System of National Accounts
Each country measures its economic output according to the System of National Accounts (SNA), sponsored mainly by the United Nations (UN), but implemented mainly by other organizations such as the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. The SNA recognizes that unpaid work is an area of interest, but "unpaid household services are excluded from production boundary." Feminist economists have criticized the SNA for this exclusion, because by leaving out unpaid work, basic and necessary labor is ignored.
Even accounting measures intended to recognize gender disparities are criticized for ignoring unpaid work. Two such examples are the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), neither of which include much unpaid work. So feminist economics calls for a more comprehensive index which includes participation in unpaid work.
In more recent years there has been increasing attention to this issue, such as recognition of unpaid work within SNA reports and a commitment by the UN to the measurement and valuation of unpaid work, emphasizing care work done by women. This goal was restated at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
Read more about this topic: Feminist Economists, Major Areas of Inquiry, Unpaid Work
Famous quotes containing the words system of, system, national and/or accounts:
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“Never expect any recognition here—the system prohibits it. The cross is not affixed to the genius, no, the genius is affixed to the cross.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don’t seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it’s because we’re engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as supplicants admitted to a shrine.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)