Economic Value Assessment of Unpaid Homemaking
Keywords:
accounting unpaid work, opportunity cost, time use survey, care economyAbstract
‘Homemaking’ refers to unremunerated non-market activities, performed by family members themselves (esp. women), for the production of goods and services for self-consumption, which are neither taken into consideration while evaluating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) nor while calculating labour force statistics. While it is usually admitted that such ignorance renders the efforts of calculating ‘actual’ GDP futile, economists point out that the problems of assessing the economic value of homemaking activities, even to the degrees of proximity, are real to be ignored either, notwithstanding the benefits of such valuation. Against this backdrop, the work surfaces the theoretical debates concerning such valuation, and, the economic, practical and theoretical viability of the approaches adopted, in an ultimate effort to highlight the void in economic developments, be they international or specifically pertaining to India, in this field.
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