Motherhood and Economics: Breastfeeding and Unpaid Work in the GDP
On June 5, 2018, Archana Patel, a South Indian policewoman found a three month baby girl, dumped in a pile of garbage, abandoned by parents who had made endless prayers for the birth of a boy, who could apparently help save their financial problems. Having given birth to a girl just a few weeks back, Patel claimed to have an inconceivable sudden attachment with the child who was in a terrible state owing to starvation and body pain and immediately unpinned her blouse to feed the wailing child. Later, when Laxmi was taken to the hospital by fellow cops, the actions of Archana were praised by the authorities who said that it would have been impossible for her to live in case the nutrition did not enter her body at the right time to help her fight infections. In fact, a majority of doctors along with every medical group in the US have popularised the phrase, “breast is best” with the aim to apprise the world of the substantive physical and socio-emotional benefits of breastfeeding, for both infants and mothers.
Apart from cementing the bond between the mother and the infant and granting several other biological benefits, it relieves the household of economic burdens. Then why is it that the contribution of breastfeeding and mothers’ care is still excluded from the calculation of the GDP, consequently becoming invisible to the eyes of policymakers?
The measure of economic activities as GDP was adopted after the Second World War by policymakers and decision managers for the advocacy of industry. For years, economists have deemed it to be a distorted method as it excludes the production of non-marketed products contributed by households. The UN-revised guidelines for the measurement of GDP and economic activity includes a category for production by households. According to these guidelines, a good can be counted in the GDP only if it has a monetary value and, if possible, a market transaction. In absence of a market value, its cost would be calculated either by referring to analogous products or in accordance with the costs incurred in its production. Even after these changes, countries have not included breastfeeding as a production activity in the national accounting procedures.
One cannot reduce breastfeeding to an economic aspect since it is a complex biological process having countless emotional, social, and physiological factors. Nevertheless, calculating the economic value of breastfeeding is essential and has its own reasons. It helps emphasise the extent and value that the process holds and how unique a contribution it is. Assigning a financial status to this activity contributes towards a more accurate public policy analysis and plausible economic and health policies. Exposing breastfeeding to the pressures of a market can be doughty because of zero involvement of profit motives but it holds paramount significance since it is instrumental in raising awareness about the indispensable nature of breast milk. It illustrates the need for policy measures for supporting breastfeeding. In her paper, ‘Lost Milk? Counting the Economic Value of Breast Milk in Gross Domestic Product’, author Julie Smith described this problem to be comparatively trivial and part of a broader problem with the international system in terms of economic activity. Countries disregard the contribution of unpaid work undertaken by women.
In her piece, Smith writes, “What we measure reflects what we value and shapes what we do”. She claims that the devaluation of women’s unpaid productive and unproductive work has been institutionalised by international systems which, in turn, has resulted in a distortion in allocation of resources and entrenched gender inequality. Owing to the exclusion of childcare provided by a housewife from the national accounts, the increase in GDP that will result from her returning to the formal labour force and outsourcing this care will be exaggerated. This mismeasurement will lead the government and policymakers to draw up false trends which would affect their decisions about what is worth investing in or not. Since most of the unpaid work is shouldered by women, they are made to face the burdens of this neglect of non-market activities by policymakers who inevitably emphasise male norms, priorities, and values and allocate resources in their favour.
If the economic contributions of breastfeeding and unpaid work such as childcare being done by women were visible to policymakers, they would prioritise a legislative system that encourages and supports it. With the rapid production of milk banks, breast milk fits the description of a ‘market good’ and is eligible for accounting in the GDP. Childcare, as for now, remains undervalued and under supported. In the meantime, we can only remain optimistic for new guidelines regarding the calculation of the domestic product or for a new measurement index that substantiates the contribution of households to the economy.
This article has been written by Shambhavi Tewari, a senior at Seth M.R. Jaipuria School, Lucknow, India and a member of the Rethinking Economics India Network. She is pursuing the ISC Diploma in Humanistic Studies and is interested in gender violence in conflict regions in India and across the world. Occasionally indulges in literary and cultural comparativism through her heaps of books, while performing postmodernist critiques of public policies in her head.
