THREE ESSAYS ON GENDER, TIME USE AND FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION

This dissertation consists of three essays on gender and development. This first essay, the presence of sons and mothers’ labor force participation: an empirical study in China, explores the effects of sons on mother’s labor force participation in China using the data from the China Family and Panel Study in 2016. It investigates whether or not Chinese mothers are more likely to be involved in the labor market because of social norms such as son preference and the practice of high bride price. This study adopts the Probit model and finds a negative relationship between the presence of a son and the labor force participation if mothers have two children. The OLS estimates show mothers’ time use in market work is insignificant related to the presence of a son. The second essay, the impact of public infrastructure on children’s time use: evidence from South Africa, examines the impact of public infrastructure on children’s time use in various activities, including activities requiring water, such as cooking, doing laundry, and time use in learning and leisure. Based on data from the 2010 South Africa National Time Use Survey, an analysis using 7715 children aged 10-17 years shows access to basic services such as safe water can directly decrease the amount of time children spend on work activities requiring water and market-related work, while access to a nearby school does not show a consistent and significant impact on children’s time spent learning. The third essay, time poverty and discretionary time of working parents in the US, studies the time poverty of working parents in the United States from 2003 to 2019. Using the American Time Use Survey, this paper shows that the average discretionary time decreases over the years, and the time poverty rate increases. Working mothers are always at a high risk of time poverty than working fathers. The multivariate results indicate being a single parent is associated with more discretionary time and a low incidence of time poverty than a partnered parent. Moreover, single mothers are more time-poor than single fathers but less time-poor than married mothers. The employment status of a spouse is not a significant determinant of the discretionary time and time poverty of married parents.