Unpaid work
Millions of volunteer hours of unpaid work contribute to free services that others consume via social media and Wikipedia in a new parallel economy.
[citation needed] This contrasts with unpaid labor done for self subsistence or to give to others, encompassing all tasks individuals do without compensation, such as building a house, writing and publishing free computer programs or care work.
[11] The role of women and men within their households is deeply rooted in gender norms and cultural values that have been reinforced over time by colonization and imperialism.
[14] Since the 1960s, however, the spread of globalization has given rise to new opportunities for women to participate in market work that has challenged the assumption their primary adult role as that of caretaker for the family and home.
[17] For example, during the Great Recession of the 2000s, low income men increased their contributions to their households by completing more hours of unpaid domestic work.
Furthermore, it illuminates how socially constructed gender norms have created a system that encourages women to continue to carry the 'double burden' of care services.
[22] In fact, women report higher levels of symptoms related to depression and anxiety, including low life satisfaction and subjective well-being.
[25] Time-series data collected by the United Nations Statistics Division from 2000 to 2015 directly support the claim that women undertake more than half of household domestic labor all over the world.
In the top ten are three Scandinavian countries (in order from lowest discrepancy in time-use to highest): Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and Finland.
Out of all the countries included in the data set, Sweden had the smallest discrepancy between female and male time use with a difference of 3.33 hours out of a full day.
In many societies the socially constructed role of women includes "giving birth, caring for children, the elderly, and disabled, preparing food and clothing and collecting water, and firework, among others".
This configuration is based on 'patriarchal control', which is proclaimed to be linked to the "socialization processes where women are raised to be relational" care takers and family structure supports, while men are more 'individualistic' since their role is only tied to providing money.
[28] According to GPI Atlantic, “[t]ime use surveys reveal that Canadian women spend about twice as much time on total unpaid household work, including child and elder care, as men.
The study found that in both the 'developing' and 'industrialized world', men received the "lion's share of income and recognition" for their economic inputs, while women's work remained "unpaid, unrecognized, and undervalued.
[1] This further entrenches women into domestic unpaid work, creating a cycle of social norms that is difficult to break and exacerbates gender inequality.
[1] The economic value of women's unpaid labor is not included in gross domestic product (GDP) or national income accounting indicators.
[1] This allows other household members, as well as the women who deal with the double burden (considering the fact that they need care labor to survive, too), to enter the workforce and contribute to the overall economy via paying jobs.
While the symbolic or subjective benefits of housework are difficult to measure, various attempts have been made to attach value to economically productive household activity.
In 2012, the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) created an adjusted measure of GDP to account for productive household activity.
[31] The surveys used seven categories of time use in American household production (housework, cooking, odd jobs, gardening, shopping, child care, and domestic travel) and the BEA assigned a low-end market wage to the hours spent on each activity.
[31] The declining impact on the adjusted GDP reflects the steadily decreasing number of (nonmarket) hours households spent on home production.
[31] The BEA explains this shift by increased women's participation in the work force as well as the steadily decreasing market wages of household workers (such as cleaners and nannies), raising the opportunity costs of self-participation and encouraging outsourcing.
[31] The GPI is an alternative to GDP as a measure of economic growth that is generally designed to incorporate environmental and social factors that are not traditionally included.
While much of the focus is typically placed on environmental costs, most GPI measurements explicitly include additions for the value of household work and parenting.
In a 1999 report [39] GPI Atlantic describes the household production infrastructure as akin to the access to raw materials, labour and markets required for the business sector.
According to their (1999) measurements, “unpaid work contributes $325 billion worth of services to the Canadian economy annually” and they argue that GPI analysis should be explicitly incorporated into policy considerations.
[48] It solves the problem of having to come up with a standard wage,[48] but it is inherently difficult to obtain data on production output (e.g., number of pants folded) in the home.
[46] Yet, even then, the model does not take into account that men and women in the labour market often do housework, but hire housekeepers to do specific jobs that may require particular skills or expertise and demand a higher wage as a result.
As noted by Koolwal and van de Walle (2013), women in rural and developing countries spend a considerable amount of time collecting water.
[50] The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 also advocates for the provision of public service, infrastructure, and social protection policies in recognition of unpaid work.
