Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau, this paper discuses the feminization of survival and its impacts on gender relations and intra-household dynamics by focusing on the experiences of girls and young women living in a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Bissau.

Paper long abstract:

The "feminization of survival" also affects girls and young women, despite the fact that both gender and youth studies agendas have initially excluded them from analysis. This has been changing since the Nineties, and the economic dynamism of girls and young women in urban contexts has been increasingly analysed, even though how this is affecting gender relations has remained very much in the shadow.

Based on fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau, a country where living conditions have been deteriorating for already two generations, this paper discusses and gives voice to the diversity of situations lived by and to the perspectives of girls and young women living in a peripheric urban neighbourhood of the capital city Bissau. The generational lens will allow me not only to discuss the rationale and strategies of the activities some girls and young women in this neighbourhood engage in, but also their perspectives on gender relations according to their experiences as well as their mothers' and other relatives'.