Gendered time poverty in rice farming households: Evidence from the haor ecosystem of Bangladesh

• Time resource is often overlooked in sustainable agriculture despite its critical role. • Women share labor-intensive farm tasks equally with men. • Despite farm involvement, gender roles within households remain unchanged. • Balancing farm and household duties poses challenges for women. • Women, irrespective of social factors, experience more significant time constraints than men. Gender equality in agricultural development is crucial for sustainable and climate-resilient growth. In Bangladesh’s climate-vulnerable haor region, women play significant roles in farming and household management, yet their contributions remain largely invisible. Time poverty, defined as limited discretionary time resulting from the dual burden of productive and unpaid care work, represents a critical but understudied dimension of gender inequality. We address this gap by analyzing intrahousehold labor allocation, seasonal variations, intersectionality, and determinants of gendered time poverty in rice farming households within the haor ecosystem of Bangladesh. Data were collected from 200 households in Netrokona district using a mixed-method approach. Results show that women are significantly more time poor than men, contributing 40% of labor in rice production and undertaking 75% of unpaid post-harvest operations without a corresponding shift in domestic responsibilities. Foster-Greer-Thorbecke estimates indicate that 53% of women are time poor compared to 20% of men. Climate variability further intensified these pressures, as recurrent floods and erratic rainfall increased women’s workload in both farm and household spheres. To balance work, women often juggled simultaneous tasks or made difficult trade-offs with leisure and personal care. We also found that time poverty marginalizes women across diverse social groups and identities, including class, farm size, religion, education level, age, and family structure. Probit model results shows that education, secondary employment, religion, income, household composition, farm size, access to information, and group membership were significant correlated with gendered time poverty. Policies should prioritize recognition of women’s unpaid contributions, promote labor-saving technologies, and integrate climate resilience strategies to reduce time poverty.