Bouiret Lahdab community: Some insights on division of labor, benefits and resources according to gender:

The Gender Approach implies analyzing the society in terms of the various statutes of women, men and children and consequently evaluates the consequences of these various statutes on their everyday life, and on the achievement of certain development goals as well.

Relying on such approach was a prior to any intervention of M&M III project regarding the women situation and hence avoiding any upheaval in the community’ social system. The work sequences has led us to achieve a description of woman situation within the community and the household taking into account in one hand, the three roles in which she is involved (reproductive, productive and Communal ), and on the other hand her access and control of the resources and benefit as well as her participation in the decision-making.


It appears along the research process, that Bouiret Lahdab is very conservative community regarding women; the households are organized around married couples. The families is less and less broad, it is the mother- in-law or the elder sister who decides and distributes the everyday housekeeping tasks. From 11 years old, the girl must be able to hold a house at 11 year, the age of marriage however, is occurring at older ages these past years. The woman situation is more accentuated in the rural part of the community the society there is based on the separation of the sexes, within which the women and the men should not find themselves in the same place in everyday life. In general, the men are regarded as the heads of household and holders of the decision-making. The general perception of surveyed women is that the work load carried out by the man is more important, and more appreciable than the work carried out by the woman. The man in general must covers the woman and the children needs - which is difficult to fulfill in general, given the prevailing socio-economic conditions.

The daily planning of the activities of the woman, is tough, beside the reproductive tasks, she is also involved in large extent within the productive activities near the man, without having a personal benefit, her rest period is sometimes is shortened when it occurs that she has her own productive activity.

Division of labor, benefits and resources according to gender…

- Reproductive activities are achieved by the woman at 100%. Reproductive work is defined as invisible and none remunerative work such as procreation, cleaning, laundry, meals preparation, food conservation as well as providing care for the elderly, the patients , the children and the husband

- Additionally to reproductive activities, the woman is at 70% involved in the “Productive activities”. Production of good and services for subsistence and incomes generation, such as breeding, agriculture, craft, foodstuff processing, her contribution still however none remunerative. As for the man, he generally carries out the activities that have relation with the outside such as grazing, selling, buying and shearing.

- Domestic Community tasks are done by the woman at 100%. The women meet together to achieve tasks in general during the launching of a weaving works or for meals preparation - roll and prepare the couscous at the time of celebrations and burial.

- Access and control of the economic resources is very limited for woman 1% (weaving resources). The land is in general under the control of the men and consequently it is to him that lies the control of water, the livestock is controlled by him also, in spite of the woman participation at 50% (none remunerative) , even the household’ meat consumption is done under his control, needless to say under whom control the animal’ sales; exchange or offering are done. According to local customs, milk and its by-product are not for sale rather for self consumption or as offering, thus the women who has been involved in the milk process, don’t have in return an economic gain.

- Access and control of the benefit are done exclusively by the man except those generated by weaving products’ sales

- Mobility of the woman is very reduced and dependant on the availability of the man


- Purchase of the raw material intended for the various woman activities and the marketing of the end products are done exclusively by the man.
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- According to the decision making by Gender matrix, it is easy to notice the “consultative” role of the woman, it lies to man to makes the final decision which he can concede some times to his mother

Decision type	Man	Woman	Her mother -in law
Daily decision-making (consumption, sales…)	X	X	+
children schooling	+	X
Medical consultations	+	X
Women mobility	X
Professional decision-making	+	X
Investment	+	X
Periodical decision (for family events )	X		+
House renovation works	+	X
« Social » expenditure	+	X	X

Where are we standing so far?

Besides this works M&M III scientists, have achieved with Bouiret Lahdab’s women participatory diagnostic and planning from which arise a set of development activities that are differentiated according the geography (whether rural or urban part ), motivation to work collectively or individualistically. Among the identified know-how weaving seem to be promising even if it looks as “classical option” from researcher point of view. After development programs and stakeholders identification, M&M III has achieved close institutional work which made possible the linkage between women with their “useful” environment. Two NGOs, a local one known for its commitment to rural women promotion and a national one (TOUISA Development) which role consist in seeking for funds, this facilitation works has also covers Bouiret Lahdab local government, solidarity services, and vocational training Direction. What is coming out from this? You may ask, M&MIII will work with some women that need to develop the way that they are weaving by the introduction of more suitable weaving loom thanks to TOUISA funds. In the other hand, M&M III is monitoring with local NGO the formalization the principle agreement of premise creation within the commune (done). The premise will be equipped by the Djelfa’s vocational training Direction for the benefit of local women and young girls. So that they can build their capacities, have a diploma, access prerequisite to credit or micro-credit. The implementation of the training sessions, the training of trainers and monitoring some promising projects will be carried out by djelfa’s rural women promotion NGO.