超越时间贫困：衡量女性和男性的时间利用自主性

Moving beyond Time Poverty Measuring Women’s and Men’s Time-Use AgencyPublic Disclosure Authorized Thomas DaumTalip KilicGayatri KoolwalGreg SeymourWilbert Drazi Vundru Development EconomicsDevelopment Data GroupMarch 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11343 Abstract Economic research on time use has traditionally focusedon the total time individuals spend across different activi-ties. However, less is known about time-use agency, or theability to make strategic choices on allocating one’s time.This paper presents the findings from a novel, representa-tive time-use study in Malawi, where men’s and women’sself-reported time use—collected continuously via a picto-rial smartphone app—was complemented with a time-useagency survey module to quantitatively measure their abil-ity to reallocate their time flexibly.The analysis revealsthat women are 20 percentage points more likely than mento report inflexibility on being able to adjust the timingof activities across nearly all activity domains, includingagriculture, unpaid domestic work, transport, leisure, andpersonal care. Women spend a significantly higher share of total daily time in the domains they report as non-flexible,while men are more likely to report non-flexibility in leisureon its own, or in combination with other daily activities.The share of non-flexible daily time is negatively associ-ated with women’s desire for additional paid hours andtheir probability to look for work. Among women, intra-household differences (women’s minus men’s) in the shareof non-flexible daily time are also associated with lowershare of time in leisure, higher likelihood of being under-weight, and weaker land rights. Overall, time-use flexibility(agency) captures a dimension of inequality that is empir-ically distinct from time poverty or total work burdens,with particularly strong relevance for women’s work andwellbeing. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Moving beyond Time Poverty: Measuring Women’s and Men’s Time-Use Agency Thomas Dauma, Talip Kilicb, Gayatri Koolwalb, Greg Seymourc, Wilbert Drazi Vundrub1 JEL Codes:J22, J16, C83, I31Keywords:Time-use surveys, smartphone data collection, time-useagency, flexibility, gender,wellbeing, Malawi. 1Introduction Global evidence demonstratesthe existenceof substantial gender disparities in time use. Onaverage, women spend about three times as many hours a day as men on unpaid domestic work andcare work, including care of children and other adult household members, cooking, cleaning andotherhousework(United Nations 2020).Thetime burden and disproportionate share ofresponsibility women bear for these tasks is a major source of their disempowerment, e.g., reducingseeking paid employment and time for education, leisure, and social activities (Folbre 2006; Folbreet al. 2013; Gammage 2010; Floro and Komatsu 2011). A great deal of work has been devoted to accurately measuring how men and women spend theirtime (Kilic et al. 2024; Gershuny et al. 2020;Field et al. 2023; Juster and Stafford, 1991).Statistics ontime use typically stem from time use surveys — relying on self-reported or interview-based diariesof individuals’ time in activities over a set reference period (for example, the last 24 hours) andimplemented as a standalone survey or module in a broader household multi-topic or labor forcesurvey. Discourse on gender and time use, as a result, has typically been limited to comparisons ofaverage time in differentkey activities, as well as time poverty, when individuals do not have enoughtime for rest and leisure after taking into account time spent working (Vickery 1977, Bardasi andWodon, 2010, Alkire et al 2013, Malapit et al 2019). Understanding the channels by which individuals allocate their time, however, is also critical.Time allocation, for example, is the result of a complex set of decisions and negotiations, involvingmultipletradeoffs and different motivations.Important dimensions of time use remainunderstudied, however, across work intensity (Floro and Pichetpongsa 2010),flexibility (Lu, Wangand Olsen 2023), cognitive labor (Daminger 2019), subjective well-being(Krueger et al. 2009;Hektner, Schmidt, and Csikszentmihalyi 2007; Seymour and Floro 2