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Counting Housework: New Estimates of Real Product in the United States, 1800–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Nancy Folbre  and
Barnet Wagman
Nancy Folbre
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003
Barnet Wagman
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Stockton State College, Pomona, NJ 08240-9988.
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Abstract

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Women engaged primarily in the provision of domestic services for family members make important contributions to total output. This article provides estimates of the size and sectoral allocation of the nonmarket household work force in the United States between 1800 and 1860. Those estimates are then used as a basis for several alternative imputations of the value of these women's work, which modify the historical picture of economic growth over this period.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 275 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

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