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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

No one is saying that men’s unpaid work is worth nothing. The article is merely highlighting how much women’s work is worth.

And let’s be clear: if your mom was at home all day Monday to Friday while your dad was at the office and then they both did unpaid work on the weekend then your mom did a lot more unpaid work than your dad did. Nothing bad or damning about that, but it’s the reality of a lot of women’s lives (especially in previous generations). And what do you know, the article does cover that!

> We also compared the distribution of unpaid work across genders. India has the largest gap: Women there spend almost six hours a day managing the home; Indian men spend a paltry 52 minutes. The smallest divides are found in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where social safety net programs provide care for children and older people.

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What I think the person you're responding to was really trying to say is closer to "why do people write articles about how much women's unpaid labor is worth, but not about men's?"

Just a question though, are we comparing hours or economic value when talking about 'more' unpaid work? In hours terms my (stay at home) mom definitely did more, but in terms of the dollar value of the labor, I think it's probably a toss-up (in the case of my childhood at least).

> why do people write articles about how much women's unpaid labor is worth, but not about men's?

I think the article makes its case via the quote I provided. It does talk about men’s unpaid work, albeit not in as much detail. The article was also published to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aside from anything else there are clear and obvious differences in unpaid work between men and women (as everyone in this thread agrees) so why not write about women specifically?

It honestly feels like parody to see an article like this and reply “won’t somebody think about the men?”

I can only speculate, that's just how I read that person's comment. That said, there does at least appear to be significantly more publicity surrounding women's issues, including labor, as well as the general value of women's contributions compared to men's.

But it's absolutely not unpaid work though.

I imagine that these women also live under the same roof as their partner and consume food for free.

That has a cost which isn't paid in cash but is paid in exchange of work at home.

It’s still unpaid, because they aren’t getting paid.

They are compensated, yes. But the roof they live under (that they are responsible for) and the food they consume (which they went out and bought and cooked) is very difficult to quantify. How do you decide if the home they live in and the food they eat is adequate compensation? A woman looking after two kids every day is doing the same amount of work in a one bedroom apartment than she is in a mansion (possibly more, in fact). A woman that loses her home because her husband gets fired from his job now has no compensation through no fault of her own.

> But the roof they live under and the food they consume is very difficult to quantify.

No, it's very easy actually. The formula is: (rent + groceries) / 2.

So let's run the numbers for a simple case. One woman working at home, one man working at an office, no kids, both of them living in an appartement that costs $1000 / month and consuming $100 / week's worth of groceries.

If we're generous and say that it takes 3 hours / day, every day, to complete the at-home tasks, that means that the woman would've worked: (3 hours * 7 days * 4 weeks) => 84 hours / month.

At a minimum wage rate (because those are minimum wage level tasks), you get: 84 * ($7,25 / hour) = $609 / month.

Since the total spending was $1400 it means that the woman has under contributed a total of: ($1400 / 2 people) - $609 earned => $700 - $609 => $91.

This is of course without counting other expenditures like utilities, holidays, days-off, cars, etc.

> A woman looking after two kids every day is doing the same amount of work in a one bedroom apartment than she is in a mansion

Sure, but she also takes advantage of the mansion by living in it. Also, living arrangements are common decisions.

> A woman that loses her home because her husband gets fired from his job now has no compensation through no fault of her own.

A man who loses his job might lose his job and home through no fault of his own either. No difference there.

The difference is only a theoretical though, you would not be able to circumvent taxes by saying I'm not getting paid, I am only compensated with a Bank account which has a limit of $x every month. So yeah, there is a theoretical difference but not a practical one.

But the argumentation is kinda strange, if you think you are not compensated correctly you could always get a job and leave child/elder care to somebody else. If you don't want that, it seems that you are ok with the compensation. If your partner does not want that, the problem is not the unpaid work but the gender roles. If you can't get a job which pays more that you would spend, one could argue that you are probably compensated fairly.

> A woman that loses her home because her husband gets fired from his job now has no compensation through no fault of her own.

This is imo a valid point, because she would still have to do the work without compensation (even though as both don't have paid work they would hopefully share the work)

> "A woman that loses her home because her husband gets fired from his job now has no compensation through no fault of her own."

To flip that around, is a homemaker (female or male) that doesn't do the household chores sufficiently therefore depriving their externally employed spouse (again female or male) of compensation as well "through no fault of their own"?

I'd be surprised to hear of a good, functioning marriage where one or both spouses, regardless of the genders involved, treated it as transactional or as an adversarial business relationship, which is what your line of argument seems to be suggesting.

> I imagine that these women also live under the same roof as their partner and consume food for free.

Something often true of chattel slaves (especially those used in household as opposed to field work).

There's a reason labor law (as distinct from contract or tax law) tends, with limited exceptions, to require pay to be in cash or fungible cash equivalents to be counted as pay for meeting wage and hour minimums.

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