In November 2024, with the support of the Gates Foundation, Data2X hosted a roundtable to explore the value of having time use data inform macroeconomic policies. The meeting was the second in a series of three. The first meeting focused on technical issues, such as whether and how time use data can inform fiscal and monetary policy and what the data requirements are to do so, while this meeting explored different policy uses and macro implications. We are publishing summary notes from the latest roundtable here. Below, I’ll summarize some of the main themes raised and the rich discussion among panelists at the November meeting.
Two presentations explored the value of time use (TU) data for economic policymaking. Vivian Malta (International Monetary Fund) argued that gender inequalities in family decisions and labor markets have macroeconomic impacts—and the reverse is also true—and therefore, time use data should be an integral part of country policy analyses. Martin Cicowiez (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina) demonstrated the effects of modeling the impact of subsidizing firms to promote the hiring of women on employment and earnings, unpaid care work and leisure, household consumption and production, taxation, and GDP. A panel of experts from international and national development agencies and academia discussed how a new aggregate economic measure that includes the value of unpaid work would likely impact policymaking in areas such as government spending, taxation, and labor, agricultural, and social policies.
The main messages from the meeting included:
- There is a pressing need to improve the quality and comparability of time use data to inform economic policies.
- When unpaid work is substituted by paid work, difficult tradeoffs arise due to the economic significance of unpaid labor, which requires careful assessment.
- While there are benefits to incorporating unpaid work into GDP calculations, there are also shortcomings.
- Traditional poverty assessments are incomplete as they do not consider time constraints within households.
- Moving “beyond GDP” entails adopting a more holistic framework that incorporates dimensions of sustainability and society wellbeing.
Once again, you can find out more in the summary notes here. We look forward to hosting the third and final roundtable in this series in 2025 and sharing our insights and key takeaways with you.