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Abstract

This article examines how gender disparity in terms of education, occupation and a person’s income influences poverty. The main question we asked was: how has Cameroon’s depressing economy for the past twenty-five years affected the present gender gap?

We use the relative method to measure poverty. We discovered the psychological and social essentials for ordinary living patterns in Douala which we used to construct our questionnaire. It was self-administered using the systematic sampling method.

The following results were obtained: 25.74 percent and 7.5 percent of men and women respectively earn above the poverty-line: 177,000frs CFA. Men earn an average salary of 100,000frs as against 60,000frs for women. About 48 percent of women are married and 10.61 percent of them are housewives thereby slightly demarcating the public/private sphere.

Although men dominate women in owning durable goods, there is statistically no feminisation of poverty in Douala because women participate as much as men in the desired predominant values of Douala: domestic comfort, health seeking behaviour, good feeding habit and leisure activities. This is because more women stay under someone and live in a family house than men.

Author Biography

Nanche Billa Robert is an assistant lecturer at the Higher Institute of the Sahel, Department of Social Sciences for Development at the University of Maroua. His interests of research are urban poverty and conspicuous consumption. He has completed his PhD thesis on youth poverty at the University of Douala.

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