For recent inventories, see the Annex in Valeria Esquivel, Debbie Budlender, Nancy Folbre, and Indira Hirway (2008) and Indira Hirway (2010b Hirway, Indira. 2010b. “Time-Use Surveys in Developing Countries: An Assessment,”. In Unpaid Work and the Economy: Gender, Time Use and Poverty, Edited by: Antonopoulos, Rania and Hirway, Indira. 252–324. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.  [Google Scholar]).

Although the subsistence sector is seldom included in practical terms due to lack of data, the UN System of National Accounts has included it as part of the production boundary (that is, included in gross domestic product [GDP] calculations) since 1993.

For heterodox contributions, see the special issues of World Development (Nilüfer Çağatay, Diane Elson, and Caren Grown 1995; Caren Grown, Diane Elson, and Nilüfer Çağatay 2000); Colin Danby (2004, 2008); and S. Charusheela (2010 Charusheela, S. 2010. “Gender and the Stability of Consumption: A Feminist Contribution to Post-Keynesian Economics.”. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34(6): 1145–56.  [Google Scholar]).

Examples of these models are that of William Darity, Jr. (1995), which includes ahousehold production function for subsistence production; the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for Bangladesh by Marzia Fontana and Adrian Wood (2000), which includes “reproduction” and “leisure” as separate economic sectors; and that of Ismaël Fofana, John Cockburn, and Bernard Decaluwé (2005), who use microsimulations to test the impact of trade reforms on women's and men's participation in paid and unpaid care work.

Debbie Budlender (2004 Budlender, Debbie. 2004. Expectations versus Realities in Gender-Responsive Budget Initiatives, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.  [Google Scholar]) goes beyond this criticism to explain that time-use data are discursive devices. As she puts it: “Detailed data are, however, not necessary for unpaid labour to be considered in GRB initiatives […] exact data strengthen the case and make it appear more scientific, but are not required for appropriate policy making” (2004: 17).

The Human Development Report1995 (UNDP 1995) is an example of the conceptual approach already developed at that time, and of the scarce time-use data then available.

In the words of Selma James: “When we say wages for housework we don't expect that the first pound, dollar or lira that comes to us is going to transform the situation and the society. We have a number of objectives with the perspective of wages for housework. The first (…) is for housework to be visible. And that has immediate implications both directly and indirectly; that is, women can say ‘This is what I have been doing’ to their families and to their communities generally. (…) This money was women's by right, this was owed to us. We must have this money as an entitlement” (Global Women's Strike 2009).

If a “specialist wage” is applied, then the different services provided by unpaid work should be identified.

For example, in 2001, a short module was introduced to the 2001 Living Conditions Survey in Argentina. It had “yes/no” questions to ten tasks, but respondents wereasked to report the time devoted to perform them all, making it impossible to distinguish time spent on different tasks.

For references on TUS methods, see UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2005) and Esquivel et al. (2008 Esquivel, Valeria, Budlender, Debbie, Folbre, Nancy and Hirway, Indira. 2008. “Explorations: Time-Use Surveys in the South.”. Feminist Economics, 14(3): 107–52. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).

Defined in this way, there is no reason to exclude from care relationships those situations in which the caregiver receives a payment or monetary reward – that is, a situation in which someone different from the caregiver provides resources to sustain the care relationship. Indeed, one important difference between unpaid work and care work is that the newer concept departs from the BPfA framework, “more specifically, focusing on the labour process rather than the relationship to the site of production (home versus market) or the production boundary (in the SNA [system of national accounts] or not)” (Folbre 2006 Folbre, Nancy. 2006. “Measuring Care: Gender, Empowerment, and the Care Economy.”. Journal of Human Development, 7(2): 183–99. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]: 186). In the latter sense, this new formulation expands unpaid work by including also the study of care work performed in the paid economy – the work of teachers, nurses, doctors, paid domestic workers, and so on

However, Jochimsen argues that it is possible to reclaim “the power of the concept of dependency to capture essential human relations which exist alongside moments of autonomy” (2003: 241).

Children themselves have agency, voice, and rights, even though they cannot act upon these themselves.

These assertions are supported by time-use data. See, for example, Suzanne M. Bianchi, Melissa A. Milkie, Liana C. Sayer, and John P. Robinson (2000); Jonathan Gershuny (2000 Gershuny, Jonathan. 2000. Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Postindustrial Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]); and Jonathan Gershuny and Oriel Sullivan (2003).

Some authors maintain that since care is always provided within a care relationship, the nature of care itself changes when it is commodified because the relationship changes (Susan Himmelweit 1995 Himmelweit, Susan. 1995. “The Discovery of ‘Unpaid Work’: The Social Consequences of the Expansion of ‘Work.’”. Feminist Economics, 1(2): 1–19. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). The feelings and motivations that accompany care work become nontransferable, and therefore “non-commodifiable” (Kathleen Lynch 2007 Lynch, Kathleen. 2007. “Love Labour as a Distinct and Non-commodifiable Form of Care Labour.”. The Sociological Review, 55(3): 550–70. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Later writings take a somewhat less strict view. For example, Nancy Folbre states that “debates over whether care should or should not be ‘commodified’ often overstate the consequences of whether care work takes place inside or outside the money economy. Most forms of care for dependents – including but not limited to children – require a combination of paid and unpaid work. Substitutability between the two is limited, especially at the extremes. Few families can care for dependents entirely on their own, and few schools or hospitals can operate successfully without cooperation from family members. But most people reach fora balance among the different types of care that help them meet their needs” (2008: 376).

Some literature conceives of housework as a “costly” activity that most people would choose to avoid and demand substitutes for and caring as a “rewarding” activity, therefore not a “cost” (Paula England and Michelle J. Budig 1998). Recently, Robert E. Goodin, James Mahmud Rice, Antti Parpo, and Lina Eriksson (2008) have proposed the criterion of “socially necessary” time to frame choices regarding unpaid work: only beyond the minimum necessary time does the choice to perform an activity emerge. In this way, they do not need to (arbitrarily) differentiate care work from housework: both are necessary up to a certain threshold, and a matter of choice beyond it.