Problems in estimating the value of household work

Abstract

The quantitative description of social systems is a broad and complicated task. Value judgements play as an important a role as the analytical aspects and the more purely statistical ones. The present state of social accounting reflects the predominance of economic ideology, that is to say it selects and emphasises those activities that are incorporated in a material and/or salable product. The 'social product' of Classic Economists or the national income of Marshall, was the key concept around which Pigou was to build his 'Welfare Economics' (1920), or 'New Plutology' as J. Hicks suggests.