PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 4 Revealing gender differences through well-being ranking in Uganda

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 4 Revealing gender differences through well-being ranking in Uganda Janet Seeley, Januario Nabaitu, Lorraine Taylor, Ellen Kajura, Tanance Bukenya, Elizabeth Kabunga and Fatuma Ssembajja Introduction respondents insisted that all we wanted to know about was material wealth. One man raised the In a wealth-ranking exercise conducted in 1990 fear that we were conducting a tax assessment in nine villages in the Masaka District of south- exercise although we had hoped that talking of `well-being' not `wealth' would allay such west Uganda, we asked respondents to rank fears. households in their village according to their obugagga, the Luganda term for `riches' or material wealth (Nabaitu et al, 1993). Rationale Whilst analysing the results a difference was A considerable amount of data on the socio- observed between the way the seven male economic status of households in the study area respondents interpreted obugagga and the was obtained through a questionnaire-based interpretation of the one woman respondent. household survey in 1989/90. Researchers The woman ranked according to material found the interpretation of these data difficult wealth, but she also took into account the for a variety of reasons. Some people feared present social circumstances of the households. ...