How Gender roles Determine Resilience to Food Insecurity among Agro-pastoral Communities in Central Tanzania: HFIAS Analysis

Abstract

The study assessed how gender roles determine resilience to food insecurity among agro-pastoral communities in central Tanzania specifically in Chamwino, and Chemba Districts in Dodoma region. Chi-square and One-way ANOVA tests were used to analyze each variable’s independence and compare the means respectively. Findings revealed that gender roles determine resilience mechanisms to food insecurity and those roles assigned to women were reported to have higher scores of resilience to food insecurity in all attributes of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative. The higher score indices signify that women are the key players in fighting food insecurity instances; this is because of the roles assigned to them. The findings under the Chi-Square test and One-way ANOVA results show a significant correlation between the assigned gender roles and resilience attributes. Gender roles including responsibilities to address seasonal variations, taking care of children, sick and old people, cooking, selection, allocation, distribution, and preservation of food were reported to have statistically significant associations with resilience mechanism to food insecurity as p= 0.03, 0.03, 0.04,0.03, 0.03 correspondingly. Thus, gender roles predominantly those assigned to women need hypersensitive considerations when addressing resilience to food insecurity not only in Dodoma region, Tanzania but in Africa where gender norms are still mounting.