Female workers in flower farm industry : a study of socio-economic impacts of the job opportunity : case of Bishoftu city, Ethiopia

As the foreign direct investment and international trade define and redefine the global economic landscape, the economic map of different corners of the world has also been in a constant state of change. As part of this change, the third world economy has also been able to better involve in the global economic interaction. One of the major elements taking place in this process is growth and expansion of the non-traditional agricultural sector. The non- traditional agriculture or horticulture sector beyond becoming one of the means in which developing countries got a window of involvement in a global market, it also intensified the concept of ‘feminization of labor’. Women are the major players of the sector, which in other words means the sector is able to create a very large number of paid job opportunities for women. Considering this fact, this thesis is aimed at assessing the socio-economic impact of the job opportunity on those women who get the opportunity of employment. Having this general objective, three research questions have been asked: 1. How does the job opportunity affect their life improvement? 2. What impact does the job opportunity impact women’s decision-making power at the household level? 3. How the job opportunity does affect their social participation within the community? From the analysis, it is found that the income from the job opportunity rarely improved life of the women from the perspectives of saving, children is education, and household expenditures. With regard to family-decision making, the analysis uncovered that slight progress in freedom of expressing ideas in the household has been observed from the married women’s experience. On the other hand, the job opportunity is found to significantly increase the women social participation both in their neighborhood and at the work place