Calculating the gdp of a country should include the unpaid work done by women

GDP is not a hard number but an estimation in which several hypothesis come into play, and of course with hypothesis comes the gender data gap. By not taking into account the amount of unpaid work done by women, countries fail at having an accurate measure of GDP [@criadoperez2020Invisible women: exposing data bias in a world designed for men]. And this can be one of the root causes of not being able to formulate policies that boost the numbers by taking into account the role of women in the economy (see: correlating GDP to scientific productivity is a reasonable proxy for progress).

An example, is the cost of child care, which is traditionally done by women, but that the state would have to pay for if one wants women to become economically active. The cost of child care outweighs the value that women could produce if they would enter the work force[@criadoperez2020Invisible women: exposing data bias in a world designed for men].

However, it all boils down to available data, and GDP in that regard is biased, and it would be very tough for a government to justify measures that don't boost GDP per-se.

tags: #bias-in-economics #gdp-is-not-gender-neutral #gender-data-gap