Leonora Risse: Canberra University economics professor on the cost of unpaid labour

New research out of Australia has revealed the cost of unpaid household labour - and it's a high figure not recognised in economics statistics.

These tasks - including cooking, cleaning and caring for family members -are reportedly worth about A$688 billion, according to new reports. 

Canberra University economics professor Leonora Risse says many of these tasks are essential services, and most of these are carried out by women.

"If we're not recognising it, then what we're doing is we're not recognising women's overall contribution to the economy - the productive activities that hold our economy together. So it's about shining a spotlight on it."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now we've got a dollar for give for you on
how much unpaid labour people are doing for their households.
Now this relates to Australia. Unpaid labor is basically the
house housework, by the way, stuff like cock and clean
and caring for family members turns out over an Aussie.
There's seven hundred and eighty seven billion New Zealand dollars
of unpaid labor happening every year. The majority obviously is
done by women. Leonora Reese is the Associate professor of

(00:22):
economics at the University of canber who's done the numbers
and is with us high Leonora.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hi, Heather, great to join you.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, it's good to talk to you. Do you reckon?
It's roughly the same in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh, I imagine New Zealand and Australia do have a
lot of similarities. And a shout out to my New
Zealand family members. I have a lot of family over
in New Zealand as well, so I think we do
have similar cultural norms and patterns. So I imagine it's not
too dissimilar in New Zealand. But also of course there's

(00:52):
still variation in different households.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
We have to do this work, Leonora. No, you have
to wash the dishes, you have to vacuum the floors,
you have to look after the kids. So what's the
value in putting a dollar value on it?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, you are right, I think you make it a
really good point there, Heather, that it's essential work. Right,
So it is essential. We have to do it. It
holds our economy together, it holds our society together. And yes,
we don't do it to get paid. Often we do
it because we have to do well, because we really care,
you know, when we're caring for our loved ones or
family members with the disability, elderly parents, we do it altruistically.

(01:28):
But the fact that most of it is done by women,
so two thirds of this work is done by women.
If we're not recognizing it, then what we're doing is
we're not recognizing women's overall contribution to the economy, the
productive activities that hold our economy together. So it's about

(01:48):
shining a spotlight on it. And yes, it's essential. But
because we've got such strong gender patterns and we still
see this gender gap in pay and decision making, you know,
this is this still feeds into some of those inequities
and those biases in our economic system.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Leonora, I don't know how to break out of this though,
because frankly, we're just women are just more efficient, better
at washing the dishes, generally, better at cooking, definitely have
a better eye for a spot of dirt. So unless
we want to live in filthy houses and eat gross food,
we have to do it.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, Look, I think there are some households where, you know,
some there's an argument to be made head of that.
Maybe men are quite intentionally, I'm not saying, oh man, maybe.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Are you going to come at me with that one?
As possible?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Quite intentionally not you know, doing a high quality job
so that it prompts households to specialize in economics, we actually,
you know, we talk about households specializing and who specializes
in you know, doing that the kitchen cleaning, and who
looks up, you know, mows of the lawn, and that

(02:59):
can be a reflection of ability as well as preferences
and priority. But I think, you know, things are also
changing if we're saying, we're saying to women, step into
the paid workforce, invest in your education, you know, study
work hard in building your financial independence. And yet at
the same time, if household work is still so unbalanced,

(03:21):
then there's something, you know, something still unbalanced at home.
How we got to achieve balance at Leonora paid Work.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Thank you, I really appreciate this is fascinating. Leonora Reese,
Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Canberra. What
the blokes do is called weaponized incompetence and don't pretend
you don't do it. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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