Awareness about women’ hidden economy

Dr. Aleya Perveen

Both men and women play important roles in the economy. Women continue to make contributions through household work to the family and to socioeconomic advancement. Despite putting in an average of 16 to 20 hours each day, women's contributions to the economy are undervalued. Men are mostly viewed in the current paradigm as labor power, which generates cash by selling its labor force to support the family. And the majority of women in society are responsible for carrying out the remaining necessary work, such as household and family duties, which has no economic value because it is an unnoticed, unseen contribution. Therefore, domestic work is not counted against national income. The 'hidden economy' of domestic labour, however, has gradually come to light as a result of the growing influence and role of women in all aspects of life, particularly the economics, and it has been clear how a sizable portion of the population depends on this 'hidden economy' for a living. Family work performed by women that is unacknowledged and unappreciated is gradually making its way into the global economy. In 1993, the United Nations revised national income measurement (System of National Accounts, SNA) to clearly highlight the invisible contribution of women to society. From this calculation, it has been seen that according to the market price of such things produced by families and consumed by families, a total of 16 trillion dollars worth of goods are produced all over the world. Of this, 11 trillion dollars are produced by women. As a result, $16 trillion is lost or unaccounted for from the global economy every year. This includes the value of men's unpaid work and women's low-wage work at prevailing market prices. Since women contribute 11 trillion of these 16 trillion dollars, the invisible contribution of women to the global economy is 11 trillion dollars. A study by the United Nations in 1990 also shows that if the price of the work that girls do in the family is paid and included in the national income of the country concerned, the total production of the whole world will increase by 20 to 30 percent. Shamim Hamid's research report Why Women Count (1996) shows that each woman contributes an average of Tk 4765 ($133.14) annually to the economy of Bangladesh through her unpaid activities. She also shows that if women's contribution to national income from unpaid work is added, women's contribution to the national economy would increase from 25% to 41%. And men's contribution will decrease from 75% to 59%.

Although women do more work (paid and unpaid) than men in every country in the world, women's share of economic gains is much lower. If women's contribution to the national economy is properly reflected, the misconception that men are the main earners would be removed (Unnoyon Podokkhep, 4th Year, 13 Issue, 1998, p-7). Although women work more than men, they also get less rest or recreation. A study by Action Aid and the Center for Gender and Social Transformation (CGST) of Brac University found that women in the two districts under study spend an average of six hours a day on service work and five hours on productive work. Men spend an average of one hour on service work and seven hours on productive work. Because of this, women get less rest. Women's service work is not valued; Many do not even want to recognize service work as work. In the study, service work is defined as cooking, household work and caring for family members and productive work is defined as work that earns income including rearing cows, goats, and poultry. Unproductive work includes leisure, self-care, and social and cultural work. Researcher Pratima Pal Majumder of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies said that recognition of service work in the world improves people's quality of life. She felt that it was necessary to simplify the way of life to reduce the burden of service work on women. Farah Kabir of Action Aid Bangladesh said if women stop working for a day, the life system will collapse. Bangladesh Women Entrepreneurs Association president Nasreen Awal commented that it is difficult for women to join productive work without men's participation in service work. If men could be involved in service and household work, the burden of women's invisible work would be reduced. Also, men will become humanized to a greater degree than at present (The daily Prothom Alo, 11 march, 2015).

The National Women's Development Policy-2011 mentions the adoption of effective measures in all institutions, including the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, to reflect the contribution of women to the national economy. So everyone needs to be aware to make visible the hidden economy or the invisible labor of women. A study by Work for Better Bangladesh and HealthBridge found that 84.4% of men think that women's work is important. Women's domestic work should be treated like any other professional work. Our family and social quality of life would have been better if household work had been given equal importance to social or state cash-generating activities. At present, many countries in the world are taking various measures to assess domestic work. For example, former Cuban President Fidel Castro made domestic work compulsory for men through state legislation. These examples can be applied to our country. The former honorable Minister of State for Posts and Telecommunications, Advocate Tarana Halim, said that it is time to recognize the contribution of women to the national economy based on the assessment of domestic work (Khushi Kabir, Contribution of Women to National Economy Based on Assessment of Household Work, Work for Better Bangladesh and HealthBridge, 2013, Dhaka p-11).

In fact, today's women are doing a lot of labor outside the home as well as men. As a result, women are struggling to balance the extra workload. In this situation, it has become necessary to extend the help of men to women in household work, and the evaluation of women's domestic work has also become very important to build a society of equality. And valuing women's domestic work can build an egalitarian society and make the hidden economy visible.