Time Poverty: A Contributor to Women’s Poverty?

Abstract

Inequality is a major challenge to development and an obstacle to achieving the MDGs. It takes many different forms, including income inequality, unequal access to and control over property and resources, unequal access to civil and political rights, and unequal access to social, cultural, and economic rights. All these forms of inequality possess inherent gender dimensions. One form of inequality that has received much less analysis but which has major adverse implications for accessing economic rights relates to gender-differentiated time-use. The allocation of time between women and men in the household and in the economy is a major gender issue in the evolving discourse on time poverty. This article, in analyzing the allocation of social roles between men and women, shows first how this allocation leads to time poverty among women; second, how this has an impact on achievement of the MDGs; and third, how by using time-use survey methodologies and tools, it is possible to collect sex-disaggregated time-use data. Such data will help policymakers to incorporate time poverty analysis as one of the component of the overall poverty reduction strategies and MDGs assessment and monitoring.