"Money has no Name": Informalisation, Unemployment and changing Gender Relations in Accara, Ghana

Abstract

Economic crisis and structural adjustment in Ghana have put large numbers of formal sector employees and civil servants out of work. This informalisation process has gendered consequences. Unemployed people, rural-urban migrants and school-leavers of both genders seek employment in the urban informal economy, and increasingly take up occupations hitherto categorised as ‘female’ – particularly in retail trade. Overcrowding in women’s economic domains thus occurs. This study examines how informally employed men and women in Accra get by in a changing macro-economic environment, and how they accommodate but also stretch local ideologies of gender-appropriate behaviour in their economic strategies. Thus, even if female traders face competition, declining returns and a heavier dependency burden, frustration with government policies failing to create decent jobs (for men) is more prevalent than gender antagonism and ridicule of those who find gender-untypical ways of eking out a living.