Gender Inequalities

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Gender inequalities are a large problem in terms of measuring economic production. The United Nations sees gender equality as an important goal, as four of the eight Millennium Development Goals for lowering poverty levels are directly related to women. While men and women both deal with discrimination and exclusion from the labor market, women are forced to contend with more barriers to full participation. There are several sources for these inequalities, including gaps in education, lack of resource access, the inability to access the labor market and structural inequalities (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2012).
How Household Production Can Be Measured
There exists a lack of recognition of women’s “reproductive” and other unpaid work, like homemaking and leisure activities. Women tend to spend a larger amount of time on these activities than men. When it comes to household activities, like housework, food preparation, grocery shopping and caring for household members, women spend nearly double the amount of time men do (American Time Use Survey, 2007). This non-market production has interested national accountants and economists for a while, but have not been included in the national income and product accounts (NIPAs). Early in the 1970s, Nordhaus and Tobin developed a set of extended accounts that took government and household capital services, nonmarket work and leisure into account when looking at gross national product (GNP). Taking these in account had a tremendous effect on GNP, as it was nearly doubled in 1965 (Bridgman, Dugan, Lal, Osborne, & Villones, 2012). In the 1980s, Jorgenson and Fraumeni developed the “lifetime incomes approach” to valuing investments in human capital, adding around $14 bi...

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Bridgman, B., Dugan, A., Lal, M., Osborne, M., & Villones, S. (2012, May). Accounting for Household Production in the National Accounts, 1965-2010. pp. 23-36.
Eastin, J., & Prakash, A. (2013, January 11). Economic Development and Gender Equality: Is There a Gender Kuznets Curve? World Politics, pp. 156-186.
Löfström, Å. (2009). Gender equality, economic growth and employment. Swedish Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. (2009). Measuring Gender Equality in the Economy. New York: United Nations.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization. (2012). Gender inequality and its effects on industrial development. New York: United Nations.

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