Abstract
We have used the urban Time Use Surveys of Iran (TUSI) of 2008 and 2009, several Iranian censuses and our own national survey of the wages of care workers and private tutors to provide the first national estimates of the monetary value of unpaid domestic work of married urban housewives. TUSI covered only urban areas. Urban married housewives carried out most of the care work and home education of children. Adopting a market-based approach, we estimate this unpaid work to be worth US$26 billion in 2008 and US$29 billion in 2009 comprising 8.6% of non-oil GDP in both years. These figures are underestimates because rural women, non-housewife urban women and urban unmarried women are not included in our study. Such unrecorded contributions to national output have important social policy implications because various social policy measures and especially social insurance policies do not cover married housewives in their own right but as dependents of their husbands. Providing a monetary estimate of their unpaid work makes their contribution to the economy visible that should lead to the provision of social insurance against basic contingencies of life such as has health problems, poverty, disabilities and support in old age.
Highlights
Unpaid domestic and care work is unrecognised in the market-based metrics of gross domestic product (GDP), which makes it institutionally biased against women who carry out most of this
The fact that the contribution of unpaid work to the national output is not monetised should not undermine its true value to the economy and society at large
There is an urgent need to make unpaid work more visible than it currently is especially in societies like Iran where Islamic ideology has deepened the institutionalisation of gender discrimination
Summary
Unpaid domestic and care work is unrecognised in the market-based metrics of gross domestic product (GDP), which makes it institutionally biased against women who carry out most of this. Iran conducted two time use surveys in urban areas in 2008-09 and 2014-15 (hereafter referred to as TUSI 2008-09 and TUSI 2014-15) providing information on unpaid work of men and women based on ICATUS classifications. These studies were mainly based on small-scale time use surveys in the capital city of Tehran. These authors have motivated us to further their work and provide a comprehensive and nationwide study of the time use, and the value of unpaid work of women and their implications for social policies in Iran.
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