Access to Electricity and Gendered Labor Allocation

Abstract

Electrification typically promotes economic development and enhances household wellbeing. However, how electrification affects the economic activities of different demographic groups is not yet sufficiently understood. Focusing only on aggregate household-level outcomes may overlook unequal effects on different individuals, which may potentially result in intra-household inequities. Here, we use panel data from Ethiopia to analyze the implications for different groups of individuals. Specifically, we analyze how electrification is associated with labor time allocation of male and female adults, children, and elderly household members. For adults, we find that electrification is positively associated with off-farm working hours and negatively associated with time spent on own farming activities and unpaid housework such as firewood and water fetching. For working-age women, the positive association with the time spent on off-farm activities is particularly large. For children, most of the associations are not statistically significant, even though electrification seems to increase boy’s time allocation to own farming activities, possibly substituting for some of the reduced adult time spent on farming. Differentiating between sources of electricity, we find that the effects are typically larger for grid than for off-grid solar electricity. Our results suggest that electrification is economically beneficial and can promote more gender-equitable labor outcomes.