ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes findings of a larger study in progress on the effects of social and economic changes on the role and status of women in sub-Saharan Africa carried out under the auspices of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. From a conceptual viewpoint, the study represented a departure from previous research on women in Africa. Biographic data and completed questionnaires confirmed our first hypothesis, that the gender-based division of labor is a dynamic variable which changes according to the requirements of profitability in the central industrialized nations and in the peripheral developing countries. In the Senegalese sample area, some women were excluded from agricultural work when tasks were mechanized and wealthy farmers could afford to hire seasonal labor. The majority of women remain dependent for revenue on the sale of surplus food crops they produce—despite their heavy workload—on plots allocated to them by men and/or on other remunerative activities.
