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Infrastructure, women’s time allocation, and economic development

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  • Pierre-Richard Agénor
  • Madina Agénor

Abstract

This paper develops a gender-based OLG model of endogenous growth to analyze the impact of infrastructure on women’s time allocation between market work, raising children, own health care, and home production, and its implications for education and health outcomes. Women’s health status in adulthood, which affects productivity and wages, depends on their health status in childhood. Threshold effects in health and life expectancy, associated with access to infrastructure, may generate multiple development regimes. Whether an increase in government investment in infrastructure succeeds in shifting the economy to a high-growth equilibrium depends crucially on how women reallocate their time and the strength of congestion effects. Copyright Springer-Verlag Wien 2014

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  • Pierre-Richard Agénor & Madina Agénor, 2014. "Infrastructure, women’s time allocation, and economic development," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 1-30, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jeczfn:v:113:y:2014:i:1:p:1-30
    DOI: 10.1007/s00712-013-0358-0
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Womens’s time allocation; Public infrastructure; Endogenous growth; Multiple equilibria; I18; I21; O41; J16;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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