The informal palm oil and kernel processing industry in Ghana: A safe haven or a poverty trap for women?

Obodai, J ORCID: 0000-0003-3108-0755, Okoh Agyemang, F, Baffour Asamoah, PK and Acheampong Abaitey, AK (2022) The informal palm oil and kernel processing industry in Ghana: A safe haven or a poverty trap for women? Cogent Social Sciences, 8 (1).

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Abstract

According to the International Labour Organisation, the informal sector employs more than 60% of the world’s workforce. Due to severe gender inequality in the formal sector, women dominate the informal economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, the informal sector can help with poverty reduction efforts, especially among vulnerable groups like women. Despite a number of studies examining various businesses, the informal palm oil and kernel production industry (POKPI) has garnered little attention, especially in Ghana. We used a cross-sectional survey design and pragmatism as our philosophical approach to answer the question of whether the POKPI is a safe haven or a poverty trap for women. The perspective through which we conducted this research was the Sustainable Livelihood Approach. The findings demonstrate that the POKPI has a lot of promise for providing women with long-term livelihood options. However, if its current slew of problems is neglected, it has the potential to sink its participants into a never-ending cycle of poverty. As a result, we made some suggestions for overcoming the obstacles to positioning the POKPI as a viable livelihood plan for women.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	4404 Development Studies; 44 Human Society; 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth; 1 No Poverty; 10 Reduced Inequalities
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Divisions:	Biological and Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
Date of acceptance:	20 January 2022
Date of first compliant Open Access:	10 February 2025
Date Deposited:	10 Feb 2025 13:00
Last Modified:	03 Jul 2025 15:31
DOI or ID number:	10.1080/23311886.2022.2035046
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/25588

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