Although the majority of Tanzanians speak Swahili, Tanzania is a multilingual country with approximately 120 ethnic groups with different dialects, customary practices, and value systems, which largely determine the position and status of women. The socio cultural diversities are a challenge to the initiatives of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

Gender inequality and its economic impact:

There is already a body of literature that has established that gender inequality in education, employment, access to assets and time use burdens have significant negative impact on economy generally and particularly on growth and poverty reduction. Human capital analysts argue that gender disparity produces a vicious cycle of poverty. If girls and women are discriminated against in accessing education and training, the country is denied of a skilled human capital needed otherwise to promote growth. Alternatively, investment in girls/women’s education has proved to be a more effective way of controlling the size of population and improving child’s welfare. Women with higher levels of education tend to have fewer children, who are healthier with lower mortality rates. Additionally, women with education will also tend to afford to invest in their children’s education than less educated women. It is further argued that inequality in employment reduces the skill pool available to an economy, a factor which might increase cost of labor and reduce economic competitiveness.