Ecological shock and time poverty: Evidence from northern Ghana

Abstract

Despite the importance of time poverty in economic decision-making and impact on welfare outcomes, empirical studies linking ecological shocks and time poverty is limited. This paper documents the relationship between an ecological shock and time poverty in northern Ghana using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). We employ the standard instrumental variable (IV) method and conduct several robustness checks to ensure a robust estimate of ecological shock on time poverty. The results show that ecological shocks increases time poverty by 15 percentage points. The decomposition analysis of time poverty indicates that ecological shock is postively associated with time poverty based on paid work with no significant effect on time poverty based on unpaid work. Our results further show that the effect of ecological shocks on time poverty is a rural phenomenon. In addition, we note that the effect of ecological shock on time poverty is more prominent among the youth, large farm holders, and high-income earning household heads. The main implication of the findings is that development interventions that enhance access and adoption of gender-sensitive labour-saving technologies must be scaled up to reduce farm committed time, increase crop productivity and reduce the potential intergenerational transfer of time poverty. Provision of social protection measures such as the support through the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty to poor farm households would reduce the burden of ecological shocks on their wellbeing.