Access to Paid Work and Women’s Empowerment in Rwanda

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of women’s empowerment in Rwanda. It sheds light specifically on the issue of women’s access to paid work. In general, there is a scholarly scarcity of research that looks at the relationship between women’s access to paid work and their empowerment in the context of Rwanda. In particular, this paper serves as a contribution in this regard and posits that employability of women in paid jobs is a contributor to their empowerment and societal growth. This work uses two case studies of women working in the Cooperative "Abahuzamugambi" (AKM) situated in the rural area and OCIR Café located in Kigali the capital of Rwanda. The sample constitutes of 48 respondents – namely 8 widows, 8 married women and 8 young girls from each of both cases. In order to collect empirical data, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were carried out. These data collection methods aimed at exploring perceptions, attitudes and gather individual views of these women who are mostly illiterate and are often, less inclined of having alternatives in
terms of access to paid jobs. The findings of this research suggest that the majority of women working in AKM and rural area were able to fulfill their needs soon after getting their job as compared to those of their category who remained in Kigali.

Key words: Access; paid work; women’s empowerment; Rwanda.