JBS Vol 05. Num 2. 2003 - SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION, GENDER AND WORK: CHANGES IN THE TIME-ALLOCATION PATTERN OF MEN AND WOMEN IN RURAL BANGLADESH

Intra-household inequality has two distinct dimensions: inequality in consumption and inequality in the distribution of
workload among household members. A number of studies have examined the intra-household inequality in
consumption, but these ignore the unequal distribution of workload within the family. This study compares the workload
of men and women in rural Bangladesh for the years 1984-85 and 1998-99. Hours devoted to market work increased by
72% for men and 78% for women over this 15-year period. Time spent on social activities increased six-fold between
these two survey years, possibly due to the advent of electricity in rural areas. The hours devoted to home activities have
also increased in rural Bangladesh despite the reduction in the average family size and higher involvement of women in
market activities. Excluding the social and supervisory type activities, work hours of women exceed those for men in
both 1984-85 and 1998-99. This implies that women in rural Bangladesh remain the most important players in the
aggregate production of market and home activities. With improved socioeconomic status of households, male members
tend to reduce their market work while the work hours of women tend to increase. The work pattern of men shows a clear
shift from actual involvement in market production to social status enhancing supervisory activities with improving
socioeconomic status. In contrast, types of work done by women remain almost identical for all socioeconomic groups.
Therefore, improved economic status of households does not provide any significant benefit to women in terms of their
workload or work pattern. A further implication of this result is that any discussion of political and social conflict in a
traditional rural society will be incomplete unless the workload and social responsibilities of men and women are
considered explicitly.