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Cited by 29Gender, Labor, and Family DynamicsFamily Dynamics and RelationshipsDemographic Trends and Gender Preferences

Trade-offs in children's time allocation: mixed support for embodied capital models of the demographic transition in Tanzania

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Hedges, Sophie, Sear, Rebecca, Todd, Jim, Urassa, Mark, Lawson, David W.·2018·Current Anthropology
DOI 10.1086/699880
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Abstract

Embodied capital theory (ECT) argues that socioeconomic “modernization” leads to high-cost, high-return parental investments in education, in turn incentivizing demographic transitions to low fertility. However, few studies have directly investigated the proposed opportunity costs of schooling in contemporary developing populations undergoing socioeconomic change. We present a study of children’s time use in two communities in Mwanza, Tanzania, representing either end of a local rural-urban gradient. Consistent with ECT, town residence compared with village residence was associated with increased schooling at the expense of time allocation to children’s work. However, these patterns apply primarily to boys, for whom herding work is relatively incompatible with schooling. Girls more readily combine domestic chores with school attendance, a pattern that may account for unexpectedly high female school enrollment in this population. Furthermore, the strongest time allocation trade-offs were not between school and work but between school and leisure time, suggesting overall low opportunity costs to education. Mixed support for ECT may partially explain why fertility decline has stalled in many low-income countries despite education uptake. Finally, we advocate that international development programs consider the well-being implications of reduced leisure time accompanying education uptake, particularly for girls maintaining a “double shift” of school and domestic work.

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  • Education in Ethiopia is free but comes at the cost of a child's household labour, and lack of local secondary schools causes attendance to typically incur additional transport and accommodation costs, meaning education necessitates parental investment.

    “While education itself is free, it comes at the cost of a child's household labour (Gibson and Lawson, 2011;Hedges et al., 2018) and a lack of local secondary schools causes attendance to typically incur additional transport and accommodation costs, meaning education necessitates parental investment.”

    From Abandoning female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC) is an emerging but costly parental investment strategy in rural Ethiopia. (2023) · cites this paper as Hedges et al., 2018

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  • Low school attendance is likely explained by sending Arsi Oromo children to school diverting time away from productive activities linked to subsistence and household needs.

    “This is likely explained by the fact that sending Arsi Oromo children to school can divert time away from productive activities linked to subsistence and household needs (Gibson and Lawson, 2011;Hedges et al., 2018).”

    From Abandoning female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC) is an emerging but costly parental investment strategy in rural Ethiopia. (2023) · cites this paper as Hedges et al., 2018

    The Discussion links lower school enrollment among village boys in the Tanzanian study to the opportunity cost of forgoing their herding work. The paper does not study Arsi Oromo children, and its Trade-Offs between Work and School section finds that schooling often displaces leisure rather than productive work. It therefore supports the proposed explanation for some children in its own setting, not for Arsi Oromo children generally. (LLM, conf=0.87)

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Bacolod, M. P., and P. Ranjan. 2008. Why children work, attend school, or stay idle: theory and evidence. Economic Development and Cultural Change 56(4):791-828.
  2. Kaplan, H., J. Bock, and P. L. Hooper. 2015. Fertility theory: embodied-capital theory of life history evolution. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Pp. 28-34. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

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Authors
Hedges, S., Sear, R., Todd, J., Urassa, M., & Lawson, D. W.
Affiliations
University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
Corresponding author
  • Hedges, Sophie
  • Sear, Rebecca
  • Todd, Jim
  • Urassa, Mark
  • Lawson, David W.
ORCID
Venue
Current Anthropology
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Published
2018-10
Volume
59
Issue
5
Pages
644-654
ISSN
  • 0011-3204 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5382
DOI
10.1086/699880
OpenAlex
W2889753883
Cited by
29
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7
FWCI
6.53
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Current Anthropology (publishedVersion)
  • LSHTM Research Online (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences
Keywords
demographic transition, children's time use, child labor, domestic work, gender division of labor, leisure, urban-rural gradient, fertility decline, double shift, women's education, Mwanza, Tanzania

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