
Women’s Unpaid Labor is Worth $11T - vo2maxer
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/04/opinion/women-unpaid-labor.html
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untog
If someone posts an article comparing the performance of two Android phones
the comments aren’t filled with “what about iPhones?!”. And yet every time
gender is mentioned...

Guys, it’s OK for an article to discuss the different levels of unpaid labour
performed by women in different countries. You don’t _have_ to perceive it as
an attack on men if you don’t want to.

~~~
reportgunner
> _You don’t have to perceive it as an attack on men if you don’t want to._

I think people react like that because we have been conditioned into thinking
that men are to blame for the status quo.

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thrwaway69
I know I will get downvoted for saying this but every thread on women issues
always get hijacked by men talking about themselves and how the world is
unfair to them. That doesn't happen on articles on men. Those don't get
hijacked by women similarly.

My female friends always point this out and this is true. Every time someone
talks about issues surrounding women, instead of letting them, men comes in
swamp telling them how miserable their lives are. They don't go to a therapist
to resolve issues they should but instead take any chance to vent on women.
They don't try to make a community, movement or some statement to help other
men left out but cry in misery. They told me how it awful was and the
experience really sucked for them. It was toxic. They needed a baby sitter
instead of a partner. They also wasted a lot of time on useless things and
less on improving their lives i.e, hygiene, eating habits, schedule etc. They
told me how they were relying them to pick up those daily stuff for them. That
I'd consider unpaid labor and god knows how much labor they are performing for
free.

Edit: I am only describing what I heard from them in the second part of the
post.

~~~
reportgunner
> _every thread on women issues always get hijacked by men talking about
> themselves_

But why do you want men to fix it ? Should we ask more women to come comment
on men's articles ?

From my point of view it seems like the lack of women coming to comment on
men's problems articles - I don't believe we should _ban men from commenting
on women articles_.

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badpun
I don' see what is the point of this article. Because of how priorities and
values work, labor performed for others must be paid (as otherwise why do
it?), while labor performed for yourself and your family does not need
payment, as the motivation is intrinsic. Calling it unpaid labor is
manipulative and disingenuous - who should be paying me if I fix my own shoes
for example? The whole problem statement makes no sense.

~~~
untog
> who should be paying me if I fix my own shoes for example?

At no point does the article suggest that women should be paid $10,900B for
their work. It is simply pointing out that the work they do has monetary value
and highlights how different the gender balance is in different countries.

You fixing your own shoes is unpaid work, sure. Why does that render the
article invalid?

~~~
downerending
It does seem disingenuous, as no one has ever claimed that "unpaid" work
doesn't have value. It does have value, and that's why it's always compensated
in one way or another.

In fact, arguably it's highly beneficial to families to have one partner that
isn't paid on the books for this work, as that means they don't have to pay
taxes on that pay.

My parents both worked, but a lot of my friends had stay-at-home mothers, and
they seemed to be doing a lot better financially, perhaps partly due to this
effect.

~~~
mytherin
I would argue the exact opposite. Taxes substantially favor two smaller
incomes over one bigger one because of tax brackets. Two people earning 30k
before taxes will get a lot more money after taxes than one person earning
60k. Because of that, adding a second income of $X adds a lot more money than
simply getting a pay increase of $X dollars.

Your example feels more like correlation than causation. The families that
were well off could afford for one parent to stay home, while poor families
required both parents to work to make ends meet.

~~~
downerending
That might be so if one could choose to work half-time for half pay. This
option is usually not available, though, at least in the US. (Certainly I
couldn't, particularly once one rolls in medical insurance effects.) There are
pretty good reasons why many positions don't offer this option.

As for my example, I've no idea if the impression was correct. But it's
certainly the case that stay-at-home moms stayed at home for cultural reasons
and/or because they wanted to, at least where I lived. Being well off (ha)
enabled this option, but it certainly didn't drive it.

edit: Note also that your scenario doesn't involve taxing unpaid work, which
is what I was discussing. Instead you're just shuffling it around, which is a
different argument.

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himinlomax
My mother stayed at home while my father worked in an office. She did a lot of
"unpaid work." He also fixed the car, re-tiled the roof, fixed the plumbing,
changed the car's oil, and so on ... never got paid for it either.

So why is one type of unpaid work suddenly worth trillions, but the other
isn't?

~~~
badpun
Also, your father presumably supported your mother and you with his wages.
There are millions (billions?) of cases like that, and yet nobody is talking
about "unprecedented wealth transfer".

~~~
heartbeats
It seems like the opposite of "unpaid". Husband does X hours of labour each
year and gets 0.5 * total salary. Wife does Y hours of labour each year and
also gets 0.5 * total salary.

It's not unpaid labour if you're getting paid for it, right?

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ldeangelis
Here the research[0] the article is mentionning, and a direct link[1] to the
paper:

[0]: [https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-
publications/t...](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-
publications/time-care/)

[1]: [https://ousweb-prodv2-shared-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/media/do...](https://ousweb-prodv2-shared-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/FINAL_bp-time-to-care-
inequality-200120-en.pdf)

------
thrwaway69
One way we can solve this and make it right is by taxing overtime more. Men
tend to do overtime frequently due to having more time in the absence of
unpaid labor work women have to. That overtime tax can be used to compensate
everyone equally. While it may not remove all disparity but it will level up
the ground without direct discrimination.

~~~
LunaSea
That's already assuming that overtime is paid which is not the case in the
vast majority of cases.

