The unpaid work that GDP ignores… and why it really counts | TEDx Talk Christchurch
Marilyn Waring TEDx Talk Christchurch (Jan 2020)
In this talk, Marilyn Waring promotes the implementation of a public policy database that acknowledges the value of unpaid work and the importance of preserving ecosystems, rather than solely relying on GDP.
This is a MUST-watch TEDx talk, period.
If you were in dire need of inspiration after a long day at work (i.e. in an office or looking after your children), this talk is a fit.
The speaker explains that the amount of time spent on unpaid work can be measured through time-use surveys. She highlights that in many countries, unpaid work constitutes the largest sector of the economy. For instance, in the UK, the value of unpaid work over the past three years is equivalent to the combined value of manufacturing and retail. In Australia, unpaid childcare alone represents the largest sector of the economy, followed by other forms of unpaid work. Only after these sectors does banking, insurance, and financial intermediation services become the largest part of the market sector.
What was even more mesmerising from her talk for us was when she asserts the need for prioritising what we can learn from indigenous practices like kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and whanaungatanga (kinship) from the Maori people. 🙌🏾
“Professor Dame Marilyn Waring was elected to the New Zealand parliament at age 23, where she helped lead the country to become nuclear-free. Her parliamentary experiences chairing the Public Expenditure Committee led to her book Counting for Nothing, first published in 1989. Since then, Waring has been an expert development consultant in gender and economics throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She works as a professor of public policy at AUT University in Auckland, New Zealand.”
“We need, in this country, the paramountcy of what we can learn from kaitiakitanga, from whanaungatanaga, from what Maori, who have been here for centuries, can teach us.”
