MARILYN WARING AND UNPAID WORK

Marilyn Waring, is a New Zealander and the author of the book Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth (Wellington: Allen and Unwin, 1988). In this book she argues that the standard methods of national accounting, by not including measures of unpaid work, mean that economists consider housewives to be "totally unproductive" (p.13). She discussed this and related issues on an Insight programme, broadcast on New Zealand's National Radio, at 8pm 30/10/95. She said:

"Time is the one thing that everybody has to contribute economically. Time is what we all choose to invest ... and time, and how time is used, tells me where the pressures are for intervention in terms of policy making ... Unless you do time use surveys, you don't know where these pressure points are."

and:

"Overwhelmingly, women work more than men, and longer hours than men. They may not be paid, but in production and in service work that is the situation and it's demonstrated in country after country."

She appears to be unaware of the information currently available in her own country.

The New Zealand Department of Statistics conducted a pilot time use survey in 1990 and published some results in Testing Time in 1991. Among other things, they found that: "Paid work accounted for 22 per cent of an average 24-hour day for men and 8 per cent of an average day for women in the pilot survey. Unpaid work accounted for 20 per cent of a 24-hour day for women and 12 per cent of a day for men." (p.21)

In other words, time use survey results are available and, contrary to her claim that women work more and longer than men, according to this survey at least, men work for 34 per cent of the time on average, compared to 28 per cent for women.

Stuart Birks

27 November, 1995