‘How can it be a problem if you need them both?’ Women juggling paid and unpaid care work in Tanzania

This paper summarises the findings of mixed method research in Tanzania that explores how women’s economic empowerment (WEE) policies and programmes take unpaid care work into account in order to maximise benefits across households and generations. It reflects the voices and experiences of women and their household members participating in women’s economic empowerment (WEE) programmes across four sites in rural areas of the Tanga region. 

This study and its findings clearly indicate that women shoulder the majority of unpaid work
and struggle to balance this with paid work responsibilities, the reasons for which appear to be mainly grounded in gender norms, as well as other factors.