Abstract

Unpaid work is seen as a barrier to women's economic empowerment. The objective of this research is to study the contribution of the sociodemographic and economic determinants of the Senegalese population to the gendered division of unpaid work but also to value it in order to have an overview of its weight on the Senegalese economy.
The analysis of Senegal Time Use Survey (ENETS) results by gender highlighted gender disparities in unpaid labour participation between men and women in Senegal. Indeed, 63.1% of men against 11.9% of women do not participate in unpaid activities. In terms of time, women perform an average of 4.3 hours of unpaid work per day compared to 36 minutes for men.
It is also noted that from one group to another, participation times could be impacted by some socio-demographic and economic characteristics. For men, income levels and the presence of biological children in the household did not influence participation in unpaid activities, while the result was the opposite for women. Analyzing from the married perspective only, the results showed that all variables influenced participation in unpaid activities except place of residence. Also, women were 17.4 times more likely to engage in unpaid work than men.
By valuing the working time not paid by the minimum wage (SMIC), we obtain a weight corresponding to 27.2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, of which 24.5% is produced by women. This indicates the importance of considering unpaid work.