Gender division of labor and farm production in subsistence
households∗
Diksha Arora†
April 15, 2014
Abstract
The study examines an important gender based constraint to agricultural
development - women’s time poverty. The analytical model in this paper relates rigidity of gender roles and resulting time poverty faced by women to
agricultural output in subsistence households. A case study from northern
Mozambique documents the adverse impact of unequal gender division of labor
on women’s participation and productivity on the farm. The conclusion from
the model and the case study evinces the negative impact of rigid gender roles
and women’s time poverty on agricultural output and household’s potential to
sell farm output.
1
Introduction
A seguranc, a alimentar repousa sobre os ombros das mulheres.
(Food security rests on women’s shoulders.)
Nos trabalhamos e eles controlam os todos produtos. Se nos não cultivarmos,
eles não conseguem ganhar um rendimento agricola suficiente.
(We [women] work and they [men] control all the produce. If we [women]
do not work, they [men] cannot earn a sufficient farm income.)
Women’s focus group in Nampula, Mozambique
In Sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder peasant households are most vulnerable
and food insecure. Women in these households play a vital role in agricultural
∗
The author would like to thank the Association of Social Economics and the Department of
Economics, University of Utah for their generous financial support in undertaking the field research
for this project.
†
Correspondence: Department of Economics, OSH 343, 260 S. Central Campus Drive, University
of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, email: diksha.arora@economics.utah.edu
1
production along with feeding and caring for the families. They provide substantial labor for production of food crops. At the same time, women also assist
their husbands in cash crop production.1 The burgeoning evidence documenting women’s critical role in agriculture has broadened the scope of development
policy to encompass the aspect of gender. Specific policy measures targeting
women farmers like improving women’s access to inputs and agricultural training have been emphasized repeatedly in the policy debates.
In the last few decades, there has been a greater awareness of gender based
constraints to agricultural development. Yet, an important constraint to agricultural development remains neglected and under researched - traditional gender division of labor and the resulting time poverty faced by women.
It is well established that the patriarchal norms shape gender roles and responsibilities. Usually in rural societies, these roles are rigid and place heavy
work burden on women. Outside the sphere of farm production, women are
responsible for household maintenance (indirect care) and provision of direct
care to their family members. In performing their roles of - food producer
and homemaker, women receive minimal assistance from men. Consequently,
women balance their multiple roles by undertaking different activities simultaneously.
The unequal division of labor between men and women and the resulting
time constraints on women is not only detrimental to their well-being but it
is also a source of inefficiency. In the same line of argument, William Darity
(1995) presents a theoretical model discussing household’s response to macroeconomic structural adjustment, which is shaped by the gender division of labor
between the cash crop sector and subsistence sector. Men control cash crop
production, relegating the production of food crops and activities related to
household maintenance and care work to women. At the same time, women
also assist their husbands in cash crop production in return for a small wage.
Darity’s model suggests that a favorable macroeconomic adjustment causing
1
In Sub-Saharan Africa, men dominate cash crop production or other income generating activities, relegating the production of food on women. Partly the social norms - men responsible for
meeting cash needs and women responsible for meeting food needs of the household, and partly
the policy mis-function - introduction of new crops, improved varieties, agricultural training and
extension target mainly men, explain under representation of women in cash crop production. See
2
an increase in the price of cash crops may not stimulate a corresponding rise
in output. Potentially, because the extensive pressure of work on women eventually causes a decline in their productivity in both the sectors, thus, slowing
down the growth of output.
Warner and Campbell (2000) present another economic model and a case
study documenting gender relations in Tanzania. Owing to unequal gender
division of labor and resources, the increase in prices of cash crop benefit men
relative to women within a typical agricultural household. They suggest that
using ‘household’ as a unit of analysis fail to provide a relevant explanation of
lack of supply response to structural adjustment in an agrarian economy. A
qualitative research by Tarimo et al. (2009) examines the experience of family
caregivers in Tanzania. The study suggests that due to the pressure of caring
for AIDS patients women significantly reduce their labor hours for cultivation
on the farm.
Overall, the empirical evidence documenting the effect of women’s time
constraints on agricultural output is very limited. The contribution of this
research is to fulfill this gap by presenting a case from Mozambique where
women who are burdened by the pressure of care provision have to reduce their
labor supply on the farm or reduce their leisure, thus, suffering a decline in
their productivity. Compared to other households, the households with women
devoting time on caring for sick, farm output and saleable surplus tends to be
lower.
In this paper, I present a simple economic framework analyzing the potential
impact of unequal gender division of labor on agricultural output. The gender
roles are considerably rigid in rural societies, thus, hinder the idea of substitution of activities between men and women. Due to strict cultural constructs
and poor bargaining power, women continue to bear the work burden. When
faced with time constraints women respond by multi-tasking or making tradeoffs between direct/indirect care work and farm production/income generating
activities. Besides direct physical effects on women’s health, the excessive work
burden and the resulting competing claims on women’s time can have important economic ramifications. The analytical framework in this paper, explores
3
the latter. The descriptive statistics from the rural household survey in Nampula province, Mozambique support the results of the model. To suffice the
economic model, qualitative evidence gathered through focus group discussions
and individual life histories is documented.
2
Modeling household behavior
The formal framework presents an analysis of interactions that take place in
a typical rural household in a subsistence society in Sub-Saharan Africa. The
insights about gender roles gained from direct participant observations and interviews in a field survey in Mozambique form the basis of this model. The
hypothesis in this model states that rigid gender roles in rural subsistence societies may reduce the agricultural output.
Given the dominance of agriculture in a subsistence society, it is fair to
assume that crop production/agriculture is the only source of livelihood. A
typical household in rural Mozambique produces different types of crops for
household consumption and sell any surplus over and above consumption. The
output from the farm is denoted as Xc . Generally, the rural households in
Mozambique have joint farming system. In other words, the man and the
woman in the household work together on the same plot/s to grow food and
cash crops.2 Therefore, Xc consists of Cc , share kept for household consumption
and rest, Sc , is sold in the market.
Xc = Cc + Sc
(1)
Consumption from own production, Cc is a fixed quantity kept aside out of
total harvest. Therefore, the quantity sold in the market, Sc is a residual or
surplus above consumption.3
2
There is no strict distinction between food and cash crops in the study districts. More often,
groundnut, cashew and sesame are produced particularly for sale in the market. However, these
crops are also consumed in the households. Other staple crops like cassava and maize are produced
mainly for consumption and sold if there is any surplus.
3
It is possible that surplus is zero if the household does not have sufficient crop output to fulfill
household consumption needs and sell in the market.
4
Equation (2) represents the production function for the farm output, Xc .
β γ
Xc = (ELfc )α (Lm
c ) S
(2)
where Lfc and Lm
c are woman’s and man’s labor supply in production and
S constitutes the intermediates in production like seeds. It is assumed that the
sum of α and β is less than one and greater than γ.
Labor is the single most important input in peasant farming system. Therefore, man’s and woman’s productivity are significant factors in determining
output levels. Usually, in subsistence societies due to lack of modern production technology, there is not much variation in labor productivity on the farm.
Therefore, the labor productivity is constant. However, in this model, I assume
that woman’s efficiency factor/productivity is endogenous in order to capture
the effect of binding time constraints women face in daily life. Woman’s efficiency, Ef , in the production function is an increasing function of woman’s
leisure time and inversely related to the number of infants woman have to care
for while working on the farm.
σ
E = BLfl I −φ
(3)
σ and φ are between 0 and 1
dE
dLfl
> 0 and
dE
dI
<0
where I is the number of infants accompanying the woman to the farm and
Lfl
is leisure time of woman.
Equation (4) gives the division of woman’s awake hours between work on
the farm, Lfc , household work, Lfh (direct and indirect care) and leisure, Lfl .
The total number of awake hours, for both man and woman, is fixed at H̄.
H̄ = Lfc + Lfh + Lfl
(4)
Woman’s labor supply in the household for direct and indirect care is an
5
endogenous factor, given by:4
Lfh = g(S, P, T )
dLfh
dS
< 0,
dLfh
dP
> 0 and
(5)
dLfh
dT
>0
where S is household size, P is help with household chores provided by older
children or other members and T is the technology. Usually in low income
rural economies, high technology kitchen equipments are not found. Therefore,
I define technology in terms of type of water source and type of fuel used by the
household. For instance, availability of tapped water outside the house reduces
the time spent on fetching water from the well, use of coal instead of firewood
reduces the time spent on fetching firewood.
Woman’s leisure is fixed at the minimum level necessary for personal care,
¯f
Ll . A fall in woman’s leisure below the minimum level negatively affects the
efficiency of work, E.
The labor supply of woman in the agricultural sector is determined as a
residual.
¯
Lfc = H̄ − Lfh − Lfl
(6)
Commonly, in rural Mozambican society, men’s labor contribution to direct
and indirect care provision in the household is very minimal. All the household
chores and provision of care to children, elderly and sick members is strictly
women’s activity. Men are seen as ‘income earners’ while women are given
the role of ‘home-makers’. These roles are rigid and the societal rules and
perceptions, shaped by patriarchal norms, inhibit any change.
For simplicity sake, it is assumed that men do not make any contribution to
household work. He divides his awake hours only between farm work, Lm
c and
4
Indirect care includes all kinds of household chores like food processing, cooking cleaning etc.
Direct care includes caring for young children/infants and old household members. Care needs of
sick household members, mainly the fixed component of care in case of serious, long-term sickness
or an accident leading to a physical disability, is not included in indirect care. This is because
serious sickness or disability does not occur frequently in every household, therefore, it is seen as a
negative shock.
6
leisure, Lm
l .
m
H̄ = Lm
c + Ll
(7)
In Mozambique, within the farming households, men’s and women’s labor
input on the farm is more or less equal. This implies, in rural areas, women’s
contribution to production of food and generation of income is as significant
as that of men. In addition to their major contribution to household output,
women provide for all the direct and indirect care needs of the household members. In this model, equations (4) and (7) and the fact that women’s leisure
is close to the minimum necessary level, reflect the aspect of unequal gender
division of labor in rural households.
In this society, women are severely time poor and substitution of labor between men and women for household care work is constrained by patriarchal
norms. Thus, any negative shock worsening women’s time constraints can adversely affect farm output, either through the efficiency channel or by reduction
in woman’s labor supply in agriculture. I discuss this effect in the following subsection.
2.1
Time constraints, labor supply & agricultural output
Sickness, accident, old age and birth of a child intensify demand for care. Due to
rigidity of gender roles, the burden of direct care provision mostly or solely falls
on women. Women respond to the resulting time constraints by reducing leisure
below minimum necessary level or make difficult trade-offs between agricultural
and household maintenance and care activities.
In this model, I introduce a negative shock in the form of incidence of serious
sickness to a household member, say, incidence of HIV-AIDS. The incidence of
sickness serve as a medium to demonstrate the play of gender roles in the
household and the lack of flexibility therein. In rural Mozambique, generally,
the occurrence of serious sickness to a household member, does not necessarily
prompt men’s participation in care provision or sharing of other household
maintenance activities.
7
The provision of care to the sick household member is assumed to be a fixed
¯ . The burden of Lsick
¯ falls entirely on
number of hours per day, given by Lsick
woman. Given fixed number of awake hours, woman must make some trade-offs
to accommodate care needs of the sick household member. With Lfh determined
¯ and leisure equal to minimum necessary level, L¯f ,
by factors other than Lsick
l
the woman faces two difficult choices: reduce her labor supply in the agricultural sector or reduce her leisure below the minimum necessary level, thereby,
reducing her productivity on the farm.
Let’s consider the case where the woman is persistent in maintaining her
¯
¯ on the right hand side of
leisure to the level of Lfl . The inclusion of Lsick
equation (7), Lfc must fall in order to maintain the sum of all activities equal
to H̄. Equation (8) gives the new level of woman’s labor supply in agriculture:
0
¯
¯
Lfc = H̄ − Lfh − Lfl − Lsick
(8)
and
0
Lfc < Lfc
(9)
Assuming man’s labor supply in agriculture, Lm
c , does not change, a fall
in woman’s labor supply on the farm, indicated in equation (8) and (9), will
shrink the total agricultural output.
Now turning to the second choice, woman decides to reduce her leisure to
¯ . This trade-off between leisure and care provision may be
accommodate Lsick
motivated by different factors. For instance, the man may coerce the woman
to supply Lfc hours on the farm, in order to avoid a reduction in output. Alternatively, a situation of food deficit in the household may compel the woman
to reduce her leisure instead of altering her labor supply on the farm. In this
case, the uncoerced choice woman makes is reflective of her altruistic behavior
or the social pressure to feed the family.
¯
Either motivation, a reduction in woman’s leisure below Lfl will ultimately
adversely affect the output through a negative effect on her productivity. The
efficiency of woman on the farm is negatively affected as a result of insufficient
8
rest/leisure.
Substituting equation (3) in (2) and replacing Lfc in (2) with equation (6),
σ
β γ
Xc = [(BLfl I −φ )(H̄ − Lfl − Lfh )]α Lm
c S
(10)
Taking a derivative of Xc with respect to Lfl , that is, change in output with
a change in woman’s leisure time.
dXc
dLfl
β γ α −φ α
= (Lm
) αLfl
c ) S B (I
(σα−1)
α−1
(H̄ − Lfl − Lfh )
[σ(H̄ − Lfl − Lfh ) − Lfl ]
(11)
H̄−Lfl −Lfh cannot be less than zero. If H̄−Lfl −Lfh = 0,
dXc
dLfl
= 0 as woman’s
labor input on the farm is zero. More likely, H̄ − Lfl − Lfh > 0. Therefore, the
sign of
dXc
dLfl
depends on the sign of the expression, [σ(H̄ − Lfl − Lfh ) − Lfl ].
Except for large values of leisure, this expression is most likely be positive,
making the overall sign of the derivative positive. Hence, it can be concluded
that at very low levels of leisure, a further decline in woman’s rest time will
result in subsequent fall in agricultural output through an adverse impact on
her productivity or efficiency.
This exercise clearly illuminates subtle, yet profound effects of rigid gender
relations on agricultural output and income in a patriarchal rural society. These
effects point to the possibility that unequal gender relations in times of crisis
may threaten household’s food security and adversely affect household’s income
generation.
3
Gender Relations and farm production in Mozam-
bique
The paper presents empirical evidence from Nampula province in northern part
of Mozambique, which is a good example of a rural agrarian society characterized by rigid gender roles. The province of Nampula is dominated by Macua
9
population, which is mainly an agricultural and a matrilineal tribe. Although
matrilineality is the main system of lineage in northern Mozambique, social
relations are dominated by patriarchal thought. The cultural influence brought
by the waves of Arab, Portuguese and Indian traders in the late 19th century
and early 20th century, to some extent, explains the strong hold of patriarchy
in Nampula province (Newitt, 1995). Even today, the north of Mozambique remains more traditional than rest of the country, especially with regard to status
of women (Tvedten, 2012). Especially in rural areas, unequal gender relations
are more stark and prominent in daily life of people (Arora, 2013).
The case study presented in this paper makes use of one of the first timeuse datasets for Mozambique. The dataset is from a primary household survey, ‘Gendered poverty in rural Mozambique’, implemented during May-August
2013 in the Nampula province, Mozambique. The sample comprises of 206
households with an average household size of 6.2.
In this section, I explore the link between women’s time constraints, their
labor supply in agriculture and household’s agricultural output. The rigidity
of gender roles is illustrated using a comparison of women’s time constraints
arising due to the care needs for the sick/old/disabled to time use of women in
household’s without any such responsibility. The households where a member
is severely sick, women are obligated to provide care without overlooking the
responsibility to feed the family and manage other household chores. It is expected that due to lack of substitution of household and care work between men
and women, time constraints on women are intensified. Potentially, they may
reduce their leisure to accommodate care provision to sick or make a difficult
trade-off between direct care provision and agricultural work.
To explore the above stated hypothesis, I compare the gender division of
labor in the households where women care for the old or sick family members,
over and above their household and child care responsibility. This comparison
helps to demonstrate the point that excessive burden of household and care
work can lead to a fall in women’s labor input into food production and can
adversely affect women’s participation in the paid sphere of the economy.
Figure 1 compares the time distribution of women have extra care respon-
10
Figure 1: Time allocation of women with and without extra care responsibilities
sibilities with that of women who do not have such responsibility. The women
who have to care for the elderly or the sick spend less time on paid activities
and much more on the unpaid work. They spend an average of 4 hours more on
care work compared to their counterparts without this extra obligation. Consequently, the women in those households make a difficult trade-off between care
work and agricultural work. They spend an average of 2.6 hours less in the
farm sector and the income-generating sector. Specifically in farm production,
women with extra care responsibility spend less than half the time spent by
women without the care responsibility.
For subsistence households, the labor from adult members, specifically husband and wife, constitute the main inputs in food production. A decline in
woman’s labor input in agricultural production could lead to a reduction in
total crop output, therefore, obviating greater chances of food deficit for the
household. Alternatively, food secure households may face a decline in their
potential to generate marketable surplus.
Table 1 presents a comparison of marketing potential of the households
11
where women have extra care responsibility relative to their counterparts with
no such responsibility.5
Table 1: Selling index for the households with and without care responsibility
Households with care responsibility
Households without care responsibility
Women’s time spent
on food production
1.29
3.33
Selling Index
12.60%
20.18%
Generally, the selling potential is very low for the subsistence households as
most of their production is for own consumption. But for the households with
care responsibility, the selling index is much lower than that for the households
without any care responsibility. The correlation between women’s time spent
on food production and household’s selling index is 18.2%.6 Therefore, the
lower index value for the households with care responsibility, to some extent,
can be explained by the lesser number of hours spent on food production by
women.
The evidence presented in this section illustrates the trade-off between care
work and agricultural work, when women are time constrained. In next section,
qualitative evidence from focus group discussions and individual life histories
reinforces the point made with the help of quantitative data.
3.1
Voices from the field
The following statements from the field presents the tension women face while
making difficult choices between care provision, agricultural work and essential
household maintenance activities.
I care for my sick sister because our old grandmother is unable to help
her. Despite my responsibility for my sister, my husband does not help
5
Selling index = proportion of a crop sold to total production of a crop (range is between 0 to
1). For each household, this ratio is added across different crops (range of values is between 0 to
i −Mn
5.74). This ratio is finally normalized to obtain the index value Si = SP
where SPi is Selling
Mx −Mn
proportion for all crops for household i, Mn is minimum value of selling proportion for all crops in
the sample and Mx is maximum value of selling proportion for all crops in the sample.
6
Significant at 5% level.
12
me with any household chores and still expects me to work on the cassava
farm. My daily activities include feeding my family, household chores and
all the jobs in my sister’s house while caring for her. My day stretches as
long as 11-12 hours and I am not left with any force thereafter to manage
farm work. I cultivated a smaller area of cassava farm this year to be able
to manage farming with all my household work and my sister’s care work.
Isabela, age 38 years
Last year, my daughter had a miscarriage and she has been very sick
since then. Her husband refused to care for her and threatened that if she
would not be able to feed him, he will marry another woman. In order to
save my daughter’s marriage and help her recover, I care for her everyday.
I perform all her household chores and caring for her includes bathing her
and taking her to the hospital thrice a week. Since I started caring for my
daughter, I have not been able to help my husband on the farm.
Alcine, age 49 years
I was shocked to learn that my older son is infected with HIV-AIDS.
He was only 17 years old when he was diagnosed with this disease. It has
been two years and I have been providing him all kinds of care, even taking
him to the toilet, when he is extremely sick. My husband works very hard
on the farm since I have to stay at home to help our son. Alone he cannot
produce plenty of food to feed the whole family of five and we are too poor
to hire any labor. In last one year, our household has seen two periods of
food deficit, since this year’s harvest was too low. I am worried about my
younger kids’ future.
Alda, 56 years
I understand that my wife has a very heavy work burden. But I cannot
leave all the farm work and sit at home to care for our sick, five year old
son. This is her responsibility.
Manuel, age 45 years
These women have a heavy responsibility of caring for sick family members
13
in or outside the household. They are the sole care providers for those sick
members. The cultural upbringing of women is such that most of them believe
that care provision is their most important duty. At the same time, they are
not relieved from their duties of household maintenance and farm work. In
the end, some make the hard choices of sacrificing one activity for another to
accommodate care provision.
When these women are making difficult trade-offs, the husbands continue to
enjoy the same amount of leisure in a day. Above, Manuel pointed out the strict
division of work based on gender. Though he argues that he is busy working
on the farm, his time use reporting reveals that he enjoys approximately 4-5
hours of leisure everyday. Another woman expressed her frustration from her
husband’s insensitivity.
Because I care for my sister and do not spend sufficient time with my
husband. He started sleeping with another woman. When I asked him
to help me with household work, he replied that he needs to earn for the
family. Instead, he spends most of his time with this woman.
Isabela, age 38 years
Following is an instance from a woman’s life history, indicating how rigidity
of gender roles disables women from becoming financially self sustained.
Luisa’s sesame farm
Luisa is a 36 year old woman who lives with her husband and three
young kids. All her kids go to school. She performs all the household
work without any assistance. Her husband has two plots and together they
cultivate both the farms to fulfill household’s food needs. The main crops
on their farm include cassava, groundnut and beans. Groundnut is the main
source of cash income for the household. The produce of cassava and beans
is used for household consumption and some part is given as gift to family
members. Luisa spends on an average, 4-5 hours/day traveling and working
on the farm. During the peak season, the time on the farm increases
14
substantially, almost 7 hours/day. Since last 16 months, her mother-inlaw has been very sick with TB and Luisa is forced by her husband to
take care of his mother. As a result, she is working day and night, one
activity along with another, trying to feed her family and caring for her
sick mother-in-law.
She expressed her desire to cultivate her uncle’s small plot with sesame
to earn independent income. She is smart and through her discussions with
the president of a local woman’s farmers’ organization in the village, she
learnt about the profitable avenues of cultivating sesame. Last year, she
bought half a kilogram of sesame seeds to sow on her plot. She used to
hide some change left over from food purchases and used that money to
buy the seeds. At the time of sowing, she single handedly sowed a part of
the plot. However, due to excessive pressures of household work and care
provision, she could not manage to take care of the sesame. Eventually,
most of her sesame crops died. In the end, the harvest was so low that she
was not able to sell anything.
She pointed out the lack of compassion and help from her husband for
any household chores or for caring for his own mother. As long as his
mother is cared for, he was carefree. He would get really upset if Luisa
would spend time on her farm instead of helping his mother. She also
complained that her husband did not help her with sesame production
while she continued to work on his plots. Whatever income was earned
from sale of crops from Luisa’s husband’s plot was retained and controlled
by him. In the end, she worked and got a mere ‘capulana’ for all her hard
work.
The statements above and Luisa’s story point to the fact in case of an
incidence of a health shock in the household, the rigid gender roles worsen
women’s work burden; either they accommodate the shock by making tradeoffs or reduce their leisure time. In cases where women reduce their leisure to
accommodate the need for care, those time poor women receive minimal or no
rest during the day. They multi-task and work more intensively to perform
15
all the duties they are obligated with. Following, I present instances from
two women’s life histories indicating the impact of their time poverty on their
productivity and overall household crop output and income.
Alzira juggles to feed her family
Alzira is a young, 23 years old woman. She lives with her husband, two
daughters and her old mother. One of her girls has some undetermined
sickness. Alzira has to take her daughter, Maria, to the hospital, every
couple of days. The district hospital is located approximately 10 kilometers
from her house. Maria is only 20 months old, therefore, Alzira has to care
for her in the house, on the farm and while spending time with her friends.
The days when Alzira takes Maria to the hospital, she does not go to the
farm. During last one year, her labor participation on the farm has been
reduced to only 2-3 days/week. The days she works on the farm, caring for
Maria while working reduces her intensity of work. She mentioned that she
manages to work a smaller portion of the farm, when she is with Maria.
Also, the time spent on care work caused a substantial reduction in the
leisure time Alzira used to enjoy earlier. The burden of care work and the
emotional burden to see her young daughter suffering is so heavy that she
is usually fatigued and crying. This harvest season, weary and exhausted
Alzira works very sluggishly while harvesting rice. She says, “I am drained
out and do not have the force to walk to the farm and bring the rice.” Yet,
she does it because she has to feed her family.
Alzira is the only woman in the sample of 206 households who recognized
care work as the heaviest burden. She also pointed out that she enjoys no
leisure any day of the week.
Fatima’s poor health
A 28 year old woman, Fatima, single-handedly feeds her family of four.
Her husband is an alcoholic. He is does not help with farm work. He sells
some capim (dry grass) to earn money to buy alcohol. They have two
young kids. The older daughter who is 8 years old provides Fatima some
16
help with cooking and fetching firewood.
Fatima works on the farm to produce food for her family, performs
household chores and cares for her two year old daughter. She has no
respite; day in and day out she works to sustain her family. She said,
“somedays I do not get time to fetch water to take a bath.” Because of
extreme time poverty, Fatima does not have enough time for personal care
or rest. As a result, she experiences fatigue and lot of discomfort in daily
activities since last one year.
She told us that she suffers constant back pain and therefore, she was
unable to sow cassava in the last sowing season. She begged some of her
neighbors to obtain some dried cassava to feed her family. During this
year’s harvest season, due to her poor health she was unable to harvest all
her produce of groundnut. She did not have any money to hire labor for
harvesting. Consequently, several of her groundnut crops were wasted and
the household was left with a very small produce.
Alzira and Fatima are among many other women who face a decline in their
work intensity as result of excessive work burden in their daily lives. Very few
men and women have the realization that excess burden of work on women
reduces their productivity on the farm. However, the women do realize the
negative impact of the time constraints on their health.
The qualitative evidence presented above casts light on the challenges imposed on women by the social norms. The unequal division of labor and lack
of men’s participation in household and care work not only leaves women time
poor but also adversely affects household’s welfare. Therefore, if the work burden of women can be reduced, an increase in productivity of women is possible,
more so for those with additional care responsibility.
4
Conclusion
The analytical framework in this paper is based on the actual household behavior observed and studied through a field study in rural parts of Nampula
17
province in Mozambique. The model fits some households more accurately than
for others. By and large, it represents the behavior of a typical rural household
in northern Mozambique. The purpose of theorizing household behavior is to
relate gender relations to agricultural output, particularly gender division of labor and growth of farm output. The model shows that unequal gender division
of labor and the resulting time poverty among women can impede the growth
of household’s agricultural output.
The conclusions from the model are substantiated with the descriptive statistics from the household survey data and statements from the field. The life stories from the field helps to materialize and give meaning to the dry theoretical
framework. Documenting the voices of women and men in rural areas reveals
the particularities of the gender roles and the specific hardship experienced by
the women in rural areas.
Considering the growing food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, the effect of
gender roles on agricultural output cannot be neglected. This research is a step
to further extensive empirical research in documenting the effects of unequal
gender division of labor on household output and income. The understanding of
causes and effects of unequal gender relations are instrumental in devising relevant policies to minimize women’s work burden. At the same time, measures
to fasten the pace of cultural change are important as a long term objective.
Ideas and suggestions for change can be gained through community participation methods. For instance, women in both the districts in Nampula, voiced
the need for assistance and awareness programs to learn ways to increase their
bargaining power in the households. Men in focus group discussions mentioned
that poverty slows down the pace of cultural change and there is a need for
economic development.
5
Notes
• Only ten life histories were collected during the field survey. The life history
participants also participated in the quantitative household survey.
• Life histories are based on repeated interactions with the participants and
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their household members over a period of at least one week.
19
References
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Newitt, M. (1995). A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Indiana.
Tarimo, E. A. M., Kohi, T. W., Outwater, A., and Blystad, A. (2009). Gender
Roles and Informal Care for Patients with AIDS: A Qualitative Study from
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Tvedten, I. (2012). Mozambique Country Case Study: Gender Equality and
Development. Backgroud paper, world development report 2012, The World
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Warner, J. M. and Campbell, D. A. (2000). Supply Response in an Agrarian Economy with Non-Symmetric Gender Relations. World Development,
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William Darity, J. (1995). The Formal Structure of a Gender-Segregated LowIncome Economy. World Development, 23(11):1963–1968.
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