Reply to NYT: Women's Unpaid Labor is Worth $10.9 Trillion

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The current data we have about labor markets give us a very inaccurate picture because they don’t take into xo side ration unpaid domestic labor. Because we have a bias that says that pleases more value in paid labor.

Nobody is looking for a prize. It’s in everybody’s interest to get a better picture of how our economy functions. [/quote]

How.does measuring women's unpaid labor but not mens give us a better picture?

It doesnt.[/quote]

Both matter.   And it matters more when you are talking about women in poverty and ending poverty.  This is important.  Stop being a fool and making everything a mommy war.

[/quote]

The reason people calculate these things is because we often talk about our economy largely in terms of paid labor. But there is an argument that unpaid labor (women's and men's) should be calculated because it is valuable to society and so should be considered part of the productivity that we generate. If one person is caring for children and doing other domestic tasks that allow the other person to get a paid wage, then it is worth understanding the value (monetary) that has for our society. One reason for that is to understand the relative value of things, to give appropriate weight to the very important things people do to keep their households functioning so that paid labor can happen, and to understand how social policy can shape that dynamic. For example, when trying to determine the level of child care subsidy or whether to offer something like state funded child care, it helps to know not only the cost of out-of-home child care but the relative cost of the unpaid in-home labor required to take care of a child versus the ability that person would have to participate in the paid labor market (and broader society) if s/he could.

There's lots online about why unpaid labor is calculated - it's done around the world. This quote is from Wikipedia but there are plenty of sources out there about this if people are interested.
"According to time-use surveys collected by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), women are the main undertakers of unpaid labor globally. This uneven division of unpaid labor within households has implications for women's involvement in both public and private spheres. One common form of unpaid work is unpaid domestic work. The burden of this type of unpaid work generally falls on the women in a household. Contributing so much time to unpaid domestic work has major effects on women and their participation in the labor market, which consequently affects children, society, and the state."[/quote]

What about the women (including at least one earlier poster) who say that them staying home allows their husband to make more money?  Isn't that taking into account the value of the stay at home mom's labor?  If she worked, her husband would make $100,000.  Since she doesn't work he makes $500,000.  Therefore, the "value" of her unpaid labor is already being taken into account.  So why would we do it twice?[/quote]

I think this example is a perfect reason for why we should calculate it and include it in the GDP. This is actually the situation my DH are in (HHI is actually 475). So by just doing a “but-for” analysis, we are looking at my labor being worth 375K. It’s not. One spouses earning ability shouldn’t factor into the value of the other spouse’s labor. [/quote]

You're missing the point.  If you are counting his $475K plus whatever the value of what you're doing, you are double counting some of what you are doing.[/quote]

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