Abstract:
The paper aims at examining rural women’s adoption of a combination of labour-saving
mechanisms such as improved water supplies and harvesting techniques, cooking
facilities and means of transport for household chores with its implications in diversi-
fying livelihood strategies in Busega District of Tanzania. The study adopted Diffusion
of Innovations Theory to explain the importance of adopting labour-saving mecha-
nisms to reduce rural women’s workload and save time for diversifying livelihood strat-
egies. The study employed cross-sectional research design to collect data from 210 rural
women. Household survey, interviews, focus group discussions and non-participant
observations were used to collect primary data. Cross-tabulation, One-way ANOVA,
five point Likert scale and multiple logistic regression were employed to analyse quan-
titative data. Content analysis was employed to analyse qualitative data. The study
revealed that, 61.43% of rural women were limited to adopt any kind of labour-saving
mechanisms. In addition, the multiple logistic regression revealed significant differ-
ences at p-value of 0.05 for the likelihood of diversifying livelihood strategies. As such,
rural women’s participation in livelihood strategies differed greatly based on the abil-
ity to adopt labour-saving mechanisms for reducing the workload of household chores.
The study recommends that development stakeholders should implement develop-
ment programmes centred on increasing prospects of adopting a combination of
labour-saving mechanisms for reducing the burden of household chores to save time
for diversifying livelihood strategies.
