Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth

363 Pages·1999·6.731 MB·English

by  Marilyn Waring

Counting for Nothing:
What Men Value and
What Women Are Worth
SECOND EDITION
Safe drinking water counts for nothing. A pollution-free environ­
ment counts for nothing. Even some people - namely women -
count for nothing. This is the case, at least, according to the United
Nations System of National Accounts. Author Marilyn Waring,
former New Zealand M.P., now academic, development consultant,
writer, and goat farmer, isolates the gender bias that exists in the
current system of calculating national wealth.
As Waring observes, in this accounting system, women are con­
sidered 'non-producers,' and as such, they cannot expect to gain
from the distribution of benefits that flow from production. Issues
like nuclear warfare, environmental conservation, and poverty are
likewise obscured in the calculation of value in traditional economic
theory. As a result, public policy, determined by these same account­
ing processes, inevitably overlooks the importance of the environ­
ment and half the world's population.
Counting for Nothing, originally published in 1988, is a classic
feminist analysis of women's place in the world economy brought
up to date in this reprinted edition, including a sizeable new intro­
duction by the author. In her new introduction, the author updates
information and examples and revisits the original chapters with
appropriate commentary. In an accessible and often humorous man­
ner, Waring offers an explanation of the current economic systems
of accounting and thoroughly outlines ways to ensure that the sig­
nificance of the environment and the labour contributions of
women receive the recognition they deserve.
MARILYN WARING is an academic at Massey University, New Zea­
land, in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work.

Counting
for Nothing
WHAT MEN VALUE
AND WHAT WOMEN ARE WORTH
Second Edition
Marilyn Waring
University of Toronto Press
Toronto Buffalo
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1999
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
Reprinted 2004
ISBN 0-8020-8260-2 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Waring, Marilyn, 1952-
Counting for nothing : what men value and what women are worth
2nd ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-8260-2
1. Sex discrimination in national income accounting. 2. Women -
Employment. I. Title.
HC79.15W374 1999 339.3'082 C99-930015-6
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council.
For my grandmothers
Louie and Mary Olive
and my parents
William Allan and Audrey May
who tried to teach me
about the value of things
We should be on our guard not to overestimate
science and scientific methods when it is a question
of human problems; and we should not assume that
experts are the only ones who have a right to
express themselves on questions affecting the
organisation of society.
Albert Einstein
The author and the publishers wish to gratefully acknowledge the following
for permission to reproduce material:
New York Berkeley Publishing Corp., for the conceptual figure, 'The
Economy as a Layered Cake', in Creating Alternative Futures, The End of
Economics (Hazel Henderson, 1978);
W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., for the table 'Nuclear Reactors as of December 31,
1984' in State of the World (Lester Brown, 1986);
Gena Corea, for quoting from personal correspondence;
Women's Center, Cambridge MA, for the table 'What is a Wife Worth?' in
Houseworker's Handbook (Leghorn & Warrior, 1973);
Hilka Pietila, for the diagram 'The Complete Picture of the National
Economy' in 'Tomorrow begins Today';
International Association for Research on Income & Wealth, for extracts
from National Accounting with Limited Data: Lessons from Nepal (1982);
Senator Janine Haines, for quoting from personal correspondence;
Ron Fergie, for extracts from his paper on the establishment of national
accounts in Papua New Guinea;
Harper & Row, Publishers, for the figure 'Expenditure and Income
Approach to GNP' in Macroeconomics (H. Sherman & G. Evans, 1984);
Rowan & Allanheld, Publishers, for the table 'Farm Women's Involvement
in Farm and Home Tasks' in The Invisible Farmers: Women in Agricultural
Production (1983);
Studies in Family Planning, for the table 'Substitution of Labour for
Performing Market Women's Household and Related Tasks' in Women in
the Household Economy: Managing Multiple Roles (Achola Okeyo, 1979).
Contents
Preface by Gloria Steinem x1
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction to the Second Edition xix
Prologue 1
1. A Woman's Reckoning 12
2. A Calling to Account 3 7
3. The Boundary of Conception 60
4. Nothing Sexist Here 75
5. The Statistical Conspiracy 93
6. Villainy and Incompetence 118
7. The Value of Death 135
8. A Value on Your Time 153
9. The Eye of the Beholder 182
10. "Your Economic Theory Makes No Sense" 203
11. If Counting was the Limit of Intelligence 224
12. Glimpsing the Whole 256
Epilogue 256
Appendices 265
Nores 2ro
Bibliography 280
Index 291
LIST OF TABLES
1. National income accounts for 1981 47
2. Government final consumption expenditure by function in
current prices, 1982 54
3. Nonmonetary activities covered in the national accounts of
seventy developing countries 68-9
4. Census of Canada questionnaire, Part 1 97
5. Census of Canada questionnaire, Part 2 99
6. Census of Canada questionnaire, Part 3 100
7. Farm women's involvement in farm and home tasks 110
8. Division of labour between men and women, rural Africa 186
9. Substitution of labour for performing market women's
household and related tasks 186
10. Service coverage by region in 1983 209
11. Nuclear reactors as of December 31, 1984 219-20
12. Chase Manhattan Bank survey: what is a wife worth? 225
13. Italy: environmental damage costs by air and water
pollution 234
14. Assessment of work in Finland's economy, 1980 244
LIST OF FIGURES
1. Expenditure and income approach to GNP 56
2. National accounts 240
3. The economy as a layered cake 242
4. Pietila's concept of the national economy 244
LIST OF APPENDICES
1. The material product system 265
2. Environmental indicators 266
3. Definition of a housemaid 269
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
DOD (U.S.) Department of Defence
DOE (U.S.) Department of Energy
EEC European Economic Community
EPA (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency
FAO (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GNP Gross National Product
ILO (UN) International Labour Organisation
IMF (UN) International Monetary Fund
INSTRA W International Research and Training Institute for the
Advancement of Women
LSMS Living Standards Measurements Survey
MEW Measure of Economic Welfare
MPS Material Product System
NASA (U.S.) National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
NBER (U.S.) National Bureau of Economic Research
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development
OSHA (U.S.) Occupational Safety and Health Agency
UNECA UN Economic Commission of Africa
UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation
UNICEF UN International Emergency Children's Fund
UNSNA UN System of National Accounts
US AID U.S. Agency for International Development
USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture
WFUD Wildlife Fish User Days
WHO (UN) World Health Organisation