"Lazy men", time-use, and rural development in Zambia
Whitehead, A.
Gender and Development 7(3): 49-61
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 1355-2074 PMID: 12349479 DOI: 10.1080/741923246Document Number: 525390
The paper examines how work and labour are measured in agriculture in rural sub-Saharan Africa. It has increasingly been recognised that many rural African women have heavy workloads; in some accounts, this is contrasted with apparently light work burdens for men. The paper argues that in making women's work visible, where once it was not, it is possible to slip into thinking of African rural men as not doing very much at all. There is a danger in some policy discussions of producing an image of rural men as standing idly by, while their wives and daughters are overburdened with work. An example from Zambia is presented.