Claims about Housework

Duncan Ironmonger, an Australian household economist, wrote in 2001.

3.2 The New Household Economics
In the mid 1960s a major theoretical development took place, known as the “new
household economics” (see Becker (1981), Ironmonger (1972) and Lancaster (1971).
In this theory the household is regarded as a productive sector with household
activities modeled as a series of industries.
In this new approach, households produce commodities that are designed to satisfy
separate wants such as thirst, hunger, warmth and shelter. The characteristics, or
want-satisfying qualities, of the commodities used and produced can be regarded as
defining the production and consumption technology of households. With changes in
incomes and prices, households still alter expenditures as in the earlier theory.
However, in the new theory, households adjust their behaviour as they discover new
commodities and their usefulness in household production processes.
The activities approach derived from the theory of the new household economics
readily combines with the earlier input-output approach of Leontief (1941) to
establish a series of household input-output tables as the framework for modeling
household production.

And then this in conclusion.

6 Household Production and a World of Binary Economies

The major scientific achievement of this field has been the measurement of the
magnitude of household production through surveys of the uses of time. Household
production is now recognised as an alternative economy to the market; in many
countries the household economy absorbs more labour and at least one third the
physical capital used in the market economy.

In future, national statistical organisations will produce regular estimates of GHP.
Data on outputs of household production – accommodation, meals, clean clothes and
the care of children and adults – will complement data on inputs of unpaid labor and
the use of household capital.

Proper recognition of the household economy will have arrived when national
household accounts are published each quarter alongside national accounts for the
market economy. These data will enable greater scientific research on the
organisation of household production, the interactions with the market economy, the
role of households in building human capital, on the effects of household technology
and alternative social and economic policies on gender divisions of labor and on
family welfare.

Full paper: Houshold Production and the Household Economy.