Patterns of time use in Tanzania: how to make public investment in ...

who collect water in female headed households (71 percent). The task takes
longer in the former households (about 31 minutes for women in male headed
households compared with 28 minutes for women in female headed
households). Men are more likely to collect water in female headed
households (about 48 percent) than in male headed households (about 31
percent). Of course, to understand better the reasons for these patterns, a
more in-depth analysis of each of these two household categories’
characteristics would be required.
Table 4.1.4: Participation rate, mean time among participants and mean time
among population by sex and headship
Adult females Adult males
Female Head Male Head Female Head Male Head
Percentage (%)
Participation rate 71.1 77.7 47.9 30.9
Absolute minutes per day
Mean among participants 27.6 31.2 19.3 19.7
Mean among population 19.6 24.2 9.2 6.1
Source: Calculations from the 2006 Tanzania TUS
Does the presence of young children matter?
Participation rates in water collection are usually higher for those women
who live in households with small children (below 7 years old). But for men
the opposite pattern is true: about 37 percent of adult men in households
without young children collect water compared to only 30 percent of adult
men living in households with young children. This is shown in Table 4.1.5.
We will see in subsequent sections that a similar pattern seems to emerge in
most of the other unpaid activities later analysed in this paper: men do less
unpaid work if they belong to household with young children, a fact for
which we have not found yet any plausible explanation. As always, we would
probably need to look into other characteristics of these two household
groups to understand better. 6
6 Households with young children constitute about 58 per cent of all households in the
sample whereas households without young children are about 42 per cent.
10