Description
ABSTRACT
Promoting gender equality has become a globally recognized and an acceptable reality. Gender issues have also been identified as critical to the achievement of national development goals. In fact, the attainment of gender equality is not only seen as an end in itself it is equally a catalyst to, and a sine-qua-non for the achievement of sustainable development. This paper which attempted an assessment of the level of attainment of gender parity and women empowerment using three critical indicators namely: enrolment in education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, employment and political decision-making, utilized valuable secondary sources of data. The paper which argues that, at the heart of the problematic of gender disparity in Nigeria, is the action dilemma by the Nigerian government which has compounded the problem of expanding the capacity level that is required to enhance the opportunity of accommodating the varying needs of both male and female gender also contends that the attainment of gender equality in Nigeria which is already time-barred, will be a mirage due to multidimensional constraining factors. This paper which subsequently hinged the actualization of gender equality and women empowerment on tile desirability and inevitability of a pragmatic approach, concluded with some useful remarks.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
CERTIFICATION PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
- STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
- OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
- RESEARCH QUESTION
- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
- SCOPE OF THE STUDY
- LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
- DEFINITION OF MAJOR TERMS
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- REVIEW OF THE STUDY
- GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN NIGERIA
- ENROLMENT AT THE PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND TERTIARY LEVELS OF EDUCATION
- EMPLOYMENT
- POLITICAL DECISION MAKING
- CONSTRAINTS TO THE ACTUALIZATION OF GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN NIGERIA
- THE ACTUALIZATION OF GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN NIGERIA: THE DESIRABILITY AND INEVITABILITY OF A PRAGMATIC APPROACH
CHAPTER THREE
- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
- STUDY AREA
- SAMPLING AND DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUE
- METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
- AS AFOREMENTIONED
- SAMPLE USED
- METHOD OF INVESTIGATION
- PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN DATA COLLECTION PROCESS
- POPULATION OF THE STUDY
- SAMPLE SIZE DETERMINATION
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA COLLECTION PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
- COLLECTION OF DATA
- PRESENTATION OF DATA
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 CONCLUSION
5.2 REFERENCES
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Globally, the growing importance of gender equality has been recognized and accepted. The normative framework for human development (UNDP: 2012) is reflected in the broad vision espoused in the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed set of time-bound targeted goals for ensuring gender equality and advancing opportunities in diverse sectors of the global economy. The convention on the elimination of au forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly and accepted to by 180 states outlines the rights and equality of women, their freedom from discrimination and equality under the law. Also, promoting gender equality that is a sine-qua-non to the actualization of the protection of fundamental human rights is critical to the whole concern for human development that centre on allowing people to lead a life that they value and enabling them to realize their potentials as human beings. Realizing the growing need for gender equality is also germane to the survival and development of children and the building of healthy communities, societies and nations. The gap between the Millennium Development Goal of promoting Gender Equality and its actualization in Nigeria, however, is the action dilemma by the Nigerian government that is typified by mis-governance, lack of political will, the prevailing patriarchal culture, false public investment and the absence of adequate productive capacity that will create the opportunities for women empowerment and development. This problematic explains the inevitability and imperative of a pragmatic action-based approach that will translate gender equality programs into concrete reality. This is especially because the task of achieving the target of gender equality in Nigeria by the year 2015 requires not just passive policies that are separate and distinct from doing, but an active process embodying proper analysis, goal definition, action programs and monitoring results (Ejumudo 2008:2).
This paper reviews the economic literature that touches the role of gender in the economy, with specific focus on issues and challenge that might be expected to be the most critical for overall development in Nigeria.
We define what gender equality means; present stylized facts about the current relative status of women and men; and touch on the methodological difficulties encountered in studying this topic. We then present the issues and analyses from studies concerning gender equality and the status of women in both the developed and the less developed worlds. There is wide range in women’s status across countries, just as there is a wide range of differences in the level of economic welfare. In some cases the research allows a look at how a country’s economic development over time is associated with changes in the role of her women.
Economic studies of this issue are found in the fields of labor economics, family economics, growth and development economics and political economics. The latter portion of this paper presents explanatory models, and reviews literature on factors that challenge or facilitate gender equality.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The issue of gender inequality in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general has been debated since the introduction of western formal education during the colonial period. Starting from the late 1950s and early 1960s when many African countries acquired their political independence, this date has taken a new dimension in local as well as international fora.
What role do women’s class and gender status play in national development: that question and many others were examined at recent seminar and meeting organized specially to address the issue of gender imbalance in access to polities and education in Nigeria. There were two major conferences in March, 1990. The Jointien conference on education for all, sponsored by several international organizations including the world Bank, UNESCO, etc, and the Mexico world congress on planning and management of educational development also organized by UNESCO.
In Africa, the sixth Regional conference sponsored by UNESCO, with the co-operation of the organization of Africa unity (O.A.U), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, was held in July, 1991 in Dakar. The problem of uplifting the burden of women, for national development received attention at a recent seminar on women and demographic change in Dakar, Senegal in March, 1993.
The seminar was organized by the international union for the scientific study of population (IUSSP) and brought together more than 60 experts from Africa and elsewhere , from the discussions, a consensus was reached that women’s class and gender status have been neglected by both demographers and policy makers interested in population change and that the first step toward getting women’s issues of the agenda of the population and development sector is to improve understanding on how women’s position in society varies across Africa and shapes demographic outcomes. (Emezi, C.E and Ndoh, C.A 1998:181)
1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
The research examined and analyzes the effect of United Nations and the challenges of promoting gender equality in Nigeria.
1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
The research is aimed at achieving the following objectives:
- To assess the factors that affects gender inequality.
- To examine the influence of United Nations and the challenges of promoting gender equality in Nigeria.
- To proffer solutions woman’s empowerment and strengthening development.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE / JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY
Economists have long tried to understand why some countries are poor and some rich, and why some develop and grow while others remain stagnant. As research has moved from Solow’s growth theories to endogenous growth, we are still unable to explain the huge difference in GDP per capital that exists among countries. Explanations that developed countries have greater technological progress, a higher rate of investment and saving, better education, skill levels and infrastructure leave unanswered the question of where these differences come from (see Weil, 2005). Macroeconomics theories have influenced the World Bank and the IMF policies over the decades as these institutions attempted to help developing countries towards economic growth and development. Easterly (2001) recounts the history of attempted solutions that have repeatedly turned out to be disappointments, a situation he explains as the result of a lack of attention to the incentives that people face in their environments. The literature and its prominent authors are currently moving towards explaining the growth discrepancy between the poor and the rich nations with factors like social infrastructure (Hall and Jones, 1999), values (Guiso et al., 2002), trust (Knack and Keefer, 1997), religion (Barro, 2002; Dollar and Gatti, 1999) or other aspects of the culture (Weil, 2005). These new explanations will increasingly require a better understanding of the roles, status and behavior of a heretofore largely ignored half of the population – women.
These new efforts sometimes involve expanding our understanding of what is meant by the concept of development itself. Most prominently, Noble-laureate Amartya Sen (1999) argues that increasing GDP by itself should not be the ultimate goal of efforts to help poor countries. Rather, what aid should hope to maximize are the freedoms associated with wealth: freedom to exchange goods and labor, freedom to make choices and influence one’s life, freedom to live longer, freedom to get an education. He suggest that restrictions on an individual’s right to own property, save, borrow, become educated, make labor contracts or to control the products of one’s own labor would qualify as disincentives to growth, while freedom to exercise these activities would be associated with economic growth. Given that roughly half of the population of any country is female, it is reasonable to postulate that a society’s failure to provide such freedoms or resources to them would be reflected in failures at the macroeconomics level as well.
Although the literature exploring such a relationship between the freedoms accorded women and development is still small, interest in this area is growing. Those in grass root development work generally acknowledge the importance of the status of women in development, believing that these restrictions on freedoms are directly counterproductive for development. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, for example, include gender issues among the top priorities. United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank have also done extensive research on gender and development.
Generally speaking, however, much of the work in economics has little theoretical interest in women’s welfare per se. Standard economic theories such as those in public choice or welfare economics do not focus on individual characteristics; the individual actor in welfare economics could equally well be a world citizen, a country national, a man or a woman. However, empirical work requires that gender be controlled for, as women’s behavior differs from that of men to such an extent that a single explanatory model is not applicable. An example of this will be seen in the empirical growth studies by Robert Barro.
Those writing in the feminist economics tradition challenge the general invisibility of gender in economic studies and urge that it be considered in order to avoid further biased results (Ferber and Nelson 2003). Emphasizing efficiency at the cost of equity, economists shy away from interpersonal utility comparisons. Yet, if the welfare of women is important, we need to identify the separate constraints on women in order to assess how lifting them affects economic choice and development.
We need to be aware of cultural issues such as gender restrictions (on both sexes), and changes in them, when analyzing the effect of gender-related issues on development. Blank and Reimers (2003) point out that the standard economic method of focusing on choices under given tastes and constraints tends to simply accept the status quo concerning cultural issues as permanent and unchanging. This raises concern given the large changes in gender roles over the past hundred years.
Psychology, sociology, and anthropology give insights on how such tastes and desires are formed.
However, the economists tend to be relatively uninformed on the results of other social sciences. Some of the newer fields in economics, such as behavioral economics, take these challenges more seriously. Another example of rising awareness of the need to consider changing social norms and culture is a recent book on economic growth by David Weil (2005), which places considerable emphasis on culture and values.
1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The research covered United Nations and the challenges of promoting gender equality in Nigeria. Principally, the study encountered two constraints; they include the paucity of literate and problems of data collection. The obvious dearth of scholarly wirings on the subject matter imposed certain limitations on the conduct of this study.
These impediments notwithstanding, we are able to make do with what were readily available and accessible, and we ensured optimal systematization of analyse for the interest of objectivity. Thus the work was accomplished within the best possible standards.
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
This section will explain some technical terms used in this study:
EQUALITY: is ensuring individuals or groups of individuals are not treated differently or less favourably, on the basis of their specific protected characteristic, including areas of race, gender, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
PROMOTING EQUALITY: removes discrimination in all of the aforementioned areas. Bullying, harassment or victimization are also considered as equality and diversity issues.
DIVERSITY: aims to recognise, respect and value people’s differences to contribute and realise their full potential by promoting an inclusive culture for all staff and students.
1.7 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research questions used for this study are as follows:
- Is there any need of promoting gender equality?
- What are the effort government of Abia state are making to restore gender equality?
- Does government of Abia state making effort in promoting gender equality?
- What are the challenges of promoting gender equality in Nigera?
1.8 STATEMENT HYPOTHESIS
In this cause of carrying out this research work the researcher constructed some statement of assumption that will test to validate or de-validate this study. The hypotheses below are put in place to check whether or not such relationship exists between Nigeria and gender equality.
The hypothesis is of two types, the null hypothesis (HO) and the alternative hypothesis (HI) the hypothesis are as follows-
Ho: There is low level of promotion of gender equality in Nigeria
Hi: There is higher level of promotion of gender equality in Nigeria
Ho: There is no significant relationship between Nigeria and gender equality.
Hi: There is significant relationship between Nigeria and gender equality
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 REVIEW OF THE STUDY
Gender equality (and women’s empowerment) has become one of the central themes in global treaties, covenants and declarations principally due to the understanding that it is a catalyst to clear-cut development strategies which is targeted at poverty reduction, improved living standards, good governance and profitably productive investments that are critical to the creation of an enlarged capacity that provide men and women equal opportunity and unrestrained access to decision-making and policy implementation institutions and processes…
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