IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_983.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intrahousehold Allocation of Household Production: A Comparative Analysis for Sub-Saharan African Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Rios-Avila
  • Abena D. Oduro
  • Luiza Nassif-Pires

Abstract

In this working paper, we analyze factors that may explain gender differences in the allocation of time to household production in sub-Saharan Africa. The study uses time use survey data to analyze the determinants of time spent on household production by husbands and wives in nuclear families in Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa. We assume that the time spent by each spouse is a function of personal and household characteristics. A bivariate Tobit model is used to estimate the marginal impact of a set of key variables that figure recurrently in the literature on time allocation. We observe a high degree of variability in the results for the set of countries, which does not allow us to draw hard general conclusions. We do find some weak evidence that supports time availability and gender ideology theory as well as for the hypothesis that bargaining power plays a role in explaining the intrahousehold allocation of household production.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Rios-Avila & Abena D. Oduro & Luiza Nassif-Pires, 2021. "Intrahousehold Allocation of Household Production: A Comparative Analysis for Sub-Saharan African Countries," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_983, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_983.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2002. "Timing, togetherness and time windfalls," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 601-623.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    3. Eugenia Amporfu & Daniel Sakyi & Prince Boakye Frimpong & Eric Arthur & Jacob Novignon, 2018. "The Distribution of Paid and Unpaid Work among Men and Women in Ghana: The National Time Transfer Accounts Approach," Working Papers cwwwp3, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    4. Julia Bredtmann, 2014. "The Intra-household Division of Labor: An Empirical Analysis of Spousal Influences on Individual Time Allocation," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(1), pages 1-39, March.
    5. Joana Costa & Degol Hailu & Elydia Silva & Raquel Tsukada, 2009. "The Implications of Water and Electricity Supply for the Time Allocation of Women in Rural Ghana," Working Papers 59, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    6. Ransom, Michael R, 1987. "An Empirical Model of Discrete and Continuous Choice in Family Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 465-472, August.
    7. Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy, 1997. "A Test of the Unitary and Collective Models of Household Labour Supply," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 933-955, July.
    8. Morne Oosthuizen, 2018. "Counting Women’s Work in South Africa: Incorporating Unpaid Work into Estimates of the Economic Lifecycle in 2010," Working Papers cwwwp8, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    9. Esther Duflo & Christopher Udry, 2003. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Côte D'ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices," Working Papers 857, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    10. David Lawson, 2008. "Infrastructure And Time Poverty In Lesotho," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(1), pages 77-88, March.
    11. Robert A. Pollak, 2005. "Bargaining Power in Marriage: Earnings, Wage Rates and Household Production," NBER Working Papers 11239, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Marcos A. Rangel, 2006. "Alimony Rights and Intrahousehold Allocation of Resources: Evidence from Brazil," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 627-658, July.
    13. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2014. "Assessing the Welfare Impact of Tax Reform: A Case Study of the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 404-404, June.
    14. Milanovic, Branko, 2003. "Is inequality in Africa really different ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3169, The World Bank.
    15. Bradley T. Heim, 2009. "Structural Estimation of Family Labor Supply with Taxes: Estimating a Continuous Hours Model Using a Direct Utility Specification," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    16. Shelly J. Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak & Terence J. Wales, 1997. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from the United Kingdom Child Benefit," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(3), pages 463-480.
    17. Patrick Ndlovu & Sandeep Mohapatra & Marty Luckert, 2018. "Income Effects on Intra†Household Time Allocation: Regression Discontinuity Evidence," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 713-719, May.
    18. Suzanne Bianchi, 2000. "Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 401-414, November.
    19. Diksha Arora, 2015. "Gender Differences in Time-Poverty in Rural Mozambique," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(2), pages 196-221, June.
    20. Fernando Rios-Avila, 2020. "MBITOBIT: Stata module to fit bivariate Tobit regression," Statistical Software Components S458741, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 10 May 2020.
    21. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bergolo, Marcelo & Galván, Estefanía, 2018. "Intra-household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs. Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 100-118.
    2. Djebbari, Habiba, 2005. "The Impact on Nutrition of the Intrahousehold Distribution of Power," IZA Discussion Papers 1701, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. LaFave, Daniel & Thomas, Duncan, 2017. "Extended families and child well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 52-65.
    4. Laurens CHERCHYE & Thomas DEMUYNCK & Bram DE ROCK, 2010. "Noncooperative household consumption with caring," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces10.34, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    5. Gutierrez, Federico H., 2018. "A Sharing Model of the Household: Explaining the Deaton-Paxson Paradox and Computing Household Indifference Scales," GLO Discussion Paper Series 166, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. André de Palma & Nathalie Picard & Robin Lindsey, 2024. "Activity and transportation decisions within households," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 16, pages 426-451, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Claudia Martínez A., 2013. "Intrahousehold Allocation and Bargaining Power: Evidence from Chile," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(3), pages 577-605.
    8. Charlotte Ringdal & Ingrid Hoem Sjursen, 2021. "Household Bargaining and Spending on Children: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 430-455, April.
    9. Rachel Connelly & Jean Kimmel, 2009. "Spousal influences on parents’ non-market time choices," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 361-394, December.
    10. Noray, Savannah & Janzen, Sarah A., 2017. "Household Migration and Expenditure Decisions," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258539, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. Schaubert, Marianna, 2018. "Do Alimony Regulations Matter inside Marriage? Evidence from the 2008 Reform of the German Maintenance Law," EconStor Preprints 173193, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Schaubert, Marianna, 2018. "Do Alimony Regulations Matter inside Marriage? Evidence from the 2008 Reform of the German Maintenance Law," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181508, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Majlesi, Kaveh, 2016. "Labor market opportunities and women's decision making power within households," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 34-47.
    14. Catherine T. Kenney, 2007. "When Father Doesn't Know Best: Parents' Management and Control of Money and Children's Food Insecurity," Working Papers 24, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    15. repec:pri:crcwel:wp07-04-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Nunley, John M. & Seals Jr., Richard Alan, 2011. "Child-custody reform, marital investment in children, and the labor supply of married mothers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 14-24, January.
    17. Independent Evaluation Group, 2014. "Social Safety Nets and Gender : Learning from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Projects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21365.
    18. Eugene Choo & Shannon Seitz & Aloysius Siow, 2008. "The Collective Marriage Matching Model: Identification, Estimation and Testing," Working Papers tecipa-340, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    19. Leora Friedberg & Steven Stern, 2014. "Marriage, Divorce, And Asymmetric Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1155-1199, November.
    20. Heggeness, Misty L., 2020. "Improving child welfare in middle income countries: The unintended consequence of a pro-homemaker divorce law and wait time to divorce," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    21. James Fenske & Vellore Arthi, 2013. "Labour and Health in Colonial Nigeria," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _114, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time Use; Household Production; Economics of the Family; Gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • C34 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_983. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.