Balancing School and Work with New Opportunities: Changes in Children’s Gendered Time Use in Ethiopia (2006-

2013)

Young Lives paper by Jo Boyden, Catherine Porter, Ina Zharkevich & Karin Heissler

Presented by Jo Boyden Adolescence, Youth and Gender conference

Oxford, 8-9 September 2016

BACKGROUND• Ethiopia:

– The poorest Young Lives country - rural livelihoods precarious

– Work by adolescents helps sustain household economy & inter-generational mutuality

• Motivation: – Early adolescence (10-14 years) = a time of growing

responsibility – paper focuses on age 12– Challenges of balancing time use between schooling &

work• Policy priorities:

– Government is committed to expanding school access– Prohibits work under age 14 & work that is harmful

• Policy assumptions:– Girls are consistently disadvantaged (lower education

aspirations, less school access & greater work burden)– Work and low education demand undermine schooling.

QUESTIONS1. How has the gendered time use of 12-year-

olds changed between 2006 and 2013?2. What drives gendered time use in early

adolescence?– Incentives around work:

• Household economic status • Household structure(sibling composition, birth order)• Work as informal learning• Work opportunities locally *• Perceptions of returns to work (including entry to

future occupation)– Incentives around education:

• Educational aspirations and perceived returns to school *

• School access *(including flexibility of school regime)

• School performance *

DATA AND METHODOLOGY• Ethiopia sample: Equal numbers of boys & girls

in two cohorts: 2,000 born in 2001 and 1,000 born in 1994, from five regions plus Addis Ababa

• Methods: – Five survey rounds (children & caregivers) – Four qualitative waves – interviews & focus

groups with a sub-sample of 60 children & caregivers (rural)

• Data points: The main activities of the two cohorts compared at age 12 – i.e. survey Round 2 (2006) for the Older Cohort & Round 4 (2013) for the Younger Cohort

• Survey definition of child work: work for pay outside the household, work on the household farm or enterprise, household chores & caring for others.

FINDINGS

• Boys: aim to become dependable economically through early engagement in productive work: – farming, herding livestock & fishing (in rural areas)

• Girls: assume reproductive roles facilitating marriage, domestic proficiency, parenthood: – making wot (sauce), baking sourdough bread, making

and selling farso (beer), fetching firewood & water, sibling care

• Gender fluid: birth order & sibling composition: e.g. Hadush, youngest of 8 & the only boy, cares for the cattle full-time while sisters are at school, but Mihretu goes to school because his two elder brothers take care of the cattle

• School also regarded as a responsibility:– household social mobility & intergenerational mutuality

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES ARE GENDERED FROM AN EARLY AGE

• Caregivers:– around ¾ of caregivers in both 2006 & 2013 expected

their children to go to university – parents were more ambitious for sons in 2006, but by

2013 girls’ parents were more ambitious than boys’

• 12-year olds: more modest aims– around 70% aspired to go to university, slightly fewer

in 2013 than in 2006– the proportion of rural boys who aspired to go to

university fell from 67 % in 2006 to 55 % in 2013 – 85% of urban girls aimed to reach university in 2013,

a 7 percentage point increase on 2006

GENDER AND LOCATION MATTER FOR EDUCATION ASPIRATIONS

• Urban boys & girls were working significantly

fewer hours in 2013 than in 2006• In rural areas gendered disparities in time at work

grew: by 2013 girls time at work had fallen to a similar degree as urban children, but the figure for boys remained constant

• Trends also depend on types of work:– Rural boys & girls worked significantly longer hours

on family farms/enterprises by 2013 (boys, more than 2 hours per day & girls less than an hour)

– Chores & caring: made up 20 minutes less of daily routine in 2013 (3 hours per day for girls & under 2 hours for boys)

– Urban girls spent less time on domestic tasks in 2013, possibly because of greater attention to schooling.

TIME USE TRENDS AT AGE 12: WORK

• Enrolment levels of boys & girls at age 12 roughly constant across the period 2006-2013

• Gender disparities:– boys were less likely to be enrolled, with the gender

gap widening between 2006 and 2013 – a full 60% of Older-Cohort boys, compared to just 12

% of girls, were overage for their grade• Rural: Urban divide:

– part-time schooling in rural areas – enrolment was lower for rural children at age 12 – rural children had completed only 2.9 grades by age

12, as compared to 4.2 for urban children

TIME USE TRENDS AT AGE 12: SCHOOL

WORK AND SCHOOL COMPETE IN ZEYTUNI

• Part-time schooling - fewer boys & girls enrolled in 2013 than 2006 & fewer boys enrolled than girls

• A rise from an average of 4.6 hours of work a day in 2006 to 5.6 hours a day. Boys 6.3 hours in 2013 & girls 4.9 hours– stone-crushing – tough, unpopular work; girls increasingly

excluded – rise in cobble carving – cooperatives employ those over

18, younger boys & girls self-employed - popular work• Mesih’s mother: ‘In the past, there was nothing called a job.

Now all girls & boys do some kind of work…they are hired in farming as daily labourers to do weeding … while boys can get a job in crushing stones. Now our village has been changed so it’s good for children at any time...’

• Desta’s mother: ‘Yes it is a profession. Look at this great stone, he crushes and then shapes it ... This is great skill … It may help him for building houses … he is now professional in crushing and shaping stones.’

• Gender & location impact time use among 12-year-olds, but gender disparities are far greater when these two factors are combined

• We do not find a systematic bias against adolescent girls in either education or work burden

• An overall decline in the time spent at work between 2006 & 2013 does not apply to rural boys

• Boys’ educational aspirations are declining & boys are more likely than girls to fall behind at school &/or leave early

• Elevated education aspirations do not detract from children’s work responsibilities in rural areas

• Gendered roles, responsibilities & time use are not fixed

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

• Expanded income-generating opportunities change incentive structures around adolescents’ time use

• The opportunity costs of schooling are higher for boys & they are distrustful of schooling as a guarantee of future employment & social mobility

• Adolescence is a period of considerable responsibility for both boys and girls

• Government education policy risks being undermined unless the fit with employment is greatly improved

conclusion

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