Dramatic spikes in food prices, like those observed over the last years, represent a real threat for
food security in developing countries, with severe consequences for many aspects of the human
life. In fact, price instability can also affect the intra-household allocation of time, thus changing
the labour supply of women, who traditionally play the role of “shocks absorbers”. This paper
explores the nature of time poverty by examining how the change in the prices of the two major
staples consumed, matooke and cassava has affected the paid and unpaid labour time allocation
of Ugandan households. We exploit the panel nature of the Uganda National Household Survey
to control for individual fixed-effects, adopting a Tobit-hybrid model. Our results show that,
in correspondence with the change in food prices, gender differentials in the intra-household
allocation of labour actually occur. We find that, overall, women work significantly more, since
the additional hours women work in the market are not counterbalanced by a relevant reduction
in the other labour activities. For men, we do not find any significant effect.