中部ジャワの市場における女性小商人の変容

主婦と稼ぎ手の間

抄録

This paper compares the results of research in central Java in 1995–1996 before the economic crisis in Asia and in 1999–2000 after the crisis. The decreased market-derived income of small women traders and the increased dual role of housewife and breadwinner in their households becomes clear. An immediate cause of the decreased sales, income and number of customers is the depression in consumption due to a reduction in real income and intensified competition brought about by new entrants into the informal sector. Behind the gender separation structure in the informal sector, the crisis further sharpened competition as well as encouraged the tendency of large merchants to form monopolies. As a result, some small women traders working at the lower levels had to give up their businesses, and the income of those traders who were marginalized fell even lower.
As for the income distribution in the informal sector, the income gap between the highest and the lowest, and the Gini coefficients, became larger. Sales decreased 50% due to depression in consumption. The concentration of income in the top 20% become remarkable, while the share of the smallest women traders decreased.
The dual role of housewife and breadwinner has added to the burden of small women traders. After the economic crisis, personal income and household expenditure decreased. However, wives are responsible for more than half of the household expenditure despite their income accounting for only one-third of total family income. The difference between husband and wife in terms of hours spent earning and doing housework increased as a result of the wife’s ‘working hours’ being double those of her husband. The housework role carried by men tended to decrease too.
The dual role of housewife and breadwinner of the women traders has maintained and strengthened the gendered division of labor in the informal sector. The woman defined as housewife has the obligation and the authority to manage the household to fulfill her family’s needs. However, it is the husband who controls household finances by varying the amount of money put in the household economy. Many wives who try to supplement the household budget brought home by their husbands have no other option but to start as small traders or in the small-scale production of commodities with a low profitability, because, unlike for men, there is insufficient capital.