The silent contribution made by housewives to the economic development of the country remains to be calculated. The role of housewives in managing homes was invaluable. Imagine a case where we have to spend to you engage professionals to undertake domestic work at home. We know it would cost us a lot. Then we would understand the role played by housewives to the development of the nation’s economy.
Household work is an important factor for the quality of family life. It is a fundamental precondition for a healthy market sector. If children are not reared with attention and care and if household …show more content…
Of course, at the heart of the matter is the absence of explicit market pricing for homemakers since it is considered as non marketed output.
Economists have argued for two different methods to measure the value of a homemaker:
Opportunity cost method
The fundamental idea behind the opportunity cost method is “what does the household sacrifice by having the wife stay home to work?” In other words, what is the opportunity cost of the homemaker’s time? If a female worker is earning X Rs/hour, and she decides to forgo an hour of work to do the dishes, the cost of that task is X Rs. The economist then says the X Rs measures the value of an hour of homemaker’s service.
Replacement cost method
The replacement cost approach to the problem asks: “how much would it cost to replace the services of the housewife?” The idea being one could go into the market place, find the wage for nannies, cooks etc., and then use these wages as the value of the housewife services. Sometimes an average is used, sometimes the wage within each specialty is used.
Limitiation of the above two …show more content…
Both methods have a difficult time dealing with the commingling of leisure and household services. Despite limitations, both the methods seem to give a closer solution to the complex problem of valuation of Household services.
INDIAN HOUSEWIVES LEADING THE NEXT SMALL BUSINESS REVOLUTION
Women are also natural entrepreneurs because they are better at taking calculated risks and are hence more adaptable in adverse business environments. Homemakers are ordinarily not the bread-winners in the family and are driving business towards more sustainable and steady profits, as they are more likely to take a long term view and be less over-confident. As many as 2 million women homemakers are reselling lifestyle and clothing products using WhatsApp and Facebook. The total market for women re-sellers is expected to grow at 40-50% annually for the next five years. This means it would be over 5% of India's total retail market.
Hence, homemakers are the foundation of the household and society. In order to truly understand the needs and capacities of communities and the nation, their work needs to be recognized and