Data and Code for: Time Use and Gender in Africa in Times of Structural Transformation

These files contain data and code to replicate figures and tables in "Time Use and Gender in Africa in Times of Structural Transformation", by Taryn Dinkelman and L. Rachel Ngai.

Abstract: This paper focuses on women's time use in Africa, where many countries are still in the early stages of structural transformation. Typically, as economies move through the structural transformation, activities once conducted within the household are outsourced to the market, with particular implications for women's time use. We show that current patterns of female time use in home production across several African countries closely resemble historical time use patterns in the US. We highlight two stylized facts about women's time use in Africa. First, in North Africa, women spend very few hours in market work and female labor force participation overall is extremely low. Second, although sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by higher extensive margin participation of women, many women work in the market for only a few hours each week, with the rest of their work hours spent in home production. These two facts suggest two different types of constraints that could slow down the reallocation of female time from home to market as economies grow: Social norms related to women's market work, and a lack of infrastructure (e.g. household infrastructure and childcare facilities) for marketizing home production. We discuss recent empirical evidence related to these constraints and highlight new avenues for research.