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Many kinds of work are performed
mostly by women, including child care.
They are vital to the economy but do
not count toward GDP because they
are not recorded in the paid economy.
See also: Measuring wealth 36–37 ■ Economics and tradition 166–67 ■
The economics of happiness 216–19 ■ Social capital 280
CONTEMPORARY ECONOMICS
GDP does not allow for the
depletion of natural resources.
Deforestation generally adds to
GDP, assuming the lumber is sold.
But a potentially irreplaceable
natural resource is being
consumed, and GDP gives no
indication of this. Similarly, if an
economic activity produces
pollution, GDP would count only
the products sold and ignore the
undesirable side effects, such as
loss of biodiversity or worsened
public health.
Women’s work
There are other difficulties with
the figure arrived at in calculating
GDP. In her influential 1988 book
If Women Counted, Marilyn Waring,
a one-time New Zealand politician,
argued that GDP systematically
underreports the work performed
by women. Women account for a
great bulk of the work performed
in households across the world,
as well as most child care and
care for the elderly. This work is
clearly economically necessary,
because it helps to ensure the
reproduction of the labor force,
for example. But in the vast
majority of cases it is not paid,
and so does not enter into the
calculation of GDP.Excluding women
The accounting differences
involved in calculating economic
output can be highly arbitrary,
treating essentially equivalent
work very differently. Cooking is
“economically active” when food
is sold, but “economically inactive”
when it is not. The only distinction
here is the presence or absence of a
market transaction, but the activity
is identical. One will act to exclude
women, while the other will not.
There is, then, a huge implicit
gender bias in national accounts,
and the true economic value of
work performed by women is
systematically underestimated
in our conventional accounting
systems. Waring went further
to argue that the standard
international system for calculating
national income, the United
Nations System of National
Accounts (UNSNA), is an example
of “applied patriarchy:” in other
words an attempt by the male
economy to exclude women in a
way that acts to reinforce gender
divisions globally.
Waring’s criticisms, and those
of other feminist economists, have
helped to shape arguments over
the future of national income
accounting. Current debates
on how to account for well-being
and the development of broader
social measures of economic
progress indicate a growing
desire to move beyond the
constraints and limitations
of GDP as a measure of worth. ■Marilyn Waring
One of New Zealand’s first
female members of
Parliament, Marilyn Waring
was born in 1952. She was
promoted by the National
Party Prime Minister Robert
Muldoon to become chair of
the Public Expenditure
Committee in 1978. She later
fell out with the government,
threatening to vote in favor of
an opposition motion banning
nuclear weapons and nuclear
power from New Zealand in- Muldoon called a
general election in response,
which the National Party lost.
After Parliament Waring
pursued her interests in
farming and economics. In
2006, she became Professor of
Public Policy at the Auckland
University of Technology,
where she has continued
to research the measurement
of areas excluded by
conventional economics.
Key work1988 If Women Counted:
A New Feminist EconomicsWe women are visible
and valuable to each
other, and we must, now
in our billions, proclaim
that visibility and
that worth.
Marilyn Waring