Construction of the Gendered Household: Exploring the Value of Unpaid Domestic Labor

Abstract

RQ: What is the economic value of unpaid domestic labour in Canada? Is this labour devalued?

Through the Comparable Worth Theory, I evaluate various paid wages for domestic use across the Canadian provinces, using the recent General Social Survey (2015), Labour Force Statistics (2017/2018), and Statistics Canada’s Time Use data to determine an economic value, represented through an hourly wage for unpaid domestic labour. I am extrapolating a nuanced view which extends academia on the relation of domesticated forms of labour and gender. Specifically, how this labour is inherently devalued as a structural component of the economic system. Within the structures of capitalism, such cheap labour remains devalued and informal, meaning unrecognized and invisible in both the market and social setting. I discuss these findings and the limitations of current theoretical tools in evaluating unpaid domestic labour, including structural limitations in their application. Such limitations reveal the shortcomings of Marx’s Labour Theory for informal economic transactions and beg a re-envisioning of alternative labour theories.