The Short-Run Impacts of Reducing Water Collection Times on Time Use, Well-Being, and Education in Rural Kenya

Millions of households around the world devote significant time to bringing water to their home. This paper examines the impact that water collection has on the time allocation patterns and emotional wellbeing of water carriers and children in rural Kenya. We exogenously reduced water collection times to zero for a randomly-chosen subset of 195 households by having water vendors deliver water to their door each day over 4 weeks. Data on time use and affect (happiness, safety, energy, sociability, etc) come from short surveys the main water collector completed on a mobile phone at several randomly-chosen times each day over the 4 weeks of the treatment period as well as a 4-week baseline data collection period. Parents also self-reported school attendance, chores, and minutes spent studying for all school-aged children in the household, and we matched children to school-recorded attendance records. We find that of the approximately 95 minutes per day in water collection time that the vending treatment eliminates, water collectors reallocated approximately half to other household chores, 20% to working on the household’s own farm, and 25% to leisure. We find no evidence of an increase in paid work. Water collectors report feeling happier, more energetic, more safe, and less likely to be in physical pain. Treatment increased school-recorded attendance by 3.6 percentage points, from a base of 92%. Data from the survey on school-aged children confirmed that receiving vended water reduced the probability that children collect water, but their time is reallocated to other chores, particularly cleaning and cooking. Nevertheless, children in treated households spent roughly 15% more minutes studying. Our results have implications for estimating the benefits of improving access to water supply in rural areas.