Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:56:23.932Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Generating an income in the urban environment: the experience of street food vendors in Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Tola Olu Pearce ,
Olufemi O. Kujore  and
V. Aina Agboh-Bankole
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The economic condition of workers in the fast-growing urban centres of African countries is of concern to scholars and policymakers interested in developing programmes to alleviate the persistent poverty. However, there is a dearth of micro-level research on the economic activities of the numerous occupations to be found in these settings. This information would provide a more realistic basis for policies and the assessment of competing theoretical models of social change (Moser, 1980). The aim of the present paper therefore is to provide baseline data on the economic situation of one group of workers within the urban economy—vendors of street foods. Street foods are defined as edibles which have been prepared outside the consuming household and are ready for consumption at point of purchase; however, the buyer may take them elsewhere. The study does not include those ready-to-eat foods prepared within the confines of modern establishments with four walls. Modern restaurants and the cafeteria sections of hospitals, prisons, colleges and universities were therefore excluded. The small-scale businesses under study are part of what is known as the informal sector. The study was conducted in Ile-Ife, a university town in Oyo State (Yorubaland). Among the Yoruba, women became active in small-scale trade following changes in the patterns of international trade and in farming since the fifteenth century. This process was also facilitated by colonial penetration into the socioeconomic fabric of the society (Afonja, 1981). Within the trading business the marketing of street foods was dominated by women (Bascom, 1951; Marshall, 1964; Fadipe, 1970). Central to the concerns of this paper therefore are the levels of income generated by these women, the problems associated with the enterprise and possible recommendations on how to improve the situation of food vendors in the urban economy.

Résumé

Se faire un revenu dans un environnement urbain: l'expérience des vendeurs directs de denrées alimentaires à Ile-Ife, Nigéria

Cet article examine les activités économiques des vendeurs de produits alimentaires dans les rues d' Ile-Ife, ville provinciale de L'Etat de Oyo au Nigéria. Les données basées sur 256 interrogées révèlent que le commerce de denrées alimentaires dans les rues représente une activité principalement féminine. La plupart de ces femmes ont plus de 21 ans, analphabètes et ayant une famille à charge. La vente de denrées alimentaires est une occupation qui exige bcaucoup de temps et de travail pour laquelle on obtient une faible rémunération et peu d'estime. Les politiques qui sont basées sur les résultats de cétte etude sont définies.

Type
Women at work
Information
Africa , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 385 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adedeji, K. 1986. ‘The Relationship Existing between Co-Wives in a Polygynous Family’, BSc thesis, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Adeokun, L., Ilori, F., Adewuyi, A., and Ebigbola, J. 1984. The Ife Labour Market: a Nigeria survey, International Labour Organisation Working Paper. Geneva: ILO.Google Scholar
Adeyeye, V. 1985. ‘Avenues for and constraints on women's involvement in agriculture and rural development process in Nigeria’, paper presented at the seminar on Nigerian Women and National Development, Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.Google Scholar
Afonja, S. 1982. ‘Changing modes of production and the sexual division of labour among the Yoruba’, Signs, 7 (2): 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Afonja, S. and Pearce, T. (eds.) 1986. Social Change in Nigeria. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Agboh-Bankole, V., Kujore, O., and Pearce, T. 1985. ‘Effects of road clearance on the street foods enterprise in Ile-Ife’, paper presented at the seminar on the Street Foods Project, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Aina, O. 1985. ‘Relative Time Allocation between Women's Multiple Roles’, MPhil thesis, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Babalola, S. 1983. ‘The Impact of Tobacco Farming on the Family Structure of Igboho Farmers: a study of the effect of economic change on family structure’, MSc thesis, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Bascom, W. 1951. ‘Yoruba food’, Africa, 2: 41–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, E. 1984. Personal communication (member of the Expert Group on the Informal Sector, Commonwealth Secretariat, London).Google Scholar
Cohen, M. 1984. Urban Street Food Trade: implications for policy. Washington, DC: Equity Policy Center.Google Scholar
Cohen, M. Forthcoming. Women and the Urban Street Food Trade, Gender and Planning Working Paper No. 2. London: Development Planning Unit, Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London.Google Scholar
Fadipe, N. 1970. The Sociology of the Yoruba. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, K. 1973. ‘Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 2: 61–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyzer, N. 1981. ‘Towards a framework of analysis’, Bulletin of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 12 (3).Google Scholar
Igben, M. 1985. ‘Marketing efficiency and the economics of vegetable retail marketing by women in Ibadan Municipal City’, paper presented at the seminar on Nigerian Women and National Development, Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.Google Scholar
Jegede, C. (ed.) 1987. ‘A Survey of Business Enterprises in Ile-Ife’, report submitted to the Centre for Industrial Research and Development, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Kujore, O. 1985. ‘Street foods, their handling and the environment in which they are prepared and sold’, paper presented at seminar on the Street Foods Project, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. 1968. ‘Divorce among the Yoruba’, American Anthropologist, 70: 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, P. 1982. A Third World Proletariat? London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Mabogunje, A. 1974. ‘Urbanization problems in Africa’, in El-Shankhs, S. and Obudho, R. (eds.), Urbanization, National Development, and Regional Planning in Africa, pp. 13–26. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Makinwa-Adebusoye, P. 1985. ‘The socio-economic contribution of Nigerian women to national development’, paper presented at the seminar on Nigerian Women and National Development, Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.Google Scholar
Marshall, G. 1964. ‘Women, Trade and the Yoruba Family’, PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Moser, C. 1980. ‘Why the poor remain poor’, Journal of International Studies and World Affairs, 22 (3): 365–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moser, C. 1984. ‘Constraints on informal sector growth: conceptual and methodological problems in recent research’, paper presented to a meeting of the Expert Group on the Informal Sector, Commonwealth Secretariat, London.Google Scholar
Osoba, A. 1985. ‘Women's participation in the Nigerian labour force: constraints and prospects’, paper presented at the seminar on Nigerian Women and National Development, Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.Google Scholar
Oyatoye, E. 1985. ‘Labour behaviour and productivity in agriculture: a case study of the role of women in Nigerian agriculture’, paper presented at the national conference on Human Behaviour and the Challenges of National Development in Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.Google Scholar
Pearce, T. 1984. ‘The place of street foods in the urban diet: a survey of Ile-Ife, Nigeria’, paper presented to the African Studies Association, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Pine, F. 1982. ‘Family structure and the division of labour: female roles in urban Ghana’, in Alavi, H. and Shanin, T. (eds.), Introduction to the Sociology of ‘Developing Societies’, pp. 387–405. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, J. 1983. ‘Street foods in Senegal’, paper presented at the Street Foods Workshop, Dakar.Google Scholar
Remy, D. 1975. ‘Underdevelopment and the experience of women: a Nigerian case study’, in Reiter, R. (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women, pp. 123–34. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Sada, P., and McNulty, M. 1981. ‘The market traders in the city of Lagos’, in Sada, P. and Oguntoyinbo, J. (eds.), Urbanization Process and Problems in Nigeria. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Strobel, M. 1982. ‘African women’, Signs, 8 (1): 109–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trager, L. 1981. ‘Customers and creditors: variations in economic personalism in a Nigerian market system’, Ethnology, 20 (2) 133–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trager, L. 1985a. ‘From yams to beer in a Nigerian city: expansion and change in informal sector trade activity’, in S. Platter (ed.), Markets and Marketing, Monograph No. 4, Monographs in Economic Anthropology, pp. 259–85. MD University Press of America.Google Scholar
Trager, L. 1985b. ‘The informal sector in West African cities: research and directions’, paper presented to the African Studies Association, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Trager, L. Forthcoming. ‘Contemporary processes of change in Yoruba cities’, in Nas, P. (ed.), Class, Ethnicity and Life Styles in the City: international perspectives.Google Scholar
Zack-Williams, A. 1985a. ‘Female labour and exploitation within African social formations’, in Bappa, S., Ibrahim, J., Imam, A., Kamara, F., Mahdi, H., Modibbo, M., Mohammed, A., Mohammed, H., Mustayha, A., Perchonock, N. and Pittin, R.. (eds.), Women in Nigeria Today, pp. 61–7. London: Zed Press.Google Scholar