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The Invisible Hand that Rocks the Cradle: On the Limits of Time Use Surveys

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  • Erin Lentz
  • Rachel Bezner Kerr
  • Raj Patel
  • Laifolo Dakishoni
  • Esther Lupafya

Abstract

Almost every intervention in the field of international agricultural development — from microcredit finance to fertilizer subsidies to trade policy — has come to recognize gender, and relationships within households, as important. Yet most interventions continue to treat the household as a ‘black box’, with changes within the household measured by the effects on income, anthropometry, health, or other secondary metrics within bargaining models. In this context, there has been increasing interest in time use studies as a way to peer inside this black box. This article offers a review of methods and identifies some of the difficulties facing time use studies in capturing intrahousehold dynamics, and presents the results of a two‐season simultaneous activity time use study in Malawi which aimed to address these difficulties. The results suggest significant limitations to time use surveys. The kinds of reproductive labour that often interest researchers may be invisible to the women responding to time use surveys, with the result that care work is dramatically under‐reported. The authors discuss the implications of the divergence between researchers’ concerns and the women's reports of their lives for time use surveys, and for feminist development research methods more broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Erin Lentz & Rachel Bezner Kerr & Raj Patel & Laifolo Dakishoni & Esther Lupafya, 2019. "The Invisible Hand that Rocks the Cradle: On the Limits of Time Use Surveys," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 301-328, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:50:y:2019:i:2:p:301-328
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12426
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    1. Pierotti, Rachael S. & Friedson-Ridenour, Sophia & Olayiwola, Olubukola, 2022. "Women farm what they can manage: How time constraints affect the quantity and quality of labor for married women’s agricultural production in southwestern Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Gregory L. Simon & Cody Peterson & Emily Anderson & Brendan Berve & Marcelle Caturia & Isaac Rivera, 2021. "Multiple Temporalities of Household Labour: The Challenge of Assessing Women's Empowerment," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(2), pages 289-315, March.

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