Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0 
Author-Name: Tsukada, Rachel
Author-Email: tsukada@merit.unu.edu
Author-workplace-name: UNU-MERIT
Author-Name: Dupuy, Arnaud
Author-Email: arnaud.dupuy@uni.lu
Author-workplace-name: University of Luxembourg
Title: The impact of household labor-saving technologies along the family life cycle  
Abstract: This paper investigates heterogeneity of the impact of labor-saving 
	 technologies on household time use across stages of the family life 
	 cycle. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey 5, we assess the impact 
	 of two treatments - piped water and borehole water supply technologies. 
	 Results confirm the hypothesis that technology is more useful for 
	 relaxing the time constraint in households with children. The effect is 
	 stronger the more labor-saving is the technology. In households with 
	 young children (0 to 6 years old), however, the technologies show no 
	 significant effect. Parents in that stage of the family life cycle are 
	 in such an extreme time constraint that the relatively small amount of 
	 time saved with the water supply technology is not enough to 
	 significantly release their burden.
Keywords: labor-saving technology, technological change, household production,
	 family life cycle
Classification-JEL: D12, D13, O33
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 20160830
Number: 2016-047
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2016/wp2016-047.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2016047