The Distribution of Effort : Physical Activity, Gender Roles, and Bargaining Power in an Agrarian Setting
The disutility of work, often summarily described as effort, is a primal component of economic models of worker and consumer behavior. However, empirical applications that measure effort, especially those that assess the distribution of effort acro...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/109861618858646101/The-Distribution-of-Effort-Physical-Activity-Gender-Roles-and-Bargaining-Power-in-an-Agrarian-Setting http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35481 |
| Summary: | The disutility of work, often summarily
described as effort, is a primal component of economic
models of worker and consumer behavior. However, empirical
applications that measure effort, especially those that
assess the distribution of effort across known populations,
are historically scarce. This paper explores intra-household
differences in physical activity in a rural agrarian
setting. Physical activity is captured via wearable
accelerometers that provide a proxy for physical effort
expended per unit of time. In the study setting of
agricultural households in Malawi, men devote significantly
more time to sedentary activities than women (38 minutes per
day), but also spend more time on moderate-to-vigorous
activities (16 minutes). Using standardized energy
expenditure as a summary measure for physical effort, women
exert marginally higher levels of physical effort than men.
However, gender differences in effort among married partners
are strongly associated with intra-household differences in
bargaining power, with significantly larger husband-wife
effort gaps alongside larger differences in age and
individual land ownership as well as whether the couple
lives as part of a polygamous union. Physical activity -- a
proxy for physical effort, an understudied dimension of
wellbeing -- exhibits an unequal distribution across gender
in this population. |
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