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Inter-Regional Workshop on the Production of Gender Statistics New Delhi, India, 6-10 August 2007. Measuring Women’s and Men’s Work: Towards a comprehensive framework. Grace Bediako Government Statistician Ghana Statistical Service. Beijing Platform for Action strong on women’s economic role.
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Inter-Regional Workshop on the Production of Gender StatisticsNew Delhi, India, 6-10 August 2007 Measuring Women’s and Men’s Work: Towards a comprehensive framework Grace Bediako Government Statistician Ghana Statistical Service
Beijing Platform for Action strong on women’s economic role • Invisibility of women’s work in statistics covered in several paragraphs • Actions on making women’s work and economic contribution visible covered under three Strategic Objectives of the Beijing Platform for Action, on: • Research • Policy • Statistics
Invisibility of women’s work in statistics (2) • Strategic objectives • A.4 Develop gender-based methodologies and conduct research to address the feminization of poverty • E.1 Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment and appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources • H.3 Generate and disseminate gender- disaggregated data and information for planning and evaluation
Three sets of actions under Statistics • Developing a more comprehensive knowledge of all forms of work and employment. • Developing an international classification of activities for time-use statistics that is sensitive to the differences between women and men in remunerated and unremunerated work and collect data, disaggregated by sex. • Improve the data collection on the full contribution of women and men to the economy, including their participation in informal sector(s)
The presentation • The problem? • What is the dominant framework? • What are its main features • Why a comprehensive framework? • What are the desired features? • What are the tools for implementing the framework? • What are the next steps?
State of statistics on women’s work • Assessments of gender statistics generally highlight women’s economic participation as one of the major problem areas: • Definition of economic activity • The concept of economic activity not adequately translated in survey questionnaires • Instruments not suitable for measuring some types of women’s work (better for men’s work)
State of statistics on women’s work (2) • Estimates of economic contribution of women and men: • The levels of women’s participation in economic activity underestimated • The concept of “work” better captures men’s contribution than women’s • The gap between the participation of women and men in “work” does not fully reflect women’s unremunerated work (largely underestimated)
State of statistics on women’s work (3) • Ways of defining, measuring and estimating economic participation and contribution masks the real changes taking place in the economic spheres • Statistics do not reflect that fact that more and more women who are working outside the household, still maintain primary responsibility for the unremunerated work within the home, while men’s unremunerated work has not changed substantially.
Dominant framework for measuring work – The System of National Accounts (SNA) • The economically active population is defined as “all persons of either sex who furnish the supply of labour for the production of economic goods and services as defined by the United Nations System of national Accounts and Balances” ILO, 1983.
The gender-relevant implications of the definition (1) • Explicitly states that both women and men should be considered • All work that yield goods and services within the SNA production boundary are considered economic activity … these include all production and processing of primary products whether for the market, for barter or for own consumption.
The gender-relevant implications of the definition (2) • SNA production however excludesdomestic or personal services for own consumption (individual as well as for members within the same household) except the services produced by paid domestic staff. Since women tend to spend more time than their male counterparts on these Non-SNA activities their efforts are not are not counted as part of economic activities, irrespective of their significance and impact.
The gender-relevant implications of the definition (3) • So even if economic activity were accurately measured (and for a number of reasons this is not likely to be the case for a substantial number of national data sources), a large part of the contribution of women to production would not be accounted for (in terms of) • their involvement in some of these activities, • time spent, • income generated, • value added, etc.
There is need therefore for a framework that… • Recognizes the importance of unremunerated work not only for other households but also for own household • Takes account of remunerated and unremunerated work, in a way that their magnitudes can be compared, though not necessarily combined.
Maintaining consistency with current framework Taking cue from Beijing Platform for Action • … measure and better understand the type, extent, and distribution of unremunerated work, particularly work in caring for dependents and… the development of methods for assessing its value in quantitative terms, for possible reflection in accounts that may be produced separately from, but consistent with, core national accounts. (Para. 167 (g))
A comprehensive framework • General versus SNA production boundary – Productive If the performance of an activity can not be delegated to another without the same desired results/outcomes … it is termed as productive and falls within the general production boundary.
A comprehensive framework (2) All activities General production boundary Productive Non-productive Economic Non-economic SNA production boundary
A comprehensive framework (3) • Three categories of activities in SNA • Productive activities within SNA boundary • Productive activities outside SNA boundary (i.e., within the general production boundary) • Non-productive activities (i.e., outside the general production boundary)
Production activities within the SNA boundary • Production of goods and services supplied or intended to be supplied to units other than their producers; • Own account production of all goods retained by their producers, including: • All production and processing of primary products, • Housing services by owner-occupiers, • Domestic and personal services produced by paid domestic staff
Non-SNA Activities within the General Production Boundary • Domestic and personal services for own household (except those produced by paid domestic staff), including • Cleaning; • Servicing and repairs; • Preparation and serving of meals; • Care, training and instruction of children; • Care of the sick, infirm and elderly; • Transporting of household members or their goods; and • Unpaid volunteer services to other households, community, etc.
Non-productive/ personal activities • Activities performed for personal maintenance and care, such as • Eating, drinking, • Sleeping, exercising, etc., • Activities associated with: • Socializing, entertainment, participation in sports, hobbies and games, use of mass media, etc.; • Education and learning activities
Implications of the framework • Extends the definition of “work” to encompass both economic and non-economic activities • Provides a basis for measuring remunerated and unremunerated work • New set of instruments, classifications, methods required to measure “work” • Further guidance needed on how to process the information, and their use in developing satellite accounts
Time-use survey … • Ideal for the comprehensive measurement of all forms of work, even personal activities • For mapping out the division of roles and responsibilities within the household • For providing the required information on time allocation for valuing women’s and men’s unpaid work • For better characterizing and capturing difficult-to-measure economic activities (especially those in which women are typically engaged)
Classification of activities for time-use statistics – has been developed • Provides detailed comprehensive, systematic listing of activities, that serves as a basis for assessing completeness of coverage of activities • Guides the interviewer for eliciting from respondent the required level of detail • Defines the framework for analysis of the time-use survey data • Serves as a basis for defining analytical and tabulation categories
Principles underlying the proposed activity classification • Flexibility – applied to different analytical objectives as well as other potential uses of time-use statistics • Balanced and comprehensive coverage of groups of all activities, reflecting the structure of time distribution (e.g., productive and personal, formal and informal) • Detailed enough, identifying separately activities of important subpopulations • Close correspondence with classification schemes of historic data sets, and national and regional listings that have undergone cycles of testing, use and review
Next steps • The time-use survey instrument serves to more accurately classify individuals into the categories of activities • Then the detailed characteristics of the economically active and others would need to be determined, with respect to: • The characteristics of the job • The characteristics of the employing institution/establishment
The Platform calls for: • Improving data collection on the unremunerated work that is already included in the System of National Accounts (SNA), such as in agriculture and other types of non-market production activities (para. 206 (f) (i)). • Improving measurements that at present underestimate women’s unemployment and underemployment in the labour market (para. 206 (f) (ii)). • Developing methods quantifying the value of unremunerated work that is outside national accounts, such as caring for dependents, preparing food, for possible reflection in satellite accounts that may be produced separately from but are consistent with core national accounts (para. 206 (f) (iii)).
Some issues for reflection… • Do differences in economic activity rates of women and men represent… • Actual differences in their participation in production of goods and services that are valued in the national accounts framework? • How are the differences in women and men’s use of time captured in statistics… • Do the statistics on economic production measure the full outcome of women and men’s work? • Is there a need to take a closer look at how women and men are represented in economic statistics?
