Chapter 2 cover photo credits: Mark Henley / Panos Picture

38

2 | Son bias

domestic chores (Delap, 2000; Hsin, 2005; Kabubo-Mariara 

and Mwabu, 2007). The International Labour Organization 

(ILO, 2009) estimates that, globally, 10 percent of girls aged 5 

to 14 years old perform household chores for 28 hours a week 

or more, and that this is approximately double that of the 

proportion of boys expected to undertake the same amount 

of domestic work. Regional variations between the burdens 

of household chores are pronounced, however: the difference 

between girls and boys work is greatest in Africa, at 44 percent, 

followed by Latin America at 29 percent and lastly Asia and 

the Pacific at 8 percent (see also Box 15).

Domestic chores can have a considerable impact on the 

time girls have available to undertake other activities, such as 

school and after school studies. Girls who perform 28 hours 

or more a week of domestic chores attend school 25 percent 

less than girls who do fewer than 14 hours per week (ILO, 

2009). However, the impact on girls is highly context specific 

and depends on cultural norms (Doane, 2007), particularly on 

age, household size and age structure (Ilahi, 2001), as well as 

on the type of shock (e.g. economic, health, energy) to which 

households and communities are vulnerable.

The  main  reason  identified  in  the  literature  for  this 

imbalance between sons and daughters is the ‘mother 

substitute’ role that girls often play.

20

 On account of the 

unequal gendered distribution of labour within the household, 

when women take on paid employment outside the home in 

the absence of alternative affordable child care options,

21

 or in 

times of household-level shock (e.g. loss of income or illness of 

a family member), daughters are often expected to shoulder 

additional traditional gender responsibilities, usually at the 

expense of their education.

22

 This substitute effect is especially 

strong in poor households: there is a close association between 

households that rank as poor on a consumption metric and 

those where women have high work burdens (Ilahi, 2001).

23

 

Moreover, girls tend to serve as critical shock absorbers 

for  poor  households  as  they  adjust  to  crisis  and  intensified 

poverty. For example, in contexts of declining access to energy 

(for instance through deforestation or drought), girls, as 

women’s main helpers in water and fuel collection, are often 

compelled to devote additional time to such domestic tasks 

(Nankhuni, 2004). 

Sickness in families also sees a greater care burden placed 

on girls rather than boys in terms of taking responsibility 

for  tending  to  other  household  members.  The  effect  varies, 

however, depending 

on whether the sick 

family member is a 

child or an adult. In the 

case of the former, Pitt 

et al. (1990) found sex-

differentiated  effects 

of infant sickness on 

intra-household time 

use in Indonesia. 

Teenage daughters 

were 

significantly 

more likely to 

increase participation 

in household care 

activities, to decrease participation in market activities and to 

drop out of school in response to sibling illness, compared with 

their male counterparts. Ilahi (2001) and Guarcello et al. (2006) 

found similar disproportionate care burdens for daughters in 

Latin America and resulting negative effects on their level of 

schooling, although the effect was generally stronger in urban 

areas. 

In the case of adult illness, Ilahi (1999) found that this did 

not affect child time use in urban areas, but in rural Peru, adult 

sickness  had  strong  gender-differentiated  effects.  Here,  girls 

tend to compensate for lost household income by increasing 

their participation in income-generating work, although there 

is  no  effect  on  the  time  use  of  boys.  Similarly,  Yamano  and 

Box 14: ‘Fate favours me and plays big jokes on my sister’

‘Three years ago, [my younger sister and I] went through the high school entrance examinations together. She had higher overall 

grades than mine and she could go to an outstanding high school. However […] my family couldn’t afford the high tuition fees for both 

of us at the same time. In our county, male preference is quite popular in parents’ minds […] and [parents] do not think investment 

in daughters’ education will benefit them much. As a result, I was sent to one of the outstanding high schools and my sister was sent 

to an ordinary high school […] When we applied to universities, I applied to Zhongshan University. Because my sister graduated from 

the ordinary high school, my parents told her to apply for a small local college called Train and Railroad College in order to save money 

for my education. On the announcement date, the news shocked administrators in the county examination centre: my sister’s overall 

grades were the number one among all of the applicants in the entire county! However, when my sister learned about this she ran into 

the room and cried and cried, and after a while she became quiet and kept silent. Now I got the university acceptance letter and my 

sister hasn’t […] However, it is not her wish but my parents’ idea. She is a very smart person, and in the past three years she studied 

just as much as me, but the results were very different. How can I face my sister without feeling guilty? Fate favours me and plays big 

jokes on my sister’ (in Wang, 2005). 

Globally, 10 percent of 

girls aged 5 to 14 years 

old perform household 

chores for 28 hours a 

week or more, this is 

approximately double 

that of the proportion 

of boys expected to 

undertake the same 

amount of domestic 

work.

- ILO (2009)

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