Events Gretchen Donehower Events Gretchen Donehower

CWW/NTA Research Wins Conference Poster Award at IUSSP 2017

A poster of research results from CWW and AGENTA researchers titled "Is it men or women who pay for the kids? The gendered division in the contributions to childbearing and implications for fertility" was a awarded a prize at the IUSSP conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 29 to November 4, 2017.

Tanja Istenic of the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, and Gretchen Donehower of UC Berkeley Department of Demography with the winning poster of Day 4.

Tanja Istenic of the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, and Gretchen Donehower of UC Berkeley Department of Demography with the winning poster of Day 4.

"Is it men or women who pay for the kids? The gendered division in the contributions to childbearing and implications for fertility" was a poster that showcased CWW research methods and their ability to bring new insights by combining the economies of the market and the household. The poster was authored by Lili Vargha of the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, Gretchen Donehower of UC Berkeley and Tanja Istenic of the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics. It was presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population’s (IUSSP) 28th international conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 29 to November 4, 2017.

It was awarded the Best Poster Prize for Day 4.

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Events Gretchen Donehower Events Gretchen Donehower

Policy Forum on Counting Women's Work in Vietnam

CWW Vietnam’s findings and policy recommendations were discussed at a workshop in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 23 May 2017, sponsored by IDRC, ILSSA, and other local groups.

Unpaid care and domestic work are vital for people’s well-being and the functioning of the market economy. Globally, the burden of combining productive and reproductive work has negative consequences on women’s lives, including limiting economic opportunities and power within households. Since these activities are ignored in the System of National Accounts and measures of total production such as GDP, no economic value is attached to unpaid household services despite their tremendous contribution to the economy and society.

One of the key targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 is to “recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibilities within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”. Vietnam’s National Strategy for Gender Equality 2011-2020 includes a target to reduce women’s time involvement in household duties under its objective to ensure gender equality in family life.

As part of the Counting Women’s Work (CWW) research, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Vietnam’s research team is engaging with this issue. The CWW research in Vietnam has been carried out by the the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs. The findings and policy recommendations emanating from this research were discussed with a variety of stakeholders at a workshop held in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 23 May 2017.

IDRC report on forum IDRC report on forum

PI Donehower’s presentation slides


2017-05-19 VN Infographic.jpeg
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Publication, Country Reports Counting Women's Work Publication, Country Reports Counting Women's Work

CWW Country Report, Vietnam

The third CWW Country Report features results from Vietnam.

CWW country reports provide an overview of the estimates for that country. These include age profiles of market labor income and consumption by sex from National Transfer Accounts. To include unpaid care work, consumption and production from National Time Transfer Accounts are included as well. The third country report published is from Vietnam. Please click the link below to view the report.

 
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Publication, Infographics Counting Women's Work Publication, Infographics Counting Women's Work

Infographic, Vietnam

CWW infographics summarize the market-based and unpaid care work economy in a country. This post shows the infographic for Vietnam.

Counting Women’s Work estimates of the market and unpaid care work economies can be summarized with a series of statistics. CWW produces infographics to show these results. Infographics are available with a dark or light background. The infographic for Vietnam is shown below.

 
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Publication, Journal Articles Counting Women's Work Publication, Journal Articles Counting Women's Work

Counting unpaid work in Kenya: Gender and age profiles of hours worked and imputed wage incomes

The CWW Kenya research team has published “Counting unpaid work in Kenya: Gender and age profiles of hours worked and imputed wage incomes.” in the Journal of the Economics of Ageing.

Muriithi, M., Mutegi, R., and Mwabu, G. 2017 “Counting unpaid work in Kenya: Gender and age profiles of hours worked and imputed wage incomes.” The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, in press.

ABSTRACT:

The paper first presents profiles of unpaid work by age and gender before turning to profiles of their monetary values. We value unpaid work using a novel data set on hourly wages from the Kenya Gazette on salaries of workers covered by minimum wages mandated by the Government in 2015 (Republic of Kenya, 2015).

We count unpaid work performed by men and women at home, on the farm, and within household enterprises. In particular, focus is on unpaid work that is also typically performed away from home, such as child care. We value unpaid work using the delegation or third party criterion (Reid, 1934; Donehower, 2014).

We find that men work longer hours in household enterprises and earn more than women, but the reverse is true on the farm. The imputed wage incomes from unpaid work on the farm vary by gender and age over the life course, with men’s imputed wage-income profiles dominating women’s at older ages. General policy implications of the findings are briefly discussed.

 
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Publication, Journal Articles Counting Women's Work Publication, Journal Articles Counting Women's Work

Household production and consumption over the life cycle: National Time Transfer Accounts in 14 European countries

A group of European researchers have used CWW methodology to produce the article “Household production and consumption over the life cycle: National Time Transfer Accounts in 14 European countries“ published in the journal Demographic Research.

Vargha, L., Gál, R., and Crosby-Nagy, M., 2017. “Household production and consumption over the life cycle: National Time Transfer Accounts in 14 European countries” Demographic Research, 36: 905-944. DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.32

ABSTRACT:

Background: While the importance of unpaid household labour is recognised in total economic output, little is known about the demographics of household production and consumption.

Objective: Our goal is to give a comprehensive estimation on the value of household production and its consumption by age and gender and analyse nonmarket economic transfers in 14 European countries based on publicly available harmonised data.

Methods: We introduce a novel imputation method of harmonised European time use (HETUS) data to the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) in order to assign time spent on home production to consumers in households and estimate time transfers. Moreover, monetary values are attributed to household production activities using data on earnings from the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES).

Results: We show that the nonmarket economic life cycle of men differs from that of women. The gender gap in household production is not evenly distributed over the life cycle. Women of working age contribute the most in net terms, while the main beneficiaries of household goods and services are children and to a lesser extent adult men. These patterns are similar across countries, with variations in the gender- and age-specific levels of home production and consumption.

Conclusions: In Europe, in the national economy, intergenerational flows are important in sustaining both childhood and old age. In contrast, in the household economy, intergenerational transfers flow mostly towards children.

Contribution: We add a new focus to the research on household production: While keeping the gender aspect, we demonstrate the importance of the life cycle component in household production.

 
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