Digital tools may help to study socioeconomic aspects of agricultural development that are difficult to measure such as the effects of new policies and technologies on the intra-household allocation of time. As farm technologies target different crops and tasks, they can affect the time-use of men, women, boys, and girls differently. Development strategies that overlook such effects can have negative consequences for vulnerable household members. In this paper, the time-use patterns associated with different levels of agricultural mechanization during land preparation in smallholder farming households in Zambia were investigated. A novel data collection method was used: a pictorial smartphone application that allows real-time recording of time-use, which eliminates recall bias. Existing studies analyzing the intra-household allocation of resources often focus on adult males and females. This study paid particular attention to boys and girls as well as adults. The study addressed seasonal variations. Compositional data analysis was used to account for the co-dependence and sum constraint of time-use data. The study suggests a strong gender differentiation for land preparation activities among mechanized households; for households using manual labor, such differentiation was not found. There is some evidence that the surplus time associated with mechanization is used for off-farm and domestic work. The study cannot confirm concerns about negative second-round effects: mechanized land preparation is not associated with a higher workload for women and children during weeding and harvesting/processing. The study provides a proof-of-concept that smartphone applications can be used to collect socioeconomic data that are difficult to measure but of high relevance.

中文翻译：

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使用智能手机应用程序收集的数据探索赞比亚机械化与家庭内部时间分配之间的联系

数字工具可能有助于研究难以衡量的农业发展的社会经济方面，例如新政策和技术对家庭内部时间分配的影响。由于农业技术针对不同的作物和任务，它们会对男性、女性、男孩和女孩的时间利用产生不同的影响。忽视这种影响的发展战略会对弱势家庭成员产生负面影响。本文研究了赞比亚小农户在整地过程中不同农业机械化水平的时间利用模式。使用了一种新颖的数据收集方法：一种可以实时记录时间使用情况的图片智能手机应用程序，从而消除了回忆偏差。现有的分析家庭内部资源分配的研究通常集中在成年男性和女性身上。这项研究特别关注男孩和女孩以及成年人。该研究涉及季节性变化。成分数据分析用于说明时间使用数据的相互依赖和总和约束。研究表明，机械化家庭的土地整备活动存在明显的性别差异；对于使用体力劳动的家庭，没有发现这种差异。有证据表明，与机械化相关的剩余时间用于非农和家务劳动。该研究无法证实对第二轮负面影响的担忧：机械化整地与妇女和儿童在除草和收获/加工过程中的工作量增加无关。