Poverty Reduction from Full Employment: A Time Use Approach

Abstract

Despite long working hours, for many household members, and especially women, underemployment is nevertheless affecting a large share of the population in many developing countries. Using data on time use, wages, and consumption levels from a recent household survey for Guinea, this paper provides a simple framework for assessing the potential impact on poverty and inequality of an increase in the working hours of the population up to what is referred to as a full employment workload. The framework provides for a decomposition of the contribution to higher household consumption of an increase in working hours for both men and women. The key message is that job creation and full employment would lead to a significant reduction in poverty, even at the relatively low current levels of wages and earnings enjoyed by the population. However, even at full employment levels, poverty would remain massive, and the higher workload that the full employment scenario would entail would be significant