An Analysis of the Economic Status of Women in Cameroon

The Cameroon woman has for long been the economic backbone of the nation, yet she remains largely marginalized in society generally and in the economic sector in particular. The cumulative effects of the interplay of gender discrimination of traditional African and Western colonial as well as neo-colonial systems on the general status of the Cameroon woman has been enormous. As this paper reveals, in modern times, more Cameroon women have become more dependent on men economically than in pre-colonial or traditional times. It is true that modernization has wrought some good for Cameroon women, but this article shows that the ills of modernization far outweigh the good wrought by modernization in Cameroon. The end result is that in modern Cameroon women occupy economically precarious positions at the lower echelons of the socio-economic scale. Women’s limited access to and lack of control over resources such as education and bank loans that are more readily available to Cameroon men has led to the further decline of women’s economic status in modern Cameroon. The vast majority of Cameroon women, regardless of educational level, find themselves in a disadvantaged position in the economic sphere. The overwhelming historical evidence presented in this paper is testimony to the above fact. In turn this pattern has had grave consequences for the country’s overall development

High fertility and development in Cameroon

Many scholars of development, in sub Saharan Africa especially, have come to perceive increases in the African population as a threat to what is an already precarious balance between people and scarce natural resources, as well as being a handicap to general development in the region. Since the population increase trails behind food production and economic growth, there is severe population pressure on the environment as people try to scratch a living from the soil. This is also accompanied by the decline of per capita income and quality of life. Thus, the population hawk position (Teitelbaum 1975) maintains that the unrestrained population growth in Africa is the principal cause of poverty, malnutrition, environmental disruption and other social problems. This paper explores how family planning can be implemented in ways that would produce more positive results and enhance development in Cameroon. Journal of Social Development in Africa Vol 16 No 1 2001, pp. 23-4

The informal financial sector and savings mobilization in Cameroon

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Perils to Pregnancies: On Social Sorrows and Strategies Surrounding Pregnancy Loss in Cameroon

Contains fulltext : 90807.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This article explores the local perceptions and practices surrounding pregnancy loss in Cameroon-a topic that has long been neglected in international reproductive health debates. Based on extended periods of anthropological fieldwork in an urban and a rural setting in the East province of the country, it shows the inherent ambiguities that underlie pregnancies and their perceived dangers. By situating meanings of pregnancy loss within the complex dynamics of marriage and kinship, pregnant bodies are argued to be social bodies-the actions and interpretations of which shift along with social situations. This approach not only forms an alternative to the current focus on the body politic in global discourses on fertility risks but also shows how conventional assumptions such as the rigid distinction between voluntary and involuntary pregnancy loss distort ambiguous daily life realities for Cameroonian women whose pregnancies are not being carried to term