中文摘要
许多非洲国家仍处于结构转型的早期阶段。通常,随着经济推进结构转型,曾经由家庭内部承担的活动会被外包给市场。这对女性的时间利用具有特殊影响。在本文中,我们记录了若干非洲国家女性在家庭生产中的时间利用模式与美国历史上的时间利用模式高度相似。我们强调关于非洲女性时间利用的两个典型化事实。第一,在北非,女性投入市场工作的时间非常少,且女性劳动参与率总体上极低。第二,尽管撒哈拉以南非洲女性的广延边际参与度较高,但女性每周在市场上工作的时间往往只有几个小时,其余工作时间用于家庭生产。这两个事实表明,随着经济增长,有两类不同类型的约束可能减缓女性时间从家庭向市场的再配置:一是与女性市场工作相关的社会规范,二是缺乏促进家庭生产市场化的基础设施(如家庭基础设施和托育设施)。我们讨论了与这两类约束相关的近期实证证据,并指出新的研究方向。
Abstract
Many African 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. This has particular implications for women’s time use. In this paper, we document that current patterns of female time use in home production in several African countries closely resemble historical time use patterns in the Untied States. 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 extensive margin participation of women is high in sub-Saharan Africa, women tend to 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) to facilitate marketizing home production. We discuss recent empirical evidence related to each set of constraints and highlight new avenues for research.