This paper investigates gender differences in spatial mobility with respect to participation in off-farm
employment in rural Tanzania. The mobility issue arises because the recent increase in women
participation in off-farm employment is likely to saturate the local labor market/off-farm opportunities
and dampen the rural wages/profit among women if it is not accompanied by increased geographical
mobility. The results show that, despite the recent increase in their participation, women do not have
significant geographical mobility, thus tends to operate more locally as compared to men. The results of
decompositions of gender differences in participation in off-farm employment show that a substantial
portion of the gender differences is not explained by individuals' endowments. However, policy
interventions that could narrow the education gap between male and female are likely to narrow the
existing gender gap. Likewise, policies that increases access to water (reduce time needed to collects
water) have the potential of reducing the observed gender differences. Since geographical mobility
among women is likely to be dictated by cultural factors that tend to have policy inertia, in the short run,
there is need to create diversified off-farm opportunities for women within the rural areas in order to
reduce unnecessary competition among them.