The Third Shift: gender and the collection of water

My first blog post outlined some of the gendered aspects of water and sanitation in Africa that I aim to cover, most of which centre on access. In this post I'll be digging a little deeper into the collection of water. Almost half the world's population relies on collecting water from an external source (Pickering et al, 2010). The title of this blog (The Third Shift) is a reference to this often being left to women in Sub Saharan Africa, who discharge this responsibility in addition to 'conventional' and domestic labour, Hoschild's (1989) first and second shifts. For the remainder of this entry I will try to exemplify this and expand on how this gendered responsibility is compounded by other factors and impacts on women's' physical, social and economic wellbeing. 

In one study conducted across 24 countries in Sub Saharan Africa women were predominantly responsible for the collection of water. 

Table 1 - Gender ratio (female/male) of adults and children who are reported to be the primary collectors of water for households spending greater than 30 minutes collecting water, by place of residence. Follow link for higher resolution image (Graham et al, 2016)

In urban settings it is not uncommon for women to get up before dawn, queuefor extended periods, compete with others, and pay large proportions of their income for water. Women in urban communities in the global south (this research refers to research in both Africa and South Asia) also tend to opt for work closer to their homes so that they can continue to attend to their domestic responsibilities, this often reduces their labour opportunities to informal, low wage work. Otherwise jobs can range from manual agricultural tasks to crafts and trade. 

So even where collection times are reduced, there is an expectation that women work extensive hours and carry out all three 'shifts' at the same time (where men with multiple responsibilities often execute them sequentially). The result of this is that time poverty also diminishes women's ability to find better employment and opportunities to rest, socialise, and spend time with their families (Cairncross and Cuff, 1987; Blackden and Wodon, 2006). 

There are also physiological impacts of water collection. In Limpopo Province, South Africa, it was found carrying water on ones head combined with the burden of collection falling upon women and children put them at risk of tissue degradation and osteoarthritis in the  cervical spine, as well as aches and soreness associated with this kind of exertion. Another piece of research based in Nepal suggests that water collection, is a gendered psychological stressor that increases systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Given the gendered nature of water provision across Sub Saharan Africa, investigating whether the impacts on blood pressure could be reproduced would be a worthy pursuit.

We should consider caloric expenditure too. For example where populations in Ghana are suffering from malnutrition and iron deficiency, the burden of water collection has also been shown to worsen the conditions of women, especially in moments of scarcity.

The collection of water in many countries in Sub Saharan Africa constitutes a 'Third Shift' for many women who are already working long hours in conventional labour and looking after their families, jobs that they often carry out simultaneously. This means that their options in any one of those three realms are curtailed by the remaining two. The negative impact on wellbeing (physical, emotional and financial) caused by this time poverty compounds, and is compounded by, the physiological consequences of water collection too. With this in mind, a handful of the studies cited here have also suggested that gender equity in the provision of water is useful indicator for both 'development' as a whole and for the development of water and sanitation networks in Africa.