Gender Differences in Children’s Non-Leisure Activities: A Decomposition Analysis

Dayang Haszelinna Abang Ali (Center for Policy Research and International Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia)
Rosita Hamdan (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)
Audrey Liwan (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)
Josephine Yau Tan Hwang (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)

Economics and Finance in Indonesia
Volume 66, Number 1, June 2020

The prevalence of son preference indicates that girls will have less leisure time compared to boys. This study aims to examine gender differences in weekly hours in schooling, housework, and working among children in Indonesia using Tobit Model and decomposition model of Bauer & Sinning (2005), to test whether son preference explains the differences. The dataset was drawn from the fourth wave of Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) in 2007. The results show significant gender differences in housework and working for children aged 5–14 years and insignificant gender gap in schooling for both age groups. These results confirm the existence of gender differences among younger children compared to older children in their time allocation.