Careworn: The Economic History of Caring Labor

<span>Economists ignore caring labor since most is provided unpaid. Disregard is unjust, theoretically
indefensible, and probably misleading. Valuation requires estimates of time spent and
the replacement or opportunity costs of that time. <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow">I use the maintenance
costs of British workers, costs which cover both the material inputs into
upkeep and the domestic services needed to turn commodities into livings, to
isolate the costs of <i>paid</i> domestic labor. I then impute the value of <i>unpaid</i>
domestic labor from these market equivalents, and aggregate across households
without domestic servants. </a>Historically, unpaid domestic labor represented
c. 20 per cent of total income, a contribution that suggests the need to revise
some standard narratives. </span>