Taxing development in Tanzania: why must women pay?

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Abstract
The extension of a development tax to women in Tanzania raises the general issue of the relevance of gender to patterns of economic development in a country with a ‘socialist’ reputation. This article looks at the link between gender and development in Tanzania, but equally importantly it focuses on the way in which the question of gender has been contested and debated within Tanzania. While the debate on gender has highlighted the way in which ‘socialist’ policies have intensified women's workloads without removing patriarchal social relations, the development tax both recognises the contribution of women but also exposes their continued dependence on men, since their production does not always result in cash income. Structural adjustment programmes have, however, begun to force women into the marketing of subsistence food in order to make ends meet, as the inflationary effects of adjustment bite. Rather than being ‘integrated into development’, SAPs and the Development Levy bind women more closely into capitalist and petty commodity relations of production.

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