). Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects. Mitchell, L. (September 2011). Overcoming the gender gap:women entrepreneursas economic drivers. Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, 15. OECD. (2001, 4). Womens Economic Empowerment. DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). (1986). In K. Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the Century New York (pp. 3-8). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Pvecroft, Susan. (1994, 6). British Working Women and the First World War. The Historian, pp. Vol. 56, No. 4. Renee B.Adams,DanielFerreira. (2009). Women in theboard room and their impact on governance. Journal of Financial Economics, 19.


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(2008). In K. S. Seedfelt, Working after Welfare: How women Balance Jobs and Family in the Wake of Welfare Reform (pp. 1-6). Kalamazoo: W.E. Up john Institute for Employment Research.

Sharma, Manjusha Pant, Garima. (2010, 9). Socio-Economic Status of Working Women in Haryana. European Journal of Management, pp. Vol. 10, No. 3.

Stetson, C. P. (1900). Women and economics:A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. London: G. P. Putnam's Sons,Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.

Susanna Delfino, Michele Gillespie. (2002). In Neither Lady nor Slave: Working Women of the Old South (pp. 4-5). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

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APPENDIX B: DATA COLLECTION TOOL USED

UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCES

Data Collection Form

As one of the senior undergraduate students graduating this academic year of 2013/2014 from the UNIVERSITY OF HARGEISA for Bachelor Degree in Arts (Economics and Political Science); I, Kheyria Ismail Ahmed have prepared this questionnaire as the data collection tool for my senior projectUrban Livelihood: Shifting Attitudes about the Working Women, which is a partial fulfillment for the honor. And you have been chosen to be one of my twenty sample respondents for the project as you are a working woman in this urban city of Hargeisa or a household member of a family headed by a female. So, may you please give me several minutes of your precious time to answer the questions asked in this questionnaire and also you can lay forth your recommendations, ideas or suggestions if you are willing? Please note that the information you provide here will be held and used only for research purposes. THANK YOU for your valued help.

P.S.If you do not want to answer

Urban Livelihood Shifting Attitudes Towards the Working Women in Hargeisa

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