Paper short abstract:

This study determines the nature of gender relations and the working conditions of men and women in the informal/casual labour markets of Owerri, South East Nigeria. It found strong evidence of male dominance on the supply and demand sides and of skewed gender relationships against women.

Paper long abstract:

This study determines the gender and age composition, the nature of gender relations, and the working conditions of men and women in the informal/casual labour markets of Owerri, South East Nigeria. The main findings are (a) there is strong evidence of male dominance on the supply and demand sides and of skewed gender relationships against women in the market, (b) mature men and women (age 44-54) have relatively more access, (c) gender stereotype in participation - "male dominance" in construction and cargo handling and "female dominance" in cleaning and in farming/food processing prevail, (d) the work environment for the casual labourers is highly precarious and, symmetrically skewed in favour of employers, (e) the jobs do not meet ILO benchmark for decent jobs, and (f) among the women, time demands is causal to work-family conflict occurrence especially for those aged 35-44. Due to the long hours of work (on the average 7-12 hours) associated with casual labour daily, the combination of work - family life is a major issue for women in most sub-types of casual labour who belong to dual earner households. The paper thus concludes that the casual labour markets as it is cannot help Nigeria attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. It is important that a rethinking of the state and social policy takes place to reverse the socio-economic forces that compel women and men to agglomerate at junctions in the early morning casual labour markets and make some women's working hours to be abnormal.