Poverty and Intrahousehold Gender Inequality in Time Use in Ghana

ABSTRACT

How gender-based differences in time spent on household and labor-market activities affect men’s and women’s well-being is of growing interest to economists and policymakers. In many countries, women perform more unpaid work than men and have fewer opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty through education and training. This article analyzes the relationship between poverty and gender inequality in time use among monogamous couples in Ghana. A key finding is that women in poor households face heterogeneous levels of inequality in time use, depending on the type of activity, inequality in time use, and characteristics of the household. The study highlights the importance of devising gender-aware policies and altering entrenched cultural stereotypes, thereby helping to reduce inequality between men and women. This should afford more women the opportunity to play a more productive and economically meaningful role in the formal labor market.

HIGHLIGHTS

• In Ghana, poor households face significantly higher gender inequality in time use compared to rich households.

• Levels of time-use inequality for poor women vary in relation to activity and household characteristics.

• Policies should prioritize reducing poverty to alleviate intrahousehold inequality.

• Gender-aware policies should address norms that impede women’s labor market participation and autonomous time allocation.

KEYWORDS:

• Poverty
• gender inequality
• time use
• tobit
• conditional mixed-process model

JEL CODES:

• D13
• I32
• J16

Notes

1 The Human Development Report on time use across the world was based on a collection of TUS data for the respective countries in different years. In SSA, the survey years ranged from 1998 in Benin to 2014 in Tanzania.

2 The System of National Accounts (SNA) is an internationally agreed framework for estimating the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country (GSS 2012b). Within the production boundary, extended SNA includes domestic and personal services produced and consumed within the same household. These include cleaning, servicing, and repairs; preparation and serving of meals; care, training, and instruction of children; care of the sick, infirm, and elderly; transportation of members of the household or their goods; and unpaid volunteer services to other households, the community, neighborhood associations, and other associations (GSS 2012b).

3 In a matrilineal system, fathers and their children do not belong to the same family, since a family is defined only as the maternal grandmother, her children, and her daughters’ children. In a patrilineal system, a family comprises the paternal grandfather, his children and his sons’ children; thus, mothers and their children are not part of the same family (Amu 2005).

4 Alternatively, we could have used the Ghana Time Use Survey (TUS) data. However, such data were more outdated (collected in 2009) than the GLSS6 data that were collected in 2013. The GLSS6 contained information on all the household and economic activities necessary for computing our inequality indicators.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emmanuel Orkoh

Emmanuel Orkoh completed his PhD on the issue of intrahousehould inequality in Ghana. Orkoh holds certificates for courses on trade and poverty, trade and gender, Economic Analysis of Non-Tariff Measure, WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, and Regional Trade Facilitation Rules and Regulations and Multilateral Trade Negotiations provided by UNCTAD Virtual Institute and UNITAR/ ECOWAS Commission.

Carike Claassen

Carike Claassen is Associate Professor at the North-West University's School of Economics Sciences.

Derick Blaauw

Derick Blaauw is Professor at the North-West University's School of Economic Sciences and focuses on better understanding the informal labor market in South Africa.