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# WoMen's basic choice

10. Women contribute to development mainly thrcugh childbearing, childrearing, and production for market and home use. Production for home use generally takes place at home. Production for market may take place at home, in a self-managed enterprise, or in the labor force. Location matters: women can more easily combine childbearing and childrearing with home-based work than with work in the labor force. Economic theory suggests that women weigh the value, as they see it, of time spent in home-based work and child care against the market wage they could command (net of any costs of working in the market, such as for transport or child care), and decide accordingly. If opportunities in the labor market are highly constrained or low-paying or if women and their families value home-based work and child care highly, many women may indeed prefer the home-based option. Women's choices among these three options -- how much time to spend in the labor force, in home-based production, and in parenting -- and their productive capacity in these fields affect not only the growth and composition of economic output. They also affect the human capital (health and education) of the next generation and the size and composition of the family (through natality and child mortality).

11. In actuality, however, the choices may not be women's to make. One must understand women's position within the family and broader society in order to predict their responses to economic opportunities. Culture varies, but in traditional societies, women tend to have less say about what work they will do or about family size; they may have to defer to the wishes of their husbands, fathers, mothers-in-law, and other elders. In the early stages of development, when the family and the simple firm tend to coincide, women's work choices are confined largely to the home or nearby fields (Schultz 1989; Buvinic and others 1983; Boserup 1970). Women are typically expected to perform certain types of work, particularly in subsistence production and in the household, and to bear many children. Especially as they age, women may exercise considerable control in their customary spheres. Yet they are unlikely to have much voice over broader allocative decisions affecting the family (Acharya and Bennett 1982; Blumberg 1987).

12. With development -- with education and increasing earning opportunities - - women's capacity to decide for themselves grows. Exceptions exist, but women who can decide for themselves tend to move toward more independent and "modern" options -- more participation in the labor force, greater control over economic assets, and smaller families, with more resources devoted to each child (Schultz 1989; Acharya and Bennett 1982; Khandker 1987; World Bank, 1989a, 1989b). Women's education generally has more influence than men's on natality, child mortality, and the nurturing of children (Cochrane 1979; Cochrane and others 1980; Schultz 1989). As a rule, economic policies that influence women's education and earning capacity thus especially influence family welfare, human capital accumulation, and population trends, as well as aggregate output (World Bank WDR 80,84).

13. Low-income countries still have large traditional sectors in which most women work at home or nearby. Much of their home-based production is for home use. It provides housing and such basic consumables as food, water, and fuel.