Life in this cottage! My husband was German. An entertaining interview with Emama Shashitu. In addition to widowhood, the rural-urban migration process further increases older women’s economic vulnerability. Almost all female urban respondents stated that they moved to their current urban residency from outlying rural areas as young women. As a result, they can no longer rely on family in rural areas to assist them. This rural-urban migration is common throughout Ethiopia but has a particularly negative effect increasing the economic vulnerability of older women who have lost both their husbands and their children, increasing their probability of becoming beggars to make ends meet. Respondents in the urban areas visited included a large number of dependent poor urban older persons, especially destitute older persons. The majority of these older persons said they had been full-time small-scale agriculturalists before migrating to urban areas. Most had been residents in urban areas for between ten and sixty years. Reasons for migration were: seeking work; marriage; visiting relatives; and medical treatment. Urban livelihood activities were reported as more diversified than rural livelihood options, especially for women. Older men noted that physically fit men could engage in daily labor, carpentry, construction, as well as petty trading.
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