The Economics Book

310

GDP IGNORES

WOMEN

GENDER AND ECONOMICS

G

ross domestic product

(GDP) is the most

commonly cited economic

statistic. It provides a summary

measure of the economic activity

taking place within a country over

a whole year—and appears to relate

directly to important factors such

as household incomes or the rate

of employment. However, for

all its prominence in economic

debates, GDP is subject to

considerable problems.

The problems and limits of

GDP center on how it is calculated

and what it includes. Measuring

GDP relies on the collection

of data relating to economic

transactions. The principle behind

it is that everything bought and

sold in a year should be registered

by GDP. Government statisticians

conduct in-depth surveys to

measure this figure. However,

everything bought and sold in a

nation is not exactly equivalent

to all the economic activity that

takes place. Nor does the eventual

figure necessarily capture much

of what people might value about

a country. For example, an

environmentalist would say that

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Society and the economy

KEY THINKER

Marilyn Waring (1952– )

BEFORE

1932 Russian-American

economist Simon Kuznets

produces the first accounts

of the whole US economy.

1987 US economist Marianne

Ferber publishes Women and

Work: Paid and Unpaid, a

bibliography of prior research

on women and economics.

AFTER

1990 First release of UN

Development Index, which

attempts to account for

a broader concept of

development than is available

in national income figures.

1996 US economists

Barnet Wagman and

Nancy Folbre analyze the

contribution of housework

to US national income.

GDP aims to record the

value of transactions in an

economy over a year.

But it excludes non-market

activity, such as housework

and child care, even though

they have value.

This is supposed to

represent all meaningful

economic activity.

These activities are

often largely performed

by women.

GDP ignores women.