The Unequal Burden of Poverty on Time Use in South Africa
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Nov 22, 2019
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Abstract
This study aims to contribute to the research on poverty by analysing the association of income poverty with gender inequalities in time use patterns. Based on South Africa's first time-use data compiled in 2000, we explore whether household income poverty has any influence on the typical patterns of time use of women and men. Controlling for a variety of household and individual characteristics, we assess the extent to which living in income poverty produce long hours of work –-in particular unpaid work hours-- using bivariate and multivariate Tobit estimations. Our results show asymmetric impacts of income poverty on women's and men's time allocations controlling for the widely accepted determining factors. While women in poor households spend more time on unpaid work activities, we do not see any significant change in men's unpaid work time with poverty status. Women's total paid and unpaid work time is higher under poverty as the increase in their unpaid work time extends away from the decline in paid work time. Other findings obtained provide supporting evidence presented in previous research: being married/cohabiting with a partner has an increasing impact on women's unpaid work, whereas an opposite impact is observed for their male counterparts. Women's unpaid work time increases with the number of preschool children, whereas it is the paid work time which rises in case of men's work time.
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Kızılırmak, B. and Memiş, E. (2019) “The Unequal Burden of Poverty on Time Use in South Africa”, World Journal of Applied Economics, 5(2), pp. 31-51. doi: 10.22440/wjae.5.2.1.
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References
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Amemiya, T. (1974). Multivariate Regression and Simultaneous Equation Models when Dependent Variables Are Truncated Normal. Econometrica, 42(6), 999–1012.
Antonopoulos, R. (2008). The Unpaid Care Work–Paid Work Connection (Working Paper No. 541). The Levy Institute.
Antonopoulos, R., & Hirway, I. (2010). Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Arias, C., & Cox, T. L. (2001). Estimation of a US Diary Sector Model by Maximum Simulated Likelihood. Applied Economics, 33(9), 1201–11. doi:10.1080/00036840010005797
Armstrong, P., Lekezwa, B., & Siebrits, K. (2008). Poverty in South Africa: A Profile Based On Recent Household Surveys (Working Paper No. 04/08). Stellenbosch University.
Becker, G. S. (1981). A Treatise on the Family. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Beneria, L. (2003). Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Routledge.
Bittman, M., & Folbre, N. (2004). Family Time: The Social Organization of Care. New York: Routledge.
Bittman, M., Folbre, N., England, P., Sayer, L., & Matheson, G. (2003). When Does
Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work. American Journal of Sociology, 109(1), 186–214. doi:10.1086/378341
Bryan, M. L., & Sevilla–Sanz, A. (2011). Does Housework Lower Wages? Evidence for Britain. Oxford Economic Papers, 63(1), 187–210. doi:10.1093/oep/gpq011
Burchardt, T. (2008). Time and Income Poverty (Report No. 57). Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), London School of Economics.
Cash, S. J., Sellers, S. L., & Claps, M. (2005). Money Equals Time: Influence of Poverty Status on Hours Spent Doing Housework. Journal of Poverty, 9(2), 89–109. doi:10.1300/J134v09n02 05
Çağatay, N. (1998). Gender and Poverty (Working Paper No. 5). UNDP Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division.
Charmes, J. (2006). A Review of Empirical Evidence on Time Use in Africa from UN sponsored Surveys. In C. M. Blackden & Q. Wodon (Eds.), Gender, Time Use, and Poverty in Sub–Saharan Africa (pp. 39–72). World Bank Working Paper No. 73.
Connelly, R., DeGraff, D. S., & Levison, D. (1996). Women’s Employment and Child Care in Brazil. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 44(3), 619–56.
Couprie, H. (2007). Time Allocation within the Family: Welfare Implications of Life in a Couple. Economic Journal, 117(516), 287–305. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02012.x
Duncan, G. J., Dunifon, R. E., Doran, M. B. W., & Yeung, W. J. (2001). How Different are Welfare and Working Families? And Do Those Differences Matter for Children’s Achievement? In G. J. Duncan & L. Chase-Lansdale (Eds.), For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-being of Children and Families (pp. 103–31). New York: Russell Sage.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (2007). Women’s Contribution to Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 10th Session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Elson, D. (1993). Gender–aware Analysis and Development Economics. Journal of International Development, 5(2), 237–47. doi:10.1002/jid.3380050214
Elson, D. (2005). Unpaid Work: Creating Social Wealth or Subsidizing Patriarchy and Private Profit? [Lecture for the Forum on Social Wealth]. http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/dpe/fsw/Diane.pdf
Elson, D. (2009). Social Reproduction in the Global Crisis. In UNRISD Conference on Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
Esquivel, V. (2010). Lessons from the Buenos Aires Time–Use Survey: A Methodological Assessment. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries (pp. 181–214). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Flood, L., & Grasjö, U. (1998). Regression Analysis and Time Use Data A Comparison of Microeconometric Approaches with Data from the Swedish Time Use Survey (HUS) (Working Paper No. 5). University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
Floro, M. S. (1995). Women’s Well–being, Poverty, and Work Intensity. Feminist Economics, 1(3), 1–25. doi:10.1080/714042246
Foster, G., & Kalenkoski, C. M. (2013). Tobit or OLS? An Empirical Evaluation Under Different Diary Window Lengths. Applied Economics, 45(20), 2994–3010. doi:10.1080/00036846.2012.690852
Gershuny, J. (2000). Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Postindustrial Society. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Greene, W. H. (2008). Econometric Analysis (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Gronau, R. (1973). The Intra–family Allocation of Time: The Value of the Housewives’ Time. The American Economic Review, 63(4), 634–51.
Gupta, S. (1999). The Effects of Transitions in Marital Status on Men’s Performance of Housework. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(3), 700–11. doi:10.2307/353571
Haddad, L., & Kanbur, R. (1990). How Serious Is The Neglect Of Intra–Household Inequality? Economic Journal, 100(402), 866–81. doi:10.2307/2233663
Hajivassiliou, V. A., McFadden, D., & Ruud, P. (1996). Simulation of Multivariate Normal Rectangle Probabilities and Their Derivatives: Theoretical and Computational Results. Journal of Econometrics, 72(1–2), 85-134. doi:10.1016/0304-4076(94)01716-6
Hajivassiliou, V. A., & Ruud, P. (1994). Classical Estimation Methods for LDV Models Using Simulation. In R. Engle & D. McFadden (Eds.), Handbook of Econometrics (IV ed., pp. 2383–2441). New York: Elsevier.
Harris, B. (1990). The Intrafamily Distribution of Hunger in South Asia. In J. Dreze &
A. K. Sen (Eds.), The Political Economy of Hunger, Entitlement and Well–Being (pp. 351–425). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hartmann, H. (1979). The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union. Capital and Class, 3(2), 1–33.
Harvey, A. S., & Mukhopadhyay, A. K. (2007). When Twenty-four Hours is not Enough: Time Poverty of Working Parents. Social Indicators Research, 82(1), 57–77. doi:10.1007/s11205-006-9002-5
Hersch, J., & Stratton, L. S. (1997). Housework, Fixed Effects, and Wages of Married Workers. Journal of Human Resources, 32(2), 285-307. doi:10.2307/146216
Hirway, I. (2010). Understanding Poverty: Insights Emerging from Time Use of the Poor. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy (pp. 22–57). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Hoogeveen, J. G., & Özler, B. (2006). Poverty and Inequality in Post–Apartheid South Africa: 1995–2000. In H. Bhorat & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and Policy in Post–Apertheid South Africa (pp. 59–94). Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Hook, J. (2010). Gender Inequality in the Welfare State: Task Segregation in Housework, 1965–2003. American Journal of Sociology, 111(5), 1480–1523. doi:10.1086/651384
Huber, J., & Spitze, G. (1983). Sex Stratification: Children, Housework, and Jobs. New York: Academic Press.
Ilahi, N. (2000). The Intra–household Allocation of Time and Tasks: What Have We Learnt from the Empirical Literature? (Working Paper Series No. 13). The World Bank.
Kimmel, J., & Connelly, R. (2006). Determinants of Mothers’ Time Choices in the United States: Caregiving, Leisure, Home Production, and Paid Work (Discussion Paper No. 2058). IZA.
Klasen, S. (1997). Poverty, Inequality and Deprivation in South Africa: An Analysis of the 1993 SALDRU Survey. Social Indicator Research, 41(1-3), 51–94. doi:10.1023/A:100689221
Leibbrandt, M., Poswell, L., Naidoo, P., & Welch, M. (2006). Measuring Recent Changes in South African Inequality and Poverty using 1996 and 2001 Census Data. In H. Bhorat & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and Policy in Post–Apertheid South Africa (pp. 95–142). Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Memiş, E., & Antonopoulos, R. (2010). Poverty Unpaid Work, Poverty and Unemployment: A Gender Perspective from South Africa. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries (pp. 76–111). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230250
Milkman, R. (1976). Women’s Work and Economic Crisis: Some Lessons of the Great Depression. Review of Radical Political Economics, 8(1), 71–97. doi:10.1177/048661347600800107
Öneş, U., Memiş, E., & Kızılırmak, B. (2013). Poverty and Intra–household Distribution¨ of Work Time in Turkey: Analysis and Some Policy Implications. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41(1), 55–64. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.01.004
Sen, A. (1984). Resources, Values and Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Skoufias, E. (1993). Labour Market Opportunities and Interfamily Time Allocation in Rural Households in South Asia. Journal of Development Economics, 40(2), 277–310. doi:10.1016/0304-3878(93)90086-3
South African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN). (2004). Fact sheet: Poverty in South Africa. https://sarpn.org/documents/d0000990/
Stern, S. (1997). Simulation–Based Estimation. Journal of Economic Literature, 35(4), 2006–39.
Steward, J. (2009). Tobit or Not Tobit? (Discussion Paper No. 4588). IZA.
van der Berg, S., Burger, R., Burger, R., Louw, M., & Yu, D. (2006). Trends in Poverty and Inequality since the Political Transition (Working Paper No. 06/104). University of Cape Town.
Vickery, C. (1977). The Time-Poor: A New Look at Poverty. Journal of Human Resources, 12(1), 27–48. doi:10.2307/145597
Woolard, I., & Leibbrandt, M. (1999). Measuring Poverty in South Africa (Working Papers No. 99/33). Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
Wooldridge, J. (2009). Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. Florence, KY: South Western Cengage Learning.
Amemiya, T. (1974). Multivariate Regression and Simultaneous Equation Models when Dependent Variables Are Truncated Normal. Econometrica, 42(6), 999–1012.
Antonopoulos, R. (2008). The Unpaid Care Work–Paid Work Connection (Working Paper No. 541). The Levy Institute.
Antonopoulos, R., & Hirway, I. (2010). Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Arias, C., & Cox, T. L. (2001). Estimation of a US Diary Sector Model by Maximum Simulated Likelihood. Applied Economics, 33(9), 1201–11. doi:10.1080/00036840010005797
Armstrong, P., Lekezwa, B., & Siebrits, K. (2008). Poverty in South Africa: A Profile Based On Recent Household Surveys (Working Paper No. 04/08). Stellenbosch University.
Becker, G. S. (1981). A Treatise on the Family. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Beneria, L. (2003). Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Routledge.
Bittman, M., & Folbre, N. (2004). Family Time: The Social Organization of Care. New York: Routledge.
Bittman, M., Folbre, N., England, P., Sayer, L., & Matheson, G. (2003). When Does
Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work. American Journal of Sociology, 109(1), 186–214. doi:10.1086/378341
Bryan, M. L., & Sevilla–Sanz, A. (2011). Does Housework Lower Wages? Evidence for Britain. Oxford Economic Papers, 63(1), 187–210. doi:10.1093/oep/gpq011
Burchardt, T. (2008). Time and Income Poverty (Report No. 57). Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), London School of Economics.
Cash, S. J., Sellers, S. L., & Claps, M. (2005). Money Equals Time: Influence of Poverty Status on Hours Spent Doing Housework. Journal of Poverty, 9(2), 89–109. doi:10.1300/J134v09n02 05
Çağatay, N. (1998). Gender and Poverty (Working Paper No. 5). UNDP Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division.
Charmes, J. (2006). A Review of Empirical Evidence on Time Use in Africa from UN sponsored Surveys. In C. M. Blackden & Q. Wodon (Eds.), Gender, Time Use, and Poverty in Sub–Saharan Africa (pp. 39–72). World Bank Working Paper No. 73.
Connelly, R., DeGraff, D. S., & Levison, D. (1996). Women’s Employment and Child Care in Brazil. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 44(3), 619–56.
Couprie, H. (2007). Time Allocation within the Family: Welfare Implications of Life in a Couple. Economic Journal, 117(516), 287–305. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02012.x
Duncan, G. J., Dunifon, R. E., Doran, M. B. W., & Yeung, W. J. (2001). How Different are Welfare and Working Families? And Do Those Differences Matter for Children’s Achievement? In G. J. Duncan & L. Chase-Lansdale (Eds.), For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-being of Children and Families (pp. 103–31). New York: Russell Sage.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (2007). Women’s Contribution to Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 10th Session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Elson, D. (1993). Gender–aware Analysis and Development Economics. Journal of International Development, 5(2), 237–47. doi:10.1002/jid.3380050214
Elson, D. (2005). Unpaid Work: Creating Social Wealth or Subsidizing Patriarchy and Private Profit? [Lecture for the Forum on Social Wealth]. http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/dpe/fsw/Diane.pdf
Elson, D. (2009). Social Reproduction in the Global Crisis. In UNRISD Conference on Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
Esquivel, V. (2010). Lessons from the Buenos Aires Time–Use Survey: A Methodological Assessment. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries (pp. 181–214). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Flood, L., & Grasjö, U. (1998). Regression Analysis and Time Use Data A Comparison of Microeconometric Approaches with Data from the Swedish Time Use Survey (HUS) (Working Paper No. 5). University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
Floro, M. S. (1995). Women’s Well–being, Poverty, and Work Intensity. Feminist Economics, 1(3), 1–25. doi:10.1080/714042246
Foster, G., & Kalenkoski, C. M. (2013). Tobit or OLS? An Empirical Evaluation Under Different Diary Window Lengths. Applied Economics, 45(20), 2994–3010. doi:10.1080/00036846.2012.690852
Gershuny, J. (2000). Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Postindustrial Society. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Greene, W. H. (2008). Econometric Analysis (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Gronau, R. (1973). The Intra–family Allocation of Time: The Value of the Housewives’ Time. The American Economic Review, 63(4), 634–51.
Gupta, S. (1999). The Effects of Transitions in Marital Status on Men’s Performance of Housework. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(3), 700–11. doi:10.2307/353571
Haddad, L., & Kanbur, R. (1990). How Serious Is The Neglect Of Intra–Household Inequality? Economic Journal, 100(402), 866–81. doi:10.2307/2233663
Hajivassiliou, V. A., McFadden, D., & Ruud, P. (1996). Simulation of Multivariate Normal Rectangle Probabilities and Their Derivatives: Theoretical and Computational Results. Journal of Econometrics, 72(1–2), 85-134. doi:10.1016/0304-4076(94)01716-6
Hajivassiliou, V. A., & Ruud, P. (1994). Classical Estimation Methods for LDV Models Using Simulation. In R. Engle & D. McFadden (Eds.), Handbook of Econometrics (IV ed., pp. 2383–2441). New York: Elsevier.
Harris, B. (1990). The Intrafamily Distribution of Hunger in South Asia. In J. Dreze &
A. K. Sen (Eds.), The Political Economy of Hunger, Entitlement and Well–Being (pp. 351–425). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hartmann, H. (1979). The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union. Capital and Class, 3(2), 1–33.
Harvey, A. S., & Mukhopadhyay, A. K. (2007). When Twenty-four Hours is not Enough: Time Poverty of Working Parents. Social Indicators Research, 82(1), 57–77. doi:10.1007/s11205-006-9002-5
Hersch, J., & Stratton, L. S. (1997). Housework, Fixed Effects, and Wages of Married Workers. Journal of Human Resources, 32(2), 285-307. doi:10.2307/146216
Hirway, I. (2010). Understanding Poverty: Insights Emerging from Time Use of the Poor. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy (pp. 22–57). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Hoogeveen, J. G., & Özler, B. (2006). Poverty and Inequality in Post–Apartheid South Africa: 1995–2000. In H. Bhorat & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and Policy in Post–Apertheid South Africa (pp. 59–94). Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Hook, J. (2010). Gender Inequality in the Welfare State: Task Segregation in Housework, 1965–2003. American Journal of Sociology, 111(5), 1480–1523. doi:10.1086/651384
Huber, J., & Spitze, G. (1983). Sex Stratification: Children, Housework, and Jobs. New York: Academic Press.
Ilahi, N. (2000). The Intra–household Allocation of Time and Tasks: What Have We Learnt from the Empirical Literature? (Working Paper Series No. 13). The World Bank.
Kimmel, J., & Connelly, R. (2006). Determinants of Mothers’ Time Choices in the United States: Caregiving, Leisure, Home Production, and Paid Work (Discussion Paper No. 2058). IZA.
Klasen, S. (1997). Poverty, Inequality and Deprivation in South Africa: An Analysis of the 1993 SALDRU Survey. Social Indicator Research, 41(1-3), 51–94. doi:10.1023/A:100689221
Leibbrandt, M., Poswell, L., Naidoo, P., & Welch, M. (2006). Measuring Recent Changes in South African Inequality and Poverty using 1996 and 2001 Census Data. In H. Bhorat & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and Policy in Post–Apertheid South Africa (pp. 95–142). Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Memiş, E., & Antonopoulos, R. (2010). Poverty Unpaid Work, Poverty and Unemployment: A Gender Perspective from South Africa. In R. Antonopoulos & I. Hirway (Eds.), Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty in Developing Countries (pp. 76–111). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230250
Milkman, R. (1976). Women’s Work and Economic Crisis: Some Lessons of the Great Depression. Review of Radical Political Economics, 8(1), 71–97. doi:10.1177/048661347600800107
Öneş, U., Memiş, E., & Kızılırmak, B. (2013). Poverty and Intra–household Distribution¨ of Work Time in Turkey: Analysis and Some Policy Implications. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41(1), 55–64. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.01.004
Sen, A. (1984). Resources, Values and Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Skoufias, E. (1993). Labour Market Opportunities and Interfamily Time Allocation in Rural Households in South Asia. Journal of Development Economics, 40(2), 277–310. doi:10.1016/0304-3878(93)90086-3
South African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN). (2004). Fact sheet: Poverty in South Africa. https://sarpn.org/documents/d0000990/
Stern, S. (1997). Simulation–Based Estimation. Journal of Economic Literature, 35(4), 2006–39.
Steward, J. (2009). Tobit or Not Tobit? (Discussion Paper No. 4588). IZA.
van der Berg, S., Burger, R., Burger, R., Louw, M., & Yu, D. (2006). Trends in Poverty and Inequality since the Political Transition (Working Paper No. 06/104). University of Cape Town.
Vickery, C. (1977). The Time-Poor: A New Look at Poverty. Journal of Human Resources, 12(1), 27–48. doi:10.2307/145597
Woolard, I., & Leibbrandt, M. (1999). Measuring Poverty in South Africa (Working Papers No. 99/33). Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
Wooldridge, J. (2009). Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. Florence, KY: South Western Cengage Learning.