# 1. Introduction

Across countries, women’s total (paid along with unpaid) work burdens are often substantially greater than men’s due to disproportionately greater time allocated to unpaid activities (United Nations, 2015) that can in turn hamper women’s ability to search for better economic opportunities, earn higher incomes, and seek health and educational investments for themselves and their children (Bauman et al., 2019; Del Boca et al., 2014; Menon et al., 2014). Several factors affect the extent to which men and women allocate time across paid and unpaid work, self-care and leisure. These include gender norms related to time allocation (Heintz et al., 2017; Fafchamps and Quisumbing, 2003; Bittman and Wajcman, 2000); availability of and returns to employment activities (Folbre et al., 2014; Olivetti, 2006); socioeconomic attributes of households and individuals (Goldin and Katz, 2018; Ilahi, 2000); and individual preferences (Donald et al., 2020; Guryan et al., 2008). Our paper aims to zero in on the relatively understudied role of individual asset ownership, as an indicator of individual socioeconomic status, in time allocation decisions of men and women. We examine this question within and across households using new, nationally representative survey data from Cambodia, where individual-level, self-reported data on ownership of a diverse set of assets was collected alongside data on individuals’ time use.

Ownership and control over assets, such as residential and non-residential land, financial accounts, mobile phones, vehicles and other durables, is one important dimension of socioeconomic status for which individual-level data have typically been limited, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Asset ownership and control can affect time use through different channels associated with individual socioeconomic status. Assets can raise productivity and incomes, for example, by widening access to resources such as financial services markets and networks (Doss, 2013; Doss et al., 2020), and by potentially improving individuals’ roles in economic decision-making within households (Oduro et al., 2012). These productivity-enhancing channels can increase time allocated to economic activities. Land can act as collateral, for instance, and in the case of agricultural land can allow greater access to extension services; mobile phones can expand access to markets; ownership of vehicles can save on commuting time; and ownership of financial accounts can allow for financing of time-saving inputs.

On the other hand, greater financial security provided by assets such as land/property can reduce the need or desire of individuals to work for an income, particularly in certain sectors such as agriculture, where social norms around land ownership and work are more heavily entrenched. This might lead to increased time in leisure, or in other household work. Ownership and control of assets may also not necessarily release time for other activities. Individuals’ time, for example, could be further invested in maintaining the asset in question (Walther, 2018; Das et al., 2014).<sup>2</sup> Policies targeting property and other ownership rights therefore have important gender implications, in view of resource constraints and social barriers that disproportionately affect women, including restrictive norms around inheritance, marriage, family and work (Agarwal, 1994; Deere and Doss, 2007; Jayachandran, 2015). The extent to which potential benefits associated with asset ownership materialize, however, depends on several factors, including the type, quality and value of the asset, norms around how these assets are managed (Fafchamps et al., 2009; Das et al., 2014), and sectors of economic activity that

> 2 Walther (2018) shows that men in patrilineal communities spend more time on the type of labor (and thereby, assets) that most improves their future opportunities — namely self-employed agricultural labor as opposed to off-farm wage labor – as compared to their counterparts in matrilineal communities, which determine whether men or women retain land ownership rights upon divorce. Das et al. (2014) examine a sample of households targeted in a randomized ultra-poor program, inclusive of livestock transfers, in northern Bangladesh, and find that women who receive livestock increase their labor allocation on the farm/homestead to maintain these assets.

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