or cultural norms slanting the intra-household bargaining, or both. Let us briefly look at some empirical evidence: Charmes (in Blackden, 2006) reviews empirical evidence from time-use surveys in four Sub-Saharan African countries (Benin, Madagascar, Mauritius and South Africa) along with data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey. These surveys are interesting since they (i) are large scale (ranging from 7,743 individuals in Madagascar to 25,664 individuals in Ghana), (ii) have nationally representative samples, and (iii) collect information about many different kinds of time use, both ―formal‖ (i.e. included in the System of National Accounts, or SNA) and ―informal‖ (i.e. non-SNA work). The overall results confirm that women spend 3-5 times as much time as men on domestic activities. Specifically for firewood collection the picture is less clear, as can be seen in Table 1, with women spending four times as much time as men in Benin (16 vs. 4 minutes per day) while in Madagascar men spend almost twice as much time as women (13 vs. 7 minutes per day). The picture is similar, although less extreme, if we look at only those collecting. This implies that both participation and intensity in participation show the same gender pattern in a country, that participation seems to be the dominating factor and, most importantly, that we can refute the received wisdom that it is _always_ mostly women and girls that are involved in fuelwood collection<sup>8</sup> . However, as can be seen in Table 2, when it comes to time spent preparing meals, women completely dominate the men – and this is consistent across all five countries. A direct implication of this could be to focus on energy solutions for cooking, rather than on the availability of fuels, if the time use of women is a high priority. Charmes also looks at time spent fetching water. Here the pattern of time use is more clearly dominated by female collection. This is relevant to energy policy to the extent that the time required can be reduced by electrical pumps or other forms of motive power for pumping water.

**Table 1. Time spent collecting firewood by women and men (in hours and minutes)**

|||**Be**|**nin(1998)**|Women/|**South**|**Africa(2**|Women/<br>**000)**|**Mada**|**gascar(20**|omen/<br>**01)**|**Gha**|**na(1998**|Women/<br>**-99)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||Women|Men<br>|Men|Women|Men|Men|Women|Men<br>|Men|Women|Men|Men|
|Fll|Urban|3|1|300%||||3|6|50%|44|5|1<br>86%|
|u<br>Pli|Rural|23|5|460%||||8|27|30%|37|2|8<br>132%|
|opuaton|Urban & Rural|16|4|400%|6|3|200%|7|12|54%|37|3|0<br>123%|
|Ol th|Urban|1h 5|1h 11|92%||||1h 6|1h 13|90%||||
|ny ose<br>lli|Rural|1h 50|1h 30|122%||||1h 14|1h 31|81%||||
|Coectng|Urban & Rural|1h 14|1h 23|89%|2h 17|2h 14|102%|1h 12|1h 26|84%||||

_Charmes in Blackden, 2006._

**Table 2.Time spent preparing meals (minutes per day)**

|Women<br>**Be**|Men<br>Women/<br>Men<br>**nin(1998)**|Women<br>**South**|Men<br>Women/<br>Men<br>**Africa(2000)**|Women<br>**Mada**|Men<br>Women/<br>Men<br>**gascar(2001)**|Women<br>**Mau**|Men<br>Women/<br>Men<br>**ritius(2003)**|Women<br>**Gha**|Men<br>Women/<br>Men<br>**na(1998-99)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|75|6<br>1250%|84|19<br>442%|94|7<br>1343%|116|12<br>967%|107|55<br>195%|

_Charmes in Blackden, 2006, presented in World Bank 2010b._ Another large-scale time-use study was carried out by ESMAP in India in 1996 (ESMAP, 2004). Detailed time use was collected from 5,000 households in 180 villages in six states. The 33% women that collected fuel spent an average of 2 hours per day on this activity.

> 8 Although the review evidence given here is from Africa, similar evidence is also available from India, where Köhlin (1998) e.g. found men to collect more fuelwood than women in rural Orissa.

5