The rearing of children, the provision of food and the physical maintenance of dwellings are fundamental preconditions for a healthy market economy, without which workplace productivity, industrial output and quality of life would decline and social costs would rise. Giving no value to this important unpaid work creates accounting absurdities and social inequities. Hire a housekeeper to wash your dishes and do your laundry, and it's counted as part of the economy. Marry your housekeeper, and the GDP goes down. Eating out is good for the economy.
Home cooking has no value in our accounts.
Pay someone to look after your child, and it registers as economic growth and progress. Look after your own child, and it's invisible, counted nowhere. In fact, if these hidden shifts from the household to the market economy are taken into account, our GDP growth rates, which claim to represent increases in total production, are actually exaggerated. In fact, eating out or hiring a housekeeper or child care service is not increasing production, but merely shifting it to that part of the economy that's measured. By measuring the value of unpaid household work, the Genuine Progress Index remedies this flaw and allows us to track important trends and shifts between the household and market economies.