Economic Woman in Africa: Profit-Making Techniques of Aecra Market Women

Abstract

An idea which has recently gained acceptance is that peasant cultivators do in fact act in an economically ‘rational’ manner to maximise profits. It can be shown that ‘rational’ economic behaviour is characteristic of traders also. But not all the shibboleths associated with beliefs to the contrary have been swept away. In a well-known textbook on economic development Everett Hagen stated that, in order to make the shift from ‘bazaar’ to ‘fixed- price’ retailing, traders ‘must adopt a set of techniques and risks new to [them] ‘2 Here it will be evident that some of the business techniques long familiar to Accra market women have equal utility for petty retailing or wholesale dealing based on a fixed place of business. The difference between ‘bazaar’ and ‘fixed-price’ retailing is not clearly definable in terms of techniques employed. Also, education in Ghana in its present form does not ‘increase the ability of [traders] to receive information concerning improved methods and improved opportunities’, as Hagen would have it.3 Rather, the disadvantages of illiteracy are more than offset by techniques imbued by a long-established apprenticeship system for women traders.

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