Accurately Tracking Women's Work Instantaneously
In a significant move, the United Nations' statistical commission revised the system of national accounts in 1993, broadening its scope by redefining the boundaries of production to include non-economic activities. This decision paved the way for the quantification of unpaid work, a domain that has long been overlooked in conventional statistics.
Time-use surveys, designed to collect quantitative summaries of how individuals spend or allocate their time over a specified period, typically over a day or a week, have been instrumental in this endeavour. However, these surveys do not adequately capture qualitative aspects of work, such as enjoyment or efficiency.
One of the challenges faced in conducting time-use surveys is the influence of social and cultural norms on responses. This can lead to underreporting of women's contributions to unpaid work. Women, it is worth noting, contribute a major chunk of household labor in the form of unpaid labor, carrying out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men.
The persistent pay gaps and economic inequalities faced by women can be traced back to this disproportionate share of unpaid work. To address this issue, the revision expanded the definition of work to capture unpaid work as well.
Critics argue that time-use surveys may overlook the distinction between slow and fast workers and not capture information on the quality and efficiency of work. The training and skills of the enumerator are crucial for accurate categorization of activities in these surveys.
Sangita Dutta Gupta, a professor at the School of Management and Assistant Dean of Research at BML Munjal University in Haryana, and Manjula M, a faculty member at the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru, are among the scholars who have been conducting research in this area. However, the two female scientists conducting research in India on the distribution of household work and contributing to the understanding of women's wage neglect are not named in the provided search results.
To account for household production, the commission suggested creating satellite accounts that are separate from but consistent with the main accounts of the market economy. Data from time-use surveys has been incorporated into the national accounts and labor statistics in countries like Ecuador, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, and Ghana.
Claudia Goldin, a Nobel laureate and American labor economist, refers to certain jobs as 'greedy work,' which requires long, inflexible working hours and pays disproportionately more on a per-hour basis. Since the early 1980s, jobs with the greatest demands for long hours and the least flexibility have paid disproportionately more, while earnings in other occupations have stagnated.
Quantifying unpaid work through time-use surveys and using the data generated to inform policy decisions can help address economic inequalities for women. For instance, positions that women find hard to enter, such as those in finance, have seen the greatest increases in income in the last several decades.
However, time-use surveys are costly and require skilled staff for effective data collection. Illiteracy and language barriers can affect the quality of data collected and the respondents' ability to participate. Despite these challenges, the benefits of quantifying unpaid work and addressing economic inequalities for women make this a worthwhile endeavour.
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