income effect that increases labor force participation. However, qualitative work in Liberia suggests that time spent on child care may be a binding constraint for women to work: Ruiz Abril (2008) found that 41 percent of young women, compared to 31 percent of adult women and just 11 percent of young males reported family responsibilities as a reason for inactivity.

Even if family formation does not inhibit women’s labor force participation in Africa, it may affect employment on the intensive margin. Once faced with child care duties, women may work fewer hours than they otherwise would, or they may choose less-productive, low-return occupations that offer flexible schedules, part-time, or home-based work. A cross-sectional study in Guinea, for example, found that women, particularly in rural areas, were significantly more likely to experience time poverty<sup>13</sup> due to domestic duties, spending on average 3 fewer hours per week than men on paid work, but 15 hours per week more on domestic activities. Severe time poverty was found to increase with the number of children under age 5 and the number of seniors in the home (Bardasi and Wodon, 2010). Another study found that South African and Tanzanian women were less likely to work, particularly in wage-employment, following the birth of a child, though results are imprecise for Tanzania (Canning et al. 2015). A study from Madagascar finds that when female-owned businesses are located at home, their efficiency is constrained by domestic tasks and sharing norms within the local network (Nordman and Vaillant, 2014). Finally, as indicated above, data from Ghana indicate that the percentage of household work completed by women, relative to men, does not vary with the percentage of household income that they generate (World Bank, 2012). Experience from developed countries suggests that while part-time work can be a good option for women seeking flexibility, it can often trap them in low-quality jobs even after flexibility is no longer needed (ibid).

# **2.5 Occupational Choice**

A fifth constraint that young people face when entering the labor market concerns the limitations on their occupational choice.<sup>14</sup> Gender segregation in the labor market has potentially large effects on economic growth through sub-optimal allocation of labor across the sectors of the economy (Hsieh, 2013). Although the gendered nature of occupational choice affects both men and women, labor force surveys in Africa consistently find that it is women who are concentrated in low-wage, low productivity industries, whether in self-employment or in wage employment. For example, the 2010 Liberia labor force survey found that women are under-represented in the growth sectors of mining, manufacturing, construction, and services (LISGIS, 2010). The ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Women (2012) confirms the pervasive sectoral segregation by sex across Sub-Saharan Africa, noting that while women have made strides in entering the services sector in the past 20 years, they continue to lag in industry. Female entrepreneurs tend to work in less-productive, female-dominated sectors, and in agriculture, female farmers specialize in less-profitable staple crops (World Bank, 2012). The pattern of segregation also exists along the value chain, as for a given sector, they tend to cluster in less-profitable activities.

> 13 In this paper, “time poverty” is defined as the need to spend long hours working (in either the labor market or domestic work) because the alternative would be (even deeper) consumption poverty.

> 14 The fact that women and men undertake different economic activities is not exclusive to Africa (Hallward-Driemeier, 2013). Across the globe, women are more likely than men to engage in low productivity activities and to work in the informal sector (World Bank, 2012).

13