Women’s Employment, Unpaid Work, and Economic Inequality

Authors: Nancy Folder, Janet C. Gornick, Helen Connolly, and Teresa Munzi

Publication: Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries. Chapter 8, pp. 234-260

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Editors: Janet C. Gornick and Markus Jäntti

Date: 2013

Excerpt:

How does the level of women’s employment affect economic well-being? Most explorations of this question focus on the distribution of market earnings, especially on the consequences of women’s increasing engagement in market work, ignoring the possible impact of changes in the value of women’s non-market work. Yet, recent calculations of the market value of unpaid work based on data collected from time-use surveys reveal its significant magnitude: between about 20 and 50 percent of conventionally measured gross domestic product (GDP) (Landfeld and McCulla 2000; Gianelli, Mangiavacchi and Piccoli 2010). Given that household sector income constitutes roughly 70 percent of GDP, clearly, accounting for unpaid work would increase the magnitude of household income even more. Further, many studies show that increases in the time women devote to paid work are associated with declines in overall household time devoted to unpaid work. A full assessment of the impact of women’;s rising employment off inequality (see Chapter 7) requires attention to the possible countervailing effects of declines in the value of home-produced goods and services.

Link: Women’s Employment, Unpaid Work, and Economic Inequality (PDF)