Rethinking Time Allocation of Egyptian Women: A Matching Analysis

To our knowledge, the present research is the first to explore the extremely biased division of labor within Egyptian households. Time activities in respect of paid and unpaid work are an important aspect of this study. The classical dichotomy of “work in the market” versus “leisure” may serve as a good approximation of the role the male plays in the production activity of the household but does grave injustice to the female since it overlooks the whole time she spends outside the market—on domestic activities. Moreover, studying the females’ invisible unpaid work is crucial since it remains the females’ main occupation. Time-use profiles are constructed using the Egyptian time-use data available, only for females, in the Egyptian Labor Market and Panel Surveys of 1998 and 2006. On the one hand, the empirical exercise analyzes the main features of Egyptian females’ time allocation relying on both cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. On the other hand, we estimate a Propensity Score Matching model in order to evaluate the effect of marriage on the female market and domestic labor supplies. Results show that marriage significantly affect both types of work. Married females spend about 8 hours less on market work relative to their single counterparts. And interestingly, marriage as a treatment increases the domestic labor supply by 30 hours on average.