Accounting for Non-Market Activities and Equal Pay in the San Antonio GDP

Dr. Belinda Roman and I recently completed a working paper titled, Women in the Economy. It is the first paper completed in our new research program on women in the economy. One of the many shortcomings of the gross domestic product measure is that it excludes any activity that is not conducted within a market (i.e., non-market activities). A large component of non-market activities is household production. This includes any activity it takes to run a household for which the activity is not paid, like child-care, meal preparation, yard work, and house cleaning that is done by the residents of the household. One focus of the paper was to measure the value of non-market household production in San Antonio. We also measured the addition to GDP if women received equal pay in the labor market. The following chart summarizes the results.

As shown in the table, placing a market value on household production would add an additional $20.8 billion to GDP in San Antonio. it should be noted that household production includes the production by both men and women, but time use data indicate that women conduct the vast majority of household production. Additionally, if women received equal pay, another $18.2 billion would be added to GDP. Accounting for these two components of economic activity would raise GDP in San Antonio from $109.3 billion  to $148.3 billion in 2016.

We also recently published an op-ed article in the San Antonio Express-News that summarizes the study. The article can be found here.