BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE
A research study carried out in Solomon Islands has found out that women’s greater financial resources often enable men to lessen their own contributions to the household with some making no contributions at all.
This was expressed by Professor Richard Eves, of Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs who was speaking at the Heritage Park Hotel under the Do No Harm Research Launch yesterday.
Whilst presenting key findings from the research study which took place in 2014 in Makira and Malaita provinces and Honiara involving 174 participants, he shed light on women’s experiences of having greater financial resources and how it affects the household.
Mr Eves explained that any connection between a woman’s economic empowerment and domestic violence is not always straightforward.
In this regard, he stressed that men and women interviewed pointed out a number of causes of martial conflict and violence, of which the most common one was linked to men’s consumption of alcohol.
Henceforth, Eves said that the research indicates that when women are more involved in greater financial activities, this often leads men to contribute less to their households where some tend to make no form of contributions at all.
“This allows men to use their money for their own personal consumption, resource depleting behavior that is often central to marital conflict.
“In such circumstances, when men contribute little either financially or by helping in the home, women’s increased income means a large increase in their work burden, now that income earning is added to their other customary duties,” said Eves.
