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Unpaid Work and the Economy: Linkages and Their Implications
Indira Hirway
Unpaid work, which falls outside of the national income accounts but within the general production boundary, is viewed as either "care" or as "work" by experts. This work is almost always unequally distributed between men and women, and if one includes both paid and unpaid work, women carry much more of the burden of work than men. This unequal distribution of work is unjust, and it implies a violation of the basic human rights of women. The grounds on which it is excluded from the boundary of national income accounts do not seem to be logical or valid. This paper argues that the exclusion reflects the dominance of patriarchal values and brings male bias into macroeconomics. This paper shows that there are multiple linkages between unpaid work and the conventional macroeconomy, and this makes it necessary to expand the boundary of conventional macroeconomics so as to incorporate unpaid work. The paper presents the two approaches: the valuation of unpaid work into satellite accounts, and the adoption of the triple "R" approach of recognition, reduction, and reorganization of unpaid work, recommended by experts. However, there is a need to go beyond these approaches to integrate unpaid work into macroeconomics and macroeconomic policies. Though some empirical work has been done in terms of integrating unpaid work into macro policies (for example, understanding the impacts of macroeconomic policy on paid and unpaid work), some sound theoretical work is needed on the dynamics of the linkages between paid and unpaid work, and how these dynamics change over time and space. The paper concludes that the time has come to recognize that unless unpaid work is included in macroeconomic analyses, they will remain partial and wrong. The time has also come to incorporate unpaid work into labor market analyses, and in the design of realistic labor and employment policies.
Indira Hirway, 2015. "Unpaid Work and the Economy: Linkages and Their Implications," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_838, Levy Economics Institute.
Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_838
File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_838.pdf
Duncan Ironmonger & Faye Soupourmas, 2009. "Estimating household production outputs with time use episode data," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 6(2), pages 240-268, September.
C. Mark Blackden & Quentin Wodon, 2006. "Gender, Time Use, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 7214, September.
Rania Antonopoulos, 2008. "The Unpaid Care Work–Paid Work Connection," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_541, Levy Economics Institute.
repec:spr:chinre:v:11:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s12187-016-9415-x is not listed on IDEAS
repec:spr:ijlaec:v:60:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s41027-017-0085-0 is not listed on IDEAS
Unpaid Work; System of National Accounts; Time-Use Survey; Gender Equality;
D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
NEP fields
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
NEP-HME-2015-05-30 (Heterodox Microeconomics)
NEP-MAC-2015-05-30 (Macroeconomics)
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