The Effects of Tap Water Outages on Household Income, Unemployment, and Women's Labor in Panama

Inadequate access to clean tap water restrains individuals' ability to engage in productive activities and generate income. When tap water provision is interrupted, people must dedicate considerable time to fetching water and managing its use for household chores, while facing significant health risks due to reduced hands and food washing. Using repeated cross-sectional data from 32,652 households and 44,178 individuals aged 18 to 56 from the Multipurpose Surveys of Panama for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019, we find compelling evidence that increasing hours of tap water outage (due to infrastructure inefficiencies) reduce household income, increase the likelihood of unemployment, and decrease the hours female workers can dedicate to productive activities. Previous studies highlight that transitioning from not having tap water to having it positively affects socio-economic development, especially in middle- and low-income countries. However, beyond the initial provision of tap water, we provide evidence of the importance of continuous maintenance and investment in water infrastructure, as old pipelines, inadequate water treatment facilities, and insufficient distribution networks are the main causes of jeopardized water quality and supply reliability in many developing countries.