Unpaid Work Contribution to Costa Rican Economy

Abstract

The objective of this study is to show the results and importance of the Costa Rican Unpaid Work economic value for the country’s economy. The calculation is based on the National Survey of Time Use (ENUT) and the National Household Survey (ENAHO), both from 2017; subsequently, it is compared with the value of the Gross Domestic Product of that year. Unpaid work includes the production of goods and services for self-consumption in households, domestic work, and voluntary work. For the assessment, the Input Method was used in its hybrid variant, which consists of comparing the different tasks of unpaid work investigated in ENUT 2017, with similar occupations in the market (including domestic service), taken from Costa Rica’s 2011 Classification of Occupations manual. Subsequently, the gross hourly wage for each occupation was calculated using the 2017 National Household Survey. A methodological exercise and an estimate were made for the whole country, based on the 2011 Survey of Time Use for the Greater Metropolitan Area, and the 2004 Time Use Module. Based on the 2017 national survey, the methodology was adjusted, and it was estimated that unpaid work is equivalent to 34,21% of the Gross Domestic Product, where domestic work is equivalent to 31,07%, and that women’s contribution accounts for three quarters of this value.