Cooking technology and female labor market outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The majority of households in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region cook with solid fuel and other polluting fuels like kerosene, and women in this region spend more than 4 hr of their productive time in cooking activities with such energy sources. Such time input in cooking has a high cost on the labor market outcome of women. This study examines the long-term relationship between cooking technology usage and women's labor market outcomes in 45 SSA countries for the period 2000–2017. The results show that cooking technology usage improves the female labor force participation rate, and reduces the labor force participation gap and female unemployment rate. This finding is consistent even when subjected to a battery of robustness checks. The study also finds some heterogeneous effects in the relationship by the economic structure of the sampled countries.