The Political Demand: Spatial Equity without Compromising Productivity
When men from lagging areas migrate in search of work, the female members of the family who remain sometimes have difficulties dealing with male officials (see box 2.2 for an example). This issue is particularly important for the design of MENA’s agricultural extension services. Many rural women assume day-to-day responsibility for the household’s farming activities when men of working age migrate in search of employment, but these women are socially and physically constrained from obtaining advice and services from male extension agents. Women are especially affected by the lack of appropriate transport options in peripheral areas. Social and physical constraints on women’s use of transportation are, of course, particularly important in low-density areas. Women in lagging areas of Saudi Arabia have particular difficulty in accessing all levels of education and services, in addition to limited social interactions, because of their partial mobility. The transportation disparity exists but is less pronounced in Egypt and Tunisia. In the Republic of Yemen, 56 percent of rural women, but only 25 percent of men, reported that transportation options were unresponsive to their needs (World Bank forthcoming). Rural girls have to pay 50 percent more than boys for transportation to school; boys can hitch a lift, but girls have to pay for a private car for themselves and their muhrams (male companions). The costs and benefits of migration are different for women. Displacement from home results in physiological, psychological, and social stress (Shami 1993), but men and women may have very different experiences of the pros and cons of moving to the big city. This finding was clear from our survey of residents of Manshiyet Nasser, a low-income area of Cairo, who were asked to compare life in the capital with Qena, a lagging
BOX 2.2
A Migrant’s Wife Has Difficulties with the Local Authorities “My husband worked in the Sahel for a few years. At the time, I was entitled to receive social security from the authorities but often didn’t receive it. The shaykh [local authority] did not want to give it to us, because I sent him away from my home. I was a woman alone with my children, and if the neighbors saw that I received him at home, they would say bad things about my conduct, and I would have problems when my husband returned. Unfortunately, the shaykh considered it his right to go to people’s homes; it is not the case for me [to permit it in order] to have social security. I should have made a complaint against him to his superiors, and I would have won my case.” Source: Khadija, a 40-year-old woman from Kasserine, a lagging area of Tunisia.
47