ABSTRACT
Multiple livelihoods are the norm, rather than the exception. Comparing commercial farming in Kericho and Murasi suggests that the very ability of households to engage in multiple livelihoods is double-edged. The connections between household relations and livelihoods are far from simple. In regions heavily dependent on migrant labour, the decline in the availability of work for migrants raises tensions over responsibilities for maintaining livelihoods and the powers that these responsibilities should confer. Differences in marriage, in gender ideologies and in property rights are all-important and are not linked to differences in livelihoods in any simple way. Theoretical debates about power relations in households provide a starting point for looking at links between gender and livelihoods. A first approach, which is common among economists, treats the household as a single decision-making unit with a joint welfare function. Sen has argued that household members’ access to consumption goods is determined by bargaining in a process of cooperative conflict.
