Women Retail Traders in Cambodia

Abstract

This study applies Amartya Sen’s cooperative conflict model as a tool to examine gender relations in the household, which in turn determine women’s participation in the market and their bargaining position. The research, conducted in early 1997 using interviews with 249 retail traders in Phnom Penh, shows that even though women are gaining economically, there is no corresponding improvement in their bargaining power. Women continue to view the non-economic contributions of their husbands as more important than their own economic contributions. The social definition of what it means to be a ‘woman’ is working as an ’undiscussed’ force, preventing the issue of the gender division of occupation, with women at the lower end of the social status, from even appearing on the bargaining table.