Abstract
Funding of the public water supply in developing countries is often justified by the expectation that it significantly decreases the time spent on water collection, leading to increased labor force participation of women. We empirically test this hypothesis for rural Benin. Daily water collection times are reduced by 41 minutes but still take 2 hours after the installation of a public pump. Even though walking distances are reduced, women still spend a lot of time waiting at the water source, and not all women use the improved water source. Moreover, a reduction in time to fill one water container induces women to fill more containers per day. Time savings are rarely followed by an increase in the labor supply of women. The economic value of the annual time savings is 1%–2% of a rural households’ income.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 489-517 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Economic Development and Cultural Change |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2018 |
Funding
We thank the German Kf W Development Bank, the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development Germany (BMZ) for funding this research and for permission to make use of the data that were collected by us for a multidonor (IOB/BMZ/Kf W) impact evaluation. The views and findings in this article are ours and not necessarily those of any of the funding agencies. Contact the corresponding author, Isabel Günther, at [email protected].
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development Germany | |
| German Kf W Development Bank | |
| Policy and Operations Evaluation Department | |
| Ministry for Foreign Affairs | |
| Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung | |
| Bedford Institute of Oceanography |
