Pergamon PIh S0306-9192(96)00030-9 Food Policy, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 39~i2, 1997 © 1997Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0306-9192/97 $17.00 + 0,00 Work intensity, gender and sustainable development Richard Palmer-Jones and Cecile Jackson School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK Is labour-intensive employment compatible with social justice and environmental sus- tainability? This paper examines the question of how far small-scale, intermediate tech- nology based on energy-intensive human work, which is central to prescriptions for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, is compatible with development objec- tives emphasizing gender equity. Work intensity is a neglected characteristic of labour but significant in the determination of human well-being and in the intra-household distribution of welfare. The intensification of energy expenditure does not affect men and women in a uniform way and needs to be gender disaggregated in order to reveal potential trade-offs between development strategies based on 'labour intensive growth' and the well-being of men and women. The paper draws upon the experience with treadle pumps for irrigation in Bangladesh as an illustration of such potential trade- offs and argues for more rigorous analyses of gender divisions of labour, which include work intensity in combination with time allocation. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Keywords: gender, work, nutrition, energy, sustainability, development, environment, irri- gation, technology, Bangladesh Introduction This paper is motivated by concerns, arising from policy interests and observations, that many innovative approaches to poverty alleviation and sustainable development emphasize labour- intensive technologies, but in a number of cases these technologies are not sustainable in the marketplace. Nevertheless the literature continues to advocate these technologies and develop- ment projects continue to support them and claim success for their efforts. However, a crucial dimension to employment is neglected in these prescriptions; we need to make a distinction between time-intensive and effort-intensive technologies and employment, and, when this is done it becomes clear that employment technologies have to be analysed more rigorously taking particular account of their effort-intensity and gendered impact. Effort-intensive techno- logies are unlikely to be popular and may not be useful contributors to either poverty allevi- ation, sustainable development or gender equity. Work intensity is a significant but neglected feature of work activities which promises to illuminate important social phenomena and policy questions, e.g., how mortality and morbidity are related to work and what are the underpinnings of gender divisions of labour. It may help to resolve choices of technology scale, power source and ownership of new technologies. 39