Comment les femmes concilient-elles mariage et travail à Dakar et à Lomé ?

Women’s disadvantaged position in the labour market can be explained by conflicts between their roles in exercising an economic activity and in assuming their domestic activities. Husbands’ insufficient or inexistent income has increased women’s role in household survival strategies, but their participation does not have the same sociological meaning in Dakar as it does in Lomé. When women in Dakar take part in an economic activity outside the domestic sphere this clashes with the tenacious model of a clear separation in husbands and wives’ roles, and with the ideal of wives dependency on their husbands. In contrast, in Lomé, although women’s economic independence has been part of the conjugal norm for quite some time, this is tending to be observed more and more frequently outside the formal framework of marriage. In both cases, the fact that women are increasingly called on to find extra income has implications on their family lives.