time allocation, different from the impact on men‘s time allocation, but not in all dimensions or in all ways expected. For example, in Bangladesh, Barkat (2002) finds that having electricity in the home has a large, positive, and statistically significant effect on the time spent by the female head of household on income generating activities in the evening, while there is no impact on men; however, impacts on time in building human capital and in social activities are slightly larger (in terms of coefficient size) for men than for women.<sup>33</sup> In Bhutan, ADB (2010) concludes that electricity results in women spending 28 minutes per day less collecting fuelwood, as compared to 21 minutes per day less for men.<sup>34</sup> In Guatemala, Grogan and Sadanand (2009) estimate that electricity results in women spending 34% less time cooking, but they find no impact on time spent caring for children. They find no impact on time allocation to either of these activities by men, who spend virtually no time caring for children or cooking regardless of whether their home has electricity.<sup>35</sup> In the discussion of health impacts below, we return to the question of why electrification appears to affect time spent collecting and the probability of cooking with fuelwood, despite the fact that electricity generally does not substitute for fuelwood as a source of thermal energy.

# _4.2.2.2 Employment and earnings_

# **Rural electrification has been convincingly demonstrated to increase women’s work outside the home, especially for younger cohorts of women, most likely by increasing the supply of women’s time and boosting the demand for labor in small enterprises.**

There is particular interest in the impact of electrification on income-earning opportunities and employment of women outside the home. The motivation is described by Koolwal and Van de Walle (2010): ―it is widely believed that greater participation by women in market–based activities would yield desirable development outcomes. Work allowing women enhanced control over the resources they produce can raise their financial independence, their status and bargaining power inside the household, and also raise child welfare, on the grounds that extra income to women is likely to be invested in children.‖ As described above, electrification is widely claimed to reduce the time that women spend on household chores, thereby creating the potential for them to earn more income.<sup>36</sup> Many researchers have examined whether women actually do shift time into income-generating activities in or outside the home, often by gathering reflexive or retrospective reports or estimating simple correlations or cross-tabs. Their findings vary substantially. For example, Masse and Samaranayake (2002) found that 80% of women in Sri Lanka reported that electrification _had_ saved them time, but only 5% used that saved time on ―productive‖ activities, while Meikle and North (2005) reported that half of the women in one village and two-thirds in another village in Tanzania _would_ aim to undertake an income generating activity if they had access to electricity. This is broadly consistent with Lucas et al. (2003), who found that communities without electricity in China ―viewed the connection to the grid as an essential step on the way to greater productivity, higher incomes and a better way of life,‖ whereas in communities with electricity, ―the major benefits which came most

> 33 Barkat‘s (2002) results are based on Tobit models of time allocation in the evening (after 6PM) controlling for household characteristics including age, size, number of household members generating income, literacy, wealth, income, and expenditures on fuels.

> 34 ADB (2010) employs kernel matching based on propensity scores estimated with a rich set of variables describing the households‘ human capital and physical assets, as well as infrastructure and public services in the village.

> 35 Grogan and Sandanand (2009) estimate Tobit models of time spent caring for children yesterday and time spent cooking yesterday on electricity, controlling for 10-year age group dummies, the highest grade level attained by the respondent, a rural dummy, controls for the number of adults and children under 18 in the household, and regional dummies.  Their results are robust to controls for wealth, and to dropping households with different electricity status than community.

> 36 Electricity or motive power can also reduce paid employment that is traditionally held by women.  Cecelski (2004) gives the example of mechanized rice milling, which reduces income for some groups of women, even while it raised income for other groups.

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