Conceptualizing the Labour

Force: The Underestimation of

Women’s Economic Activities
African Women in the
Developing Process

Lourdes Beneria
 Introduction
• Labor Force Statistics – tendency to
underestimate women’s contribution to
production
• Main Objective » is to counteract the
ideological underevaluation of women’s work
and to present a concept of economic activity
related to human welfare rather than
economic growth
 Issues
a. Women’s work as secondary and subordinate
to men’s
- woman’s work is unpaid
Work – means a participation in production, an
income – earning activity
b. Actual statistical evaluation and accounting of
women’s work
 Biases of Available Statistics
• Housework done by members of a family in
their own house is not included in that
description of the gainfully occupied, but work
done members of a family in helping the head
of a family in his occupation is included.
Unpaid Family Worker – must work in non-
domestic activities for at least one third of the
normal hours
 Biases of Available Statistics
• The tendency to report women as workers in
agriculture or any other type of non –
domestic is very prevalent.
• Some activities are performed by women at
home even though they are clearly tied to the
market.
 The Concept of Active Labor
• Adam Smith – market exchanged is tied to the
division of labor which, then viewed as the basis of
productivity increases as the source of the wealth of
the nation
• Karl Marx – Economics can not be confined to the
sphere of quantitative relations between people and
economic goods, and that social relations underlying
commodity exchange need to be considered as part
of the economic realm
 Measuring Women’s Work
• Counteract the ideological underevaluation of
women’s work and to give recognition to the long
hours of labo in which women are engaged
• Relate to the simple need to have as much
information as possible about women’s activities and
their role in economic life.
• Expanding the concept of Active Labor