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Monetary valuation of unpaid work in Japan

Susumu KuwaharaResearch Fellow, ESRI, Japan

December 2nd,2010

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Background

In Japan, strong gender bias in housework, child care and elderly care/nursing has been regarded as a serious problem.

The need to measure the economic value of these activities and their burden on women in a form that allows comparison with other economic indicators is particularly strong.

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Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,The Fourth World Conference on Women

Chapter 4 Strategic objectives and actionsParagraph 68 (b) Devise suitable statistical

means to recognize and make visible the full extent of the work of women and all their contributions to the national economy, including their contribution in the unremunerated and domestic sectors, and examine the relationship of women’s unremunerated work to the incidence of and their vulnerability to poverty.

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History

1995 The Fourth World Conference on Women.

1997 The first report of the monetary valuation of unpaid work in Japan, estimates on 1981, 1986, 1991.

1998 The second report, estimates on 1996.

2009 The third report, estimates on 2001, 2006.

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From the point of “Measuring progress”

Measurement of Economic Welfare (MEW) by Tobin, Nordhaus(1973) includes unpaid work.

Net National Welfare (NNW,1978), Japanese version of MEW, includes unpaid work, too.

The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) also maintain unpaid work as their components.

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1. Time Use Survey

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Input Method As the valuation method, we use

only the input method. The formula for assessment is;

As a result, our assessment heavily relies on the time use survey.

Value of unpaid work = per capita hours of unpaid work * hourly wage *population

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STULA The "Survey on Time Use and Leisure

Activities (STULA)" is conducted by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The STULA aims to obtain comprehensive data on daily patterns of time allocation and leisure activities.

The STULA was first administered in 1976, and has been carried out every five years since then.

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The STULA covers those items Time use on a single day Participation in leisure activities

during the past year Frequency of participation in leisure

activities during the past year The survey also contains a

questionnaire on attributes of individuals and households.

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Two types of questionnaires since 2001

Questionnaire A adopts a pre-coding system (i.e. multiple choice style) . Used for around 76,000 households.

Questionnaire B uses diary method or after-coding system, which is more comparable to Harmonized European Time Use Surveys, HETUS, used for around 4,000 households.

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2. Scope and method of monetary valuation of unpaid work

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Scope of unpaid work

"Unpaid work" defined here covers only unpaid work in which the service provider and the service beneficiary are separable (i.e., the service can be provided by a third party) and the service can be provided in the market.

Namely, the "third party criteria" is applied.

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Type of unpaid work Housework (cooking, cleaning,

laundry, sewing and knitting, miscellaneous family affairs)

Elderly/nursing care Child care Shopping Volunteer and social activities

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The method of monetary valuation As for time use, we have only

STULA. However, as for wages to be applied

to each unpaid work, there are various options.

Opportunity-cost-method (OC) Replacement-cost-method

Specialist approach (RC-S) Generalist approach (RC-G)

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Opportunity costsOppotunity costs

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

65-

age

yen

Women, 2001Men, 2001Women, 2006Men, 2006

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Replacement-costs, Specialists

　 Corresponding occupations 2001 2006

HOUSEWOR K

Cookingaverage of chef and apprentice

chef1,247 1,167

Cleaning Building cleaning 998 976

Laundry Laundry man 1,133 1,026

Sewing and knitting

Sewing machine operator 879 887

Miscellaneous family affairs

Janitor 1,341 1,198

Elderly/nursing careAverage of nurse assistance

and home helper1,139 1,139

Child care Child care workers 1,278 1,235

Shopping Janitor 1,341 1,198

Volunteer workWeighted average of medical,

social security, social welfare and education

1,872 1,823

Hourly wages, unit: yen

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Replacement-costs, Generalists

Year Hourly wage

1996

880

2001

965

2006

973

Unit: yen

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3. Valuation results using pre-coding system’s data

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Assessment using Pre-coding system data set

Monetary value of unpaid work/ Nominal GDP

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006

Year

perc

ent

of G

DP

ＯＣＲＣ－ＳＲＣ－Ｇ

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Men’s share is extremely low

Unit: billion yen

　 ＯＣ 　 ＲＣ－Ｓ 　 ＲＣ－Ｇ 　

　 Women Men Women Men Women Men

1981 48,182 5,082 48,906 3,505 34,945 2,395

1986 63,678 8,150 62,304 5,446 45,192 3,844

1991 84,330 14,528 80,858 10,125 59,684 7,044

1996 98,104 18,011 92,349 13,384 67,396 8,673

2001 106,111 22,704 94,964 15,812 75,34311,60

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2006 106,120 25,749 89,997 17,486 76,80513,82

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(component ratio)

1981 90.5 9.5 93.3 6.7 93.6 6.4

1986 88.7 11.3 92.0 8.0 92.2 7.8

1991 85.3 14.7 88.9 11.1 89.4 10.6

1996 84.5 15.5 87.3 12.7 88.6 11.4

2001 82.4 17.6 85.7 14.3 86.7 13.3

2006 80.5 19.5 83.7 16.3 84.7 15.3

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Married women’s unpaid work is close to paid work (OC method)

Ratio of unpaid work, paid work =100,by ageWomen

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1519

～

2024

～

2529

～

3034

～

3539

～

4044

～

4549

～

5054

～

5559

～

6064

～

6569

～

7074

～

7579

～

8084

～ 85-

marriedunmarriedseparetd/ divorced

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For men, as long as they earn, unpaid works continue to be minor (OC method)

Ratio of unpaid work, paid work =100, by ageMen

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1519

～

2024

～

2529

～

3034

～

3539

～

4044

～

4549

～

5054

～

5559

～

6064

～

6569

～

7074

～

7579

～

8084

～ 85-

marriedunmarriedseparetd/ divorced

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4. Valuation results using after-coding system’s (diary methods) data

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After-coding system shows larger share of unpaid work

　 Pre-coding

Percent of GDP

After-coding

Percent of GDP

OC method

131.9 26.0 176.1 34.7

RC-S method

107.5 21.2 140.5 27.7

RC-G method

90.6 17.9 118.1 23.3

2006 figure, unit: billion yen

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International Comparison

Country Yearpercent of

GDPJapan 2006 17.9-34.7Korea 2004 13.7-22.5*USA 2004 18-58New

Zealand1999 39.0

Germany 2001 43.4Finland 2001 36.1* women only

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5. Comments and conclusion

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What happened?

Gender researchers criticized our methodology. They insist that the wages used for women’s unpaid work might be too small compared with wages used for men, because the wage gap itself is the result of gender discriminations and using these data rather confirms problems than improves situations.

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However, we think…

Despite several shortcomings in the valuation methods, the three reports of the monetary valuation of unpaid work were successful in galvanizing discussions among people on how to evaluate women’s role in the society and economy through unpaid work in Japan.

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We will go ahead.

The Council for Gender Equality recommended that the research should be conducted on the measurement of the unpaid work, such as housework, child care, elderly care, nursing, and volunteer activities, as well as economic and social assessments of the child care and elderly care/nursing.

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End

Thank you for listening patiently