UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
The impact of rainwater harvesting on household labor supply
Raquel Tsukada & Christian Lehmann #2016-045This paper explores the effects of rainwater harvesting (RWH) on
aggregate household labor supply in areas prone to droughts. Using a
Brazilian survey on rainwater harvesting, we find that having a RWH
infrastructure at the homestead increases household wellbeing through
three channels: (i) a direct time allocation effect - since households
spend less time fetching water from distant sources, the time saved is
allocated to other productive activities; (ii) a direct input effect -
since water is an essential input for agricultural households and more
labor hours are available, the cistern technology may contribute to
increase the household's agricultural production. Both direct effects
associate the labor-saving technology with an increase in productive
labor supply. Finally, there is (iii) an indirect consumption effect -
as a consequence of larger production, households can exchange larger
quantities of own production against market goods, further increasing
the household wellbeing.
JEL Classification: I32, I38, L95, Q25
Keywords: poverty, access to water, risk coping, labor supply
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