Access to electricity and gendered labor allocation: Insights from Ethiopia

While electrification is known to influence people's time allocation, effects on different demographic groups are not yet well understood. Here, we use five waves of panel data from households in Ethiopia to examine how electrification is associated with the labor time allocation of different groups. At the household level, we find that electrification is associated positively with time allocation to self-employed off-farm work and negatively with time allocation to farm work and unpaid work. At the individual level, the positive association between electrification and self-employed off-farm work is particularly large for working-age women, whereas the negative association with farm work is observed for both working-age men and women. These results suggest that electrification may contribute to more gender-equitable labor outcomes. For children, we find that electrification is associated with less water fetching among girls, and more time spent on family farming among boys. The latter likely means that boys are partly substituting for the reduced adult farm labor time. We also differentiate between electricity sources, showing that the associations are generally stronger for grid than off-grid solar electricity. Based on the findings, we recommend integrating gender and other social policies more explicitly into electrification strategies to promote equitable developments. • Associations between electrification and people's labor allocation are studied. • Associations differ across demographic groups (children, adults, elderly). • Positive association with adults' and elderly women's income-generating work activities. • Grid electrification is negatively associated with men's farm work, positively with boys'. • Gender and social policies should be integrated into electrification strategies.