Negotiating livelihoods beyond Beijing: the burden of women food vendors in the informal economy of Limbe, Cameroon*

Abstract

As a response to the trappings of globalisation and the commoditisation of the sphere of production, women continue to play a crucial role in securing livelihoods by guaranteeing access to food in rural, peri‐urban, and urban areas. Based on a survey of food vendors, this paper evaluates women's input through informal earnings, the coping strategies devised to stave off poverty occasioned by the economic meltdown, the travails of meeting the daily demands of family survival and the influence on gender relations. The profile of vendors indicate that most are assuming greater headship of households, they straddle between the home and their business premises with attendant effects on time, mobility, health and labour. Amid these hurdles, the vendors are barely able to address the basic needs of their families. However, they are becoming economically empowered as they exercise greater leverage in intra‐household resource allocation. These minimal gains are offset by a heavy tax burden, the poor regulatory framework for informal sector activities and the incessant crackdown by municipal authorities. Reconciling the trade‐off between income generation and care‐giving hinges on drawing additional labour from the family‐especially the girl child and some supportive family relations.

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