Value of housework by gender, income, and race

In injury and death cases, the value of lost household work that would have been performed by the injuried or deceased is frequently an issue. In these cases, the value of the lost household work is determined by first calculating how many hours the person would have normally performed. Second, the market value of the lost household services experienced by the person is calculated. The market value of the household services is determined by the average hourly wage of individuals who perform similar services in the labor market. The total value is found by multiplying the value and number of hours performed.

The question is does the person's gender, income level, and race matter in the calculation?

The answer is yes, yes, yes.


In a Princenton working paper titled: Does Household Work Matter Anymore?
Comparisons of Household Production and the Distribution of Income in the United States
in 1965-66 and 2003' the authors, Cathleen D. Zick, Ph.D., W. Keith Bryant, Ph.D., and Sivithee Srisukhumbowornchai, M.S. provide some insights.

They find that the value of household production is:

* higher for women
* decreases as income goes up (less hours worked)
* African-American and Hispanic males have fewer household production hours
* Hispanic females work more household production hours

See also:


Bryant, W.K., C.D. Zick, and H. Kim. 1992. The dollar value of household work. Ithaca, NY:
Conrell University, College of Human Ecology.

2007 American Time Use Survey is released

The American Time Use Survey, which is used by economist to measure the amount of time spent on household services, was recently released by the BLS.

http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf

What is a person's day worth? Part 2

From Dollar Value of Day website

>>>In this report, we calculate a replacement cost estimate of the economic dollar values attained with the usage of every minute in one day. Relying on time-diary data provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a part of their National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS), we calculate the value created in a day as measured by the market price of hiring persons whose work relates to that produced or spent by one person.

Time-diary surveys record activities by time. Depending upon the day, persons might be working 8 hours outside the home at a job and also working 4 hours at home doing cooking, cleaning, or other household chores for the benefit of themselves and family members. It makes good sense that all the hours of work in the day have an economic dollar value. Taking the hourly wage in employment times 8 hours and the hourly wage of perhaps a maid times 4 hours, we can arrive at the dollar value of the 12 hours of work performed by the person in that day. For the remaining 12 hours in the day, dollars may or might not be relevant to an individual's decisions regarding time allocation or time usage; if dollars are relevant, they might not ever require valuation, replacement, or supplementation.>>>>>>>>

What is a person's day worth?

One way:

Value of a day

The Dollar Value of a Day (DVD) by Expectancy Data(1999) is a private analysis of government time diary statistics. The DVD analysis is fairly well respected. It does,
however, provide a value for everything done during the day on a
replacement value basis. When DVD is used for the value of household
labor it is fairly good -- some believe that it is a tad optimistic concerning males.

When used for other daily activities -- caregiving, personal care and
leisure -- some do not believe the results are not consistent with forensic analysis.