HeterodoxFrom 1992
Feminist economics
What does economics miss when it ignores gender, care and unpaid work?
The 30-second version
What happens if you count the work that isn't paid? Care, housework and bargaining inside households change the picture of the economy. Its biggest finding has gone mainstream: much of the gender pay gap opens up when women have children.
Big questions it works on
Go deeperKey ideas, thinkers, evidence and where it stands today
Key ideas
- Unpaid care and housework are economic activity but are left out of GDP (Marilyn Waring, 1988).
- Households bargain; they are not a single decision-maker.
- “Economic man” leaves out dependence and care.
- Provisioning: economics as the study of how societies meet needs, not only of choice.
Key thinkers
Marilyn Waring, Nancy Folbre, Julie Nelson, Diane Elson; Claudia Goldin (Nobel 2023) from the mainstream side
What it got right
Much of the remaining gender pay gap comes from having children. In Denmark women's earnings fall about 20% in the long run after a first child, relative to men's (Kleven, Landais and Søgaard, 2019).
Main criticisms
Mainstream economists argue many of these questions can be handled with standard tools, as Goldin's work shows. The field is diverse and has no single model.
Evidence worth knowing
The International Association for Feminist Economics was founded in 1992.
Where it stands today
Its own journal and association; its questions are increasingly asked in mainstream labour economics.
Family line
Reacting against the gender-blind assumptions of neoclassical economics.