Time-use surveys measure the number of hours devoted to care of family and friends, making it possible to estimate what it would cost to purchase an approximate substitute for them. Such a “replacement cost” estimate of adult care services in the U.S. featured in my last post. However, most time-use surveys continue to emphasize time in specific activities–like feeding or… Read more →
Category: measurement and valuation of unpaid care work
The Dollar Value of Grown-Up Care
I love the title of the regular–and recently updated– AARP Public Policy Institute report estimating the value of family care for adults with limitations in daily activities: “Valuing the Invaluable.” It calls attention to the estimated replacement cost without fetishizing the dollars. If those family members were not on the case, money expenditures on health and long term services would be… Read more →
What is She Worth? How to Value (Or Not to Value) a Woman’s Life
The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund dispensed death benefits for female victims that averaged only 63% of those for male victims. Why? Special Master Kenneth Feinberg was instructed to use a formula similar to that used in U.S. courts, taking victims’ estimated future earnings into account. For more details, see his fascinating book, What is Life Worth? (Public Affairs, 1995). Women… Read more →
Is it Work?
This ad from monster.com (a job-search site) caught my eye, a reminder that most people hope for a job that will be intrinsically satisfying. Neoclassical economists generally define work as an activity that is only a means to an end–people presumably work only until the utility of the additional income (or home-produced services) is no greater than the disutility of… Read more →
Children as Pets
This recent New Yorker cover satirizes the notion that children, like puppies in a store window, are just another consumer good. I think the gender stereotyping is intended as a joke, though not all viewers would take it that way. This children-as-pets notion is deeply embedded in our culture, and I’ve been fuming about it for years (See The Invisible… Read more →