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

As illustrated in Table 4.2.9, a higher number of both girls and boys
participate in fuel collection if they live in male headed households. They
spend more time on this activity, however, if they belong to female headed
households. The difference in participation between the two household types
is more marked for girls while the difference in duration is more marked for
boys. These patterns are somewhat different from the patterns we observed
for water collection (for which girls’ participation rates were higher in male
headed households but boys’ rates were higher in female headed
households).
Table 4.2.9: Participation rate, mean time among participants and mean time
among population by sex and headship.
Activity Girls Boys
Female head Male head Female head Male head
Participation rate 23.2 30.6 14.3 18.7
Absolute minutes per day
Mean among participants 21.0 18.9 28.0 20.8
Mean among population 4.9 5.8 4.0 3.9
Source: Calculations from the 2006 Tanzania TUS
How many are the overburdened?
Figure 4.2.1 shows that, differently from what was observed for water
collection, both the male and the female distributions for firewood collection
decline smoothly from left to right. This is because the share in the population
who collect fuel is smaller than the share of the population which does not
collect it, for both women and men. As in Figure 4.1.1 though, the female
distribution lies above the male distribution, indicating higher participation
and duration for women. About 34 percent of those collecting fuel spend
every day longer than the average time. Most of them are women. Very few in
the population (1.6 per cent of the male population and 1.8 per cent of the
female population) spend more than an hour per day on the task.
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