Inter-Regional Workshop on the Production of Gender Statistics
New Delhi, India, 6-10 August 2007
Measuring Women’s and Men’s Work:
Towards a comprehensive framework
Grace Bediako
Government Statistician
Ghana Statistical Service
7 August 2007
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Beijing Platform for Action strong on
women’s economic role
● Invisibility of women’s work in statistics
covered in several paragraphs
● Actions on making women’s work and
economic contribution visible covered under
three Strategic Objectives of the Beijing
Platform for Action, on:

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Research
Policy
Statistics
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Invisibility of women’s work in
statistics (2)
● Strategic objectives

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A.4 Develop gender-based methodologies
and conduct research to address the
feminization of poverty
E.1 Promote women’s economic rights and
independence, including access to
employment and appropriate working
conditions and control over economic
resources
H.3 Generate and disseminate genderdisaggregated data and information for
planning and evaluation
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Three sets of actions under Statistics
● Developing a more comprehensive knowledge
of all forms of work and employment.
● Developing an international classification of
activities for time-use statistics that is sensitive
to the differences between women and men in
remunerated and unremunerated work and
collect data, disaggregated by sex.
● Improve the data collection on the full
contribution of women and men to the
economy, including their participation in
informal sector(s)
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The presentation
● The problem?
● What is the dominant framework?

What are its main features
● Why a comprehensive framework?
● What are the desired features?
● What are the tools for implementing
the framework?
● What are the next steps?
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State of statistics on women’s work
● Assessments of gender statistics
generally highlight women’s
economic participation as one of the
major problem areas:
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Definition of economic activity
The concept of economic activity not
adequately translated in survey
questionnaires
Instruments not suitable for measuring
some types of women’s work (better for
men’s work)
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State of statistics on women’s work (2)
● Estimates of economic contribution
of women and men:
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The levels of women’s participation in
economic activity underestimated
The concept of “work” better captures
men’s contribution than women’s
The gap between the participation of
women and men in “work” does not
fully reflect women’s unremunerated
work (largely underestimated)
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State of statistics on women’s work (3)
● Ways of defining, measuring and
estimating economic participation and
contribution masks the real changes
taking place in the economic spheres
● Statistics do not reflect that fact that more
and more women who are working outside
the household, still maintain primary
responsibility for the unremunerated work
within the home, while men’s
unremunerated work has not changed
substantially.
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Dominant framework for measuring
work – The System of National
Accounts (SNA)
● The economically active population
is defined as “all persons of either
sex who furnish the supply of labour
for the production of economic
goods and services as defined by
the United Nations System of
national Accounts and Balances”
ILO, 1983.
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The gender-relevant implications of
the definition (1)
● Explicitly states that both women
and men should be considered
● All work that yield goods and
services within the SNA production
boundary are considered economic
activity … these include all
production and processing of
primary products whether for the
market, for barter or for own
consumption.
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The gender-relevant implications of the
definition (2)
● SNA production however excludes
domestic or personal services for own
consumption (individual as well as for
members within the same household)
except the services produced by paid
domestic staff.
Since women tend to spend more time
than their male counterparts on these
Non-SNA activities their efforts are not
are not counted as part of economic
activities, irrespective of their
significance and impact.
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The gender-relevant implications of
the definition (3)
● So even if economic activity were
accurately measured (and for a number of
reasons this is not likely to be the case for
a substantial number of national data
sources), a large part of the contribution
of women to production would not be
accounted for (in terms of)


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their involvement in some of these activities,
time spent,
income generated,
value added, etc.
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There is need therefore for a
framework that…
● Recognizes the importance of
unremunerated work not only for
other households but also for own
household
● Takes account of remunerated and
unremunerated work, in a way that
their magnitudes can be compared,
though not necessarily combined.
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Maintaining consistency with
current framework
Taking cue from Beijing Platform for Action
● … measure and better understand the
type, extent, and distribution of
unremunerated work, particularly work in
caring for dependents and… the
development of methods for assessing its
value in quantitative terms, for possible
reflection in accounts that may be
produced separately from, but consistent
with, core national accounts.
(Para. 167 (g))
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A comprehensive framework
● General versus SNA production
boundary – Productive
If the performance of an activity can
not be delegated to another without
the same desired results/outcomes
… it is termed as productive and
falls within the general production
boundary.
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A comprehensive framework (2)
All activities
General production boundary
Productive
Economic
Non-productive
Non-economic
SNA production
boundary
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A comprehensive framework (3)
● Three categories of activities in
SNA
Productive activities within SNA boundary
 Productive activities outside SNA
boundary (i.e., within the general
production boundary)
 Non-productive activities (i.e., outside the
general production boundary)

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Production activities within the
SNA boundary
● Production of goods and services
supplied or intended to be supplied
to units other than their producers;
● Own account production of all goods
retained by their producers,
including:

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All production and processing of
primary products,
Housing services by owner-occupiers,
Domestic and personal services
produced by paid domestic staff
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Non-SNA Activities within the
General Production Boundary
● Domestic and personal services for own
household (except those produced by
paid domestic staff), including
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Cleaning;
Servicing and repairs;
Preparation and serving of meals;
Care, training and instruction of children;
Care of the sick, infirm and elderly;
Transporting of household members or their
goods; and
Unpaid volunteer services to other households,
community, etc.
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Non-productive/ personal
activities
● Activities performed for personal
maintenance and care, such as

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Eating, drinking,
Sleeping, exercising, etc.,
● Activities associated with:

Socializing, entertainment,
participation in sports, hobbies and
games, use of mass media, etc.;
● Education and learning activities
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Implications of the framework
● Extends the definition of “work” to
encompass both economic and noneconomic activities
● Provides a basis for measuring
remunerated and unremunerated work
● New set of instruments, classifications,
methods required to measure “work”
● Further guidance needed on how to
process the information, and their use
in developing satellite accounts
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Time-use survey …
● Ideal for the comprehensive measurement of all
forms of work, even personal activities
 For mapping out the division of roles and
responsibilities within the household
 For providing the required information on time
allocation for valuing women’s and men’s
unpaid work
 For better characterizing and capturing difficultto-measure economic activities (especially
those in which women are typically engaged)
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Classification of activities for time-use
statistics – has been developed
● Provides detailed comprehensive, systematic
listing of activities, that serves as a basis for
assessing completeness of coverage of
activities
● Guides the interviewer for eliciting from
respondent the required level of detail
● Defines the framework for analysis of the
time-use survey data
● Serves as a basis for defining analytical and
tabulation categories
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Principles underlying the proposed
activity classification
● Flexibility – applied to different analytical
objectives as well as other potential uses of timeuse statistics
● Balanced and comprehensive coverage of groups
of all activities, reflecting the structure of time
distribution (e.g., productive and personal, formal
and informal)
● Detailed enough, identifying separately activities
of important subpopulations
● Close correspondence with classification schemes
of historic data sets, and national and regional
listings that have undergone cycles of testing, use
and review
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Next steps
● The time-use survey instrument serves
to more accurately classify individuals
into the categories of activities
● Then the detailed characteristics of the
economically active and others would
need to be determined, with respect
to:


The characteristics of the job
The characteristics of the employing
institution/establishment
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The Platform calls for:
● Improving data collection on the unremunerated
work that is already included in the System of
National Accounts (SNA), such as in agriculture and
other types of non-market production activities
(para. 206 (f) (i)).
● Improving measurements that at present
underestimate women’s unemployment and
underemployment in the labour market (para. 206
(f) (ii)).
● Developing methods quantifying the value of
unremunerated work that is outside national
accounts, such as caring for dependents, preparing
food, for possible reflection in satellite accounts that
may be produced separately from but are consistent
with core national accounts (para. 206 (f) (iii)).
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Some issues for reflection…
● Do differences in economic activity rates of
women and men represent…

Actual differences in their participation in production
of goods and services that are valued in the national
accounts framework?
● How are the differences in women and men’s
use of time captured in statistics…
● Do the statistics on economic production
measure the full outcome of women and men’s
work?
● Is there a need to take a closer look at how
women and men are represented in economic
statistics?
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Thank you
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