How gender roles and relations affect health workers’ training opportunities and career progression in rural Zimbabwe: Implications for equitable health systems
This poster summarizes the key findings from the study: How gender roles and relations affect health workers’ training opportunities and career progression in rural Zimbabwe: Implications for equitable health systems.
Gender in human resources policy and planning is neglected in many contexts. Places/locations of deployment
can determine opportunities for advancement, access to training, promotion, progression to senior posts, and access to non-monetary benefits among other things. Gender imbalances in posting and deployment, particularly the structural and geographic location of men and women, has received little attention.
Health is a largely feminised field in Zimbabwe. Women generally opt for careers in Midwifery and Community Nursing. Men opt for Environmental Health and Psychiatric Nursing. Access to training is based on both seniority
and years in service; most participants perceived equal opportunities for both men and women.
But gender roles and norms at the household and institutional level created barriers for women to access training and career development opportunities; women postpone post-basic training due to pregnancy and childcare
responsibilities. Men who were ‘impatient’ with the system and opted for self-funding training courses. Most women
waited their turn and were sometimes unable to take them up due to gendered family responsibilities.
In terms of relocation a pattern emerged of wives following husbands; women resign from their jobs to seek new ones, therefore sacrificing the accruing of years of service required to access training and opportunities for promotion. Human resource managers preferred to deploy men to very rural areas; this created a wide range of experiences and opportunities for future access to training, invitation to international workshops and promotion
for men.
Health workers’ training and career progression in rural Zimbabwe is shaped by gender roles and relations within households and institutions. Men and women were affected differently by the posting and deployment systems. Men faced fewer gendered barriers compared to women but the systems were not responsive to the inequities. The study concluded that women’s career progression is affected by both the posting and deployment systems and family roles and responsibilities.
By Stephen Buzuzi, Mildred Pepukay, Pamela Chandiwana, Wilson Mashange, Yotamu Chirwa, Shungu Munyati, Rosemary Morgan, Tim Martineau and Sally Theobald