Paper short abstract:

Everyday commuting for work is important for labour supply decision. While roads increase mobility, higher commuting time may offset the positive effect. We use Indian Time-Use Survey data to examine the relation between commuting time and labour market participation of rural men and women in India.

Paper long abstract:

Everyday commuting time for work (unproblematic mobility) may be an important determinant of market labour supply decision. Available evidence from developed countries establishes a non-linear relationship between commuting time and work time. Also, commuting time varies across household structures and home-production time. In the developing country context, it is found that availability of roads can improve the non-farm labour market participation, more so among women. However, longer commute time may add to the time cost, thus discouraging participation when opportunity cost of time-outside-home is high. Further, this effect may vary by education level, as higher returns to education may offset the higher commuting time cost.

In this paper, we exploit the comprehensive Indian Time-Use Survey data collected during 2019 to examine the relation between commuting time and (1) labour market participation and (2) intensity (hours), across gender and education levels of adults residing in rural areas in India. Additionally, we analyse whether Indian national rural road construction program (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, PMGSY) reduce the commuting time and boost labour supply. Since PMGSY began in 2000-01, we expect travel time to be higher, and weakens the gender norms. This could accelerate mobility of the women in the regions with early access to roads. We control for such effects and exploit the cross-sectional variation in our data to understand the relation between commuting time and labour market hours. By employment we refer to both self-employment and wage employment, and test the relations empirically for each type separately.