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The Contribution of Unpaid Work to Global Wellbeing

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Global Handbook of Quality of Life

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

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Abstract

Social conflicts over industrialization in the nineteenth century gave rise to a whole range of institutions now typical of modern states, such as Ministries of Employment, employment legislation and trade unions. These institutions have played a key role in improving quality of life and wellbeing in advanced societies, and there is plenty of documentation and research on them.

However, unpaid work only began receiving considerable attention from 1995 onwards, when the United Nations proposed at the Beijing Platform for Action that the System of National Accounts should be reformed to include an unpaid work satellite account. Since then, research on this topic around the world has intensified, especially through the development of Time Use Surveys.

This chapter discusses the ties between paid and unpaid work, wellbeing and globalization, as well as differences in the use of these terms in different productive and cultural contexts.

The last part of the study provides a detailed analysis of how unpaid work contributes to the care of individual and collective wellbeing. Based on United Nations demographic data, it forecasts medium-term care demand in the world’s largest regions and draws attention to the need to find new models of distribution between families and other institutions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am grateful to Peru’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) and the Manuela Ramos Association for the opportunity of gaining a closer insight into these matters at the International Seminar on the Economic Valuation of Domestic Work, Lima, October 2013.

  2. 2.

    It was produced in Benin, Mexico and India. The authors of the annex on Benin are Gabriel Brunnich and Anne-Laure Radas; on India, Mehdi Ghissassi, Mercedes Johnson and Camille de Sentenec; and on Mexico, Pippa Druce and Pilar Rodríguez Riccheri.

  3. 3.

    According to this study, having certain electrical home appliances is considered to save seven hours of work every week: three hours for the electric cooker, three for the microwave, and one for the refrigerator.

  4. 4.

    INEGI, National Survey on Time Use, 2009.

  5. 5.

    Some indicators which measure the change in fertility outside marriage are the number of births, the fertility rate for unmarried women, and the proportion of those born out of marriage in comparison with the total number of births. This latter is the indicator most used in international comparisons (Castro-Martín 2007).

  6. 6.

    As an illustration, art. 68 of the Spanish Civil Code.

  7. 7.

    A good illustration is the Spanish law commonly called the Dependency Law (Law 39/2006). It was mainly created to provide assistance for the disabled and elderly dependent, but the pressure of disabled persons’ organisations saw it place specific emphasis on autonomy. Its official title is Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for Dependent People.

  8. 8.

    INE (National Institute of Statistics) Women and men in Spain, 2012, updated on 5 June, 2012, p. 3.

  9. 9.

    For a more in-depth look at Japan, India and China see Durán, see Durán, M.A. Unpaid work in the global economy (BBVA Foundation, 2012).

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  1. Center for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS), Council for Research of Spain, Madrid, Spain

    Maria-Angeles Duran

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  1. Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Wolfgang Glatzer

  2. University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, United Kingdom

    Laura Camfield

  3. Rhodes University Inst. Social & Economic Research, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Valerie Møller

  4. FLACSO-Mexico & UPAEP, Mexico City, Mexico

    Mariano Rojas

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Duran, MA. (2015). The Contribution of Unpaid Work to Global Wellbeing. In: Glatzer, W., Camfield, L., Møller, V., Rojas, M. (eds) Global Handbook of Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6_16

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