Gender, Time Use, and Labor Income in Guinea: Micro and Macro Analyses

Higher incomes for women can have significant beneficial impacts for poverty reduction both in the short run by providing more resources to households and in the long run by increasing investments in the human capital of children. Substantial research has been done using microeconomic household survey data on gender disparities in labor incomes in developing countries in recent years. The first contribution of this paper is to summarize some of that research as applied to Guinea. However, microeconomic studies may not necessarily provide insights on how broad structural shifts in an economy could affect differently opportunities for work and income generation for men and women. In the second part of the paper, we use a recent Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Guinea to assess how growth in various sectors of the economy could affect the incomes of women and men both directly and indirectly through multiplier effects. We find that an expansion of sectors oriented primarily towards domestic consumption could have a larger positive impact on the labor income share of women than an expansion of export-oriented sectors.