Author: Kyoko Kusakabe
AIT Library Call Number: AIT Diss. no.GD-98-01
Year: 1999
Academic Program: Gender and Development Studies (GDS)
Type: Thesis (Ph.D.) – Asian Institute of Technology, 1999
Examination Committee: Govind Kelkar (Chairperson); Shigeru Fukushima (Co-Chairperson), Yap Kioe Sheng, A.T.M. Nurul Amin, Dawn H. Currie (Examination Committee Members)
Abstract: The effect of market liberalization on women’s lives has been documented extensively in literature on structural adjustment policies and on policies under transitional economy from socialism to capitalism. The evidence points out that market liberalization has both positive and negative effects on women’s social position. On the one hand, women’s status is reported to have improved by increased employment opportunities. On the other hand, women are pressured to work for economic betterment, their working conditions deteriorated and their double-work burden increased. Women still occupied lower status both within and outside home. Traditional values emphasizing the subordination of women are reported to have been strengthened. This study deals with the question whether market can penetrate into cultural values to change the social definition of women and women’s subordination by undertaking a case study of women retail traders in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The fieldwork was done in market places of Phnom Penh in the early 1997. The interviewees consisted of 249 women retail traders and 5 women owners of corporate enterprises. During 1975-79, under the Democratic Kampuchea regime, no private property or market transactions were allowed. In 1979, with the collapse of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, a socialist government was formed in Cambodia. This was followed by a period of socio-economic space when private property and commercial activities were allowed, though only to a limited degree. It was during this period that a large number of women set up their small-size retail trades in Phnom Penh. Since 1989, Cambodia experienced the beginnings of market liberalization. Under this process, inflation and unemployment also rose. At the same time, Cambodia enjoyed GDP growth especially in the tertiaiy sector. The need to sustain the family pushed many more women to follow an earlier trend of setting up small/micro businesses in Phnom Penh. Cambodian women traditionally have been household financial
Scholarship Donor(s): Government of Japan
Note: A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Environment, Resources and Development
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