Gender, Time Use, and Poverty: Introduction

This paper serves as an introduction and overview for a volume that aims to shed light on the question of “time poverty” in Sub-Saharan Africa and its relationship with consumption-based measures of poverty, as well as other development outcomes. Time poverty, especially as seen in the “double workday” of women, has long been a staple of discussion of women’s situation in Africa. Yet it is not always clear what is meant by time poverty, how time poverty is measured, or what actions are required to tackle time poverty once identified. The papers presented in this volume seek to address these questions by reviewing the existing literature and analyzing new data available in time use modules of household income and consumption surveys in several African countries. The objective is to provide guidance and examples of how to define and measure time poverty, and also to address ways through which a better understanding of time poverty can inform poverty diagnostics, national poverty reduction strategies, and the design and implementation of development interventions.