Hidden in Plain Sight: Unpaid Household Services and the Politics of GDP Measurement

ABSTRACT

Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the world’s most influential and widely cited economic indicators. However, outside of the industrialised, market-based context in which the indicator was first designed, GDP measurement suffers from a number of biases and blind spots. The article zooms in on one of these: the exclusion of unpaid household services from the production boundary of the System of National Accounts, the international standard underpinning GDP methodology. While GDP has expanded over time to include activities as diverse as financial services and the informal sector, the treatment of unpaid household services has remained unchanged. Why is this? I find that staff in the statistical departments of international organisations such the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank have a tremendous degree of agency in the governance of GDP. While these statisticians are aware of and engage with criticisms, they reject the inclusion of unpaid household services based on shared professional norms and economic ideas.